I was waiting for The War Zone to do an article on the apparent SR-71 revival. The SR-71 engineer they interviewed believes that the most-likely thing being done is bringing the Blackbird back to be used as a testbed for new, high-speed engines.
The article from four days back that was submitted on here about the SR-71 being brought back, for context:
You’re telling me it’s not Hegseth longing for the glory days, nor Trump thinking it’s still the best tool for reconnaissance?
My thought is that renewed interest in this and the not strictly confirmed but seemingly under active developement SR-72 is…
… Platform for high altitude launched, satellite killing missiles.
For a long time the US got to enjoy being basically the only power with a stupendous intelligence advantage from a network of spy and comms satellites vast enough to get total coverage, basically everywhere, at pretty low time lags.
Well now, others have comparable capabilities.
So, develop a way to remove that.
We’ve been able to shoot down satellites from aircraft launched missiles since the 80s.
We’ve specifically called for the end of tests of ground launched anti-satellite missiles, leaving aircraft launched anti-satellite missiles as a neat little carve out in our own rhetoric/intl. policy ‘suggestions’.
So, in a world where spy and comms sats are just viewed as valid targets in a large scale war/operation, a fleet of mach 3+ / potentially hypersonic aircraft that can deny intel to the opponent and likely also gather your own intel, that’re significantly harder to shoot down than a satellite… seems like a plausible doctrine to me.
