SR-71 Blackbird has a successor: The SR-72.

[Kirihuna]

http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=%2Farticle-xml%2Fawx_11_01_2013_p0-632731.xml

 

 

Personally, SR-71 is my favorite airplane and having a successor gives me a massive hard on.

[TheRoss0411]

I am going to build one and put bombs in it

Now to look it up on google

And the NSA are at my door

[Guest]

Ooooohh, pretty.

[Emperor_Piehead]

Because the US is totally in a position to afford a new jet like this...

[FireFox]

That is so cool but I prefer my Panavia Tornado

[Sarcasm]

If I'm not mistaken, didn't the SR-71 leak fuel all over the tarmac, because the plates would expand from the heat due to friction while in the air?

[Kirihuna]

If I'm not mistaken, didn't the SR-71 leak fuel all over the tarmac, because the plates would expand from the heat due to friction while in the air?

Yep, it was one of the problems. 

[Freaky_spider]

well 500 mil dollars more dept more, who cares?

[Osmium]

Yep, it was one of the problems. 

The SR-71 looked like crap on the ground but once that thing was in the upper atmosphere it was the most perfect vehicle man had ever produced.

[ivhyn]

Mach 6, holy moses.

[Sarcasm]

The SR-71 looked like crap on the ground but once that thing was in the upper atmosphere it was the most perfect vehicle man had ever produced.

It didn't look like crap on the ground, it was the ultimate "no smoking" sign on the ground.

[Air tree]

Congrats USA Spend even more money on things we don't need like multi million dollar jets!

[nicehat]

If I'm not mistaken, didn't the SR-71 leak fuel all over the tarmac, because the plates would expand from the heat due to friction while in the air?

 

Yes, but it was also a design using materials available in 1966

[Osmium]

Congrats USA Spend even more money on things we don't need like multi million dollar jets!

This thing is coming in 2030. I think we have time to get our act together. 

[brownninja97]

TIN HATS NOOOW

[alpenwasser]

The SR-71 looked like crap on the ground but once that thing was in the upper atmosphere it was the most perfect vehicle man had ever produced.

On the civilian side my vote goes to Concorde though.

[Blue fellow]

The SR-71 looked like crap on the ground but once that thing was in the upper atmosphere it was the most perfect vehicle man had ever produced.

 

But Space Shuttle 

[Air tree]

This thing is coming in 2030. I think we have time to get our act together. 

You have alot of faith in the America.  We already dug our hole and now we can't get out of it.

 

Off to Switzerland!

[alpenwasser]

You have alot of faith in the America.  We already dug our hole and now we can't get out of it.

 

Off to Switzerland!

We don't have an SR-72, but we don't have government shutdowns either, so things

even out pretty neatly! :lol:

(not that things are perfect over here of course, but then again that might just

not be possible)

[Jamdude]

It was only last week I took this picture as well  

Damn old people wouldn't move though -.-

[Air tree]

We don't have an SR-72, but we don't have government shutdowns either, so things

even out pretty neatly! :lol:

(not that things are perfect over here of course, but then again that might just

not be possible)

It's ok i don't need a SR-72 to live!

 

 

But i don't expect things to be perfect. I just want a change of place around me. I'm not too fond of america.

 

Though i do have to put in the effort to learn swiss but that should be fun!

[FireFox]

Yep, it was one of the problems. 

 

But then again she wasn't designed to be sat on the ground, she was designed to fly at mach-3 at 85,000ft+

[FireFox]

there will always be money for war

 

This is true, what is next year supposed to be, something like $1.05 trillion or something

[juretrn]

So no Aurora and pulse detonation engine.?

[Kirihuna]

But Space Shuttle 

It was unambitious, incredibly expensive, questionably reusable, non-upgradable, incredibly complex (this is a bad thing), a failure rating of about 1 in 100 (actually higher than this, I think it worked out to 1 in 66 over its life), and it limited the scope of human space travel to little better than Low Earth Orbit (LEO) except for repairs to Hubble.

I forget exactly what the number was, but I think you had to be looking at 10+ space shuttle missions per year to make it economical to do compared with a big dumb booster approach. The only time the shuttle got close to doing this was in the run up to the Challenger disaster. The fundamental safety problems with it overrode the economic reasons for building it in the first place (essentially concerns about the expense of the lunar landings) and hilariously what Reagan should have done is something closer to what Obama is currently doing - opening up space to private companies, encouraging companies to build their own systems and enjoying the benefits of good regulation and privatisation.

The shuttle was a botched piece of engineering that manages to be simultaneously one of mankind’s greatest achievements and most catastrophic failures. It set space exploration back by 30 years, was hardly inspirational in the same way the moon landings were and was a worse engineering job than the Saturn V and Apollo capsules. Why? Because Apollo 13 was as bad as it got. There were no catastrophic failures during manned missions before the Space Shuttle.