This is the amazing Lockheed Martin SR-72—the space Blackbird

The more I learn about the Lockheed Martin "SR-72" the less impressed I am. I just spoke with someone who has his finger on the pulse of current hypersonic developments, and is in a better position than anyone I can think of to know the real score. It sounds more and more like the SR-72 is a pie-in-the-sky project that is far from being realized in hardware form.

I'm not saying that the materials and propulsion technologies aren't available, but it seems like certain entities are promising more than they can deliver. Blackswift was proposed as a global flyer but the company was really only prepared to deliver a short-range demonstrator to prove the basic concept. An operational system remained way down the road, and that still seems to be the case.

Shadowhawk
The more I learn about the Lockheed Martin "SR-72" the less impressed I am. I just spoke with someone who has his finger on the pulse of current hypersonic developments, and is in a better position than anyone I can think of to know the real score. It sounds more and more like the SR-72 is a pie-in-the-sky project that is far from being realized in hardware form.

I'm not saying that the materials and propulsion technologies aren't available, but it seems like certain entities are promising more than they can deliver. Blackswift was proposed as a global flyer but the company was really only prepared to deliver a short-range demonstrator to prove the basic concept. An operational system remained way down the road, and that still seems to be the case.

That would be seriously embarrassing for everyone involved. Technology doubles every year and a half. That mean's in the 49 years since 1964, technology would have doubled 32.6 times. If we round that down to 32, that means we have 4,294,967,296 times the technology of 1964.

The SR-71 went around Mach 3 with 1964 technology. You're trying to tell me, with 4.2 billion times the technology, and a couple hundred billion dollar budget each year, we can't make something go twice as fast as that in 2013?

Is that hilarious, or sad?

well its a little of both depending on how much new technologies we get each year in all the fields. or the just create or update older stuff just to make use for new upcoming projects.the budget goes up and down with the need.like right now we could have the top or missile defense the like 1 week or 2 we could have something that outshines it 1000 times over. it the best for to get better and better as time goes by for everything that could come. but we are starting to develop some stuff thats a little ludacris for example the laser missile destroyer system i think we are still a little young for that. don't get me wrong it's an amazing idea but not yet.

reply to post by Shadowhawk


After HTV-2 they changed the whole scope of the program, so HTV-3x was supposed to be able to take off, reach Mach 6 and land again, then it was cancelled. I think maybe it went black.

Do you think there's a replacement for the SR-71 Shadowhawk?

reply to post by Shadowhawk


All right, but I have a question in mind, if not the SR-72 what kind of plane is in the black ? what kind of plane need a huge hangar in Groom? actualy there is no new programs in works the singl program we heard since years is the hypersonic concept. I can't imagine Skunk Works communicate with just a wall paper in hand instead of something more consistent.

reply to post by Stealthbomber


Too many people assume that because the SR-71 was retired, there must be a direct (and improved!) replacement. Unfortunately, that is not how aerospace procurement works in the real world. Politics plays a big part, as it certainly did in the demise of the SR-71. Also, even if there is strong advocacy for a development/procurement effort and a seemingly obvious need, it doesn't guarantee that a proposed vehicle will ever go beyond the drawing board. In the case of hypersonics, there is still a lot of work to be done in technology maturation, and numerous research projects have been undertaken with mixed success.

In the early 1980s, Lockheed examined the idea of building a hypersonic aircraft with a similar mission and range to the SR-71 but higher speed and altitude capabilities. Around this time, a company artist produced a painting of a proposed "Mach 5 Penetrator." In a December 1983 Hypersonic Committee meeting, a Lockheed representative outlined some of the problems encountered by the design engineers:

"Although Lockheed would like to use liquid hydrogen as fuel for their new vehicle design in order to achieve the desired range and Mach number; instead, they are considering a vehicle that uses liquid methane. The reason for this is the lack of a supply of liquid hydrogen...Lockheed's biggest design problems appear to be in [the area of propulsion]. They are looking at a propulsion system that uses four F100-PW-100 turbofans with parallel ramjet engines, both behind a pair of 2-D inlets. The problem areas are structural weight and temperatures of the propulsion system. Another interesting problem is the large amount of bleed that is required at the high Mach numbers to operate the inlet...The [problem with structures] is to provide materials or cooling to structures which are to operate at very high temperatures (Mach 4 to 5 cruise) for long periods of time. They are looking at concepts such as titanium honeycomb, metallic insulation tiles, and new ,materials (composites)."

Most of the work Lockheed undertook in these areas was done under contract to NASA Langley Research Center. There should be contractor reports somewhere.

I recommend reading "The History of Hypersonics; or, 'Back to the Future - Again and Again'," by Dr. Richard P. Hallion and "Hypersonics- A Periodic Quest," by Ming Tang. Both papers are available online. Another good overview can be found here:
higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com... ction.pdf

Lockheed didn't announce this just for s&gs. There is always a reason for everything. Was the reason for this announcement what its face value appears to be? Just a "concept." Or, is this smoke and mirrors once again to throw off the dogs,(us?) So many possibilities. Could it be that the aircraft already exists and they have to bring it into the white world due to recent changes in testing parameters? Are there 5 / 10/ 20 of them already operational and rising world tensions dictate that they have to fly more exposed? My two cents say that the thing is already flying out of Groom and is set to go fully operational sometime between now and the 2020s. The early 2020s are less than ten years away. Other "black" aircraft have stayed in the dark about five to ten years on average.

reply to post by SonofaSkunk


I agree there is surely a reason for the publicy of the SR-72 by Lockheed, Skunk Works is the more secrecy plane builder in the world and I can't imagine they say publicly something it exist only on a poster child.

reply to post by darksidius


The sr72 could be a red herring to get the international community to look in that direction for recon when in actuality what we are using for that purpose is very different, out of the box, e genius and we want people to go down the wrong path research and development wise. Purposely put it out there like a Trojan horse of bad technology so others end up at a technical dead end 15 years from now.

It's a theory and just the sort of thing the us military likes to do.

reply to post by BASSPLYR


You know China is frantically trying to get info on it and make one of their own. The risk in a Trojan program idea is what if they succeed at it where we failed and they are the ones with the mach 6 global strike platform, we are left trying to catch up to them.

reply to post by Sammamishman


Maybe maybe not

We may have already looked into the feasability of a Mach 6 airfoil with the thermal issues and propulsion issues and already know that it's not the way to go and are/ have been working on totally different ideas/ designs that are totally fresh and not thought of by those without the know how or experience to know better.

Could be a Trojan horse. Hey were trying to build a Mach 6 scramjet or whatever. Yoohoo look over here spend all your money time and resources on the Chinese aurora. Meanwhile back at the bat cave or skunk works owl works phantom works they are working on radically new ideas Moines thought of and the cat needs to stay in the bag. The best way to do this is to send your enemy's on a wild goose chase down what they'll find was/is a fruitless dead end 15 years from now.

Running a shell game like this helps Lockheed and friends control the adversaries reality of the technology. Let them think they know what's going in but it's all engineered to lead them astray. A false sense of security. People use strategies like this a the time to control another's perceptions on reality.

Lockheed could be doing just that.

Bunti dunno disinformation campaigns engineered for certain results have never ever been used before especially not by the us of a

JohnnySasaki
Technology doubles every year and a half.

by what measure?

Aloysius the Gaul

JohnnySasaki
Technology doubles every year and a half.

by what measure?

Read Ray Kurzweil's "The Singularity is Near" (or you could just watch the movie). That will answer your question fairly thoroughly. I just started "How to Create a Mind" - so far so good.

In short though, just about every measure you can think of. Growth is not linear like most people tend to think, it's exponential. So instead of 1,2,3,4,5 - it's 1,2,4,8,16,32,64 etc. Very quickly you can get to crazy high numbers that way.

Moore's Law is a good example in terms of computing, although it's not just happening in computers, it's happening in nearly all fields of science (if not all).



I haven't actually watched this particular speech, but I believe he discusses similar things in each one.



Also look up Aubrey de Grey, Eric Drexler, and Nick Bostrom among others.

Unfortunately, jet engines are advancing at a fairly slow pace (at least they seem to be). Strange. Have we reached the limits of jet engine capability? If so, why aren't we more aggressively researching other forms of propulsion?

And yes, I do realize that NASA is working on a warp drive, lol. Which I am totally stoked about.

reply to post by JohnnySasaki


The only thing they need to complete the warp drive it a way to produce and store anti-matter.. Still a while away

The engines are probably are advancing quicker just not in the white world. Once plasma applications start transferring over to the consumer sector we'll start to see a lot more advances in different fields not just to do with aviation.

Stealthbomber
reply to post by JohnnySasaki

 

The only thing they need to complete the warp drive it a way to produce and store anti-matter.. Still a while away

With the law of accelerating returns (aka exponential growth) it should only be 10-20 years before we have a working warp drive, as crazy as it sounds. My goal is to just stay alive long enough. Beings I'm only 25, that shouldn't be TOO hard. Hopefully.

reply to post by JohnnySasaki


ya that does sound kinda farfetchd warp drive really this ain't star trek. come on man think of something that actually sounds reasonable for the near future.

JohnnySasaki

Read Ray Kurzweil's "The Singularity is Near" (or you could just watch the movie). That will answer your question fairly thoroughly. I just started "How to Create a Mind" - so far so good.

In short though, just about every measure you can think of. Growth is not linear like most people tend to think, it's exponential. So instead of 1,2,3,4,5 - it's 1,2,4,8,16,32,64 etc. Very quickly you can get to crazy high numbers that way.

Moore's Law is a good example in terms of computing, although it's not just happening in computers, it's happening in nearly all fields of science (if not all).



Also look up Aubrey de Grey, Eric Drexler, and Nick Bostrom among others.

Unfortunately, jet engines are advancing at a fairly slow pace (at least they seem to be). Strange. Have we reached the limits of jet engine capability? If so, why aren't we more aggressively researching other forms of propulsion?

And yes, I do realize that NASA is working on a warp drive, lol. Which I am totally stoked about.

not only jet engines, but piston engines, steam engines, external combustion engines.

Also glass, plastics, oil wells, electricity, etc.

AFAIK the number of measures by which technology is "doubling" in any short-ish period is actually miniscule compared to the number in which it is not.

And the reasons for this are not difficult to determine - they amount to "physics"

chrismg
reply to post by JohnnySasaki

 

ya that does sound kinda farfetchd warp drive really this ain't star trek. come on man think of something that actually sounds reasonable for the near future.

Visual camouflage, meta materials than bend then re- broadcast microwave radiation in computer controlled bursts to fool the bi-static radars that the air is empty, oh and... lets see, a bi-static targeting capability using UAVs to saturate the air and the weapons carrier only using passive means to get pin point targeting radar data.

Lets for this exercise assume that 'white noise' type signals are used and are at the moment totally undetectable to an enemy as they are all so natural and so random.

reply to post by JohnnySasaki


If we could find a way to produce and store anti-matter it could go to a lot better uses than a warp drive.

All the anti-matter they have produced at CERN (about 1 billionth of a gram) could light a light bulb for a few minutes. Now imagine if you had a few grams of it and how much that could power.

reply to post by MystikMushroom


Yep yep, the rumors also claim they have passed mach 20... not sure how a pilot could survive that so they must be drones. Unless they have finally come up with a way to counter the g force, a la ET magnetics, lol.

the bot