My guess would be as a platform for leo satelite attack. Yes it is unarmed, but that could be changed.
this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2026
555 points (96.8% liked)
Technology
88745 readers
2325 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
That would probably be better suited for a U2 since they have a higher service ceiling.
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Its going to be the most basic grift possible, they're going to read your credit card numbers.
They don't need all this to do that. All those numbers are breached already anyway.
load more comments
(5 replies)
Don't you guys see it: If really crazy stuff happens and satellites are taken out of the sky, youre going to see to do some old-school reconnaissance.
load more comments
(2 replies)
NASA has always been into atmospheric research and vehicle design. Pulling out a SR-71 is going to be faster and cheaper than building a new thing and they have a history of using hand-me-downs. I’m glad they are doing stuff, though this administration is probably focused more on “coolness” and bribes for profits. Getting the Blackbird is cool and the secrecy could be actual national security or free research for a buddy. I’d love to see more long lead space projects, deep space probes, inner planet landings, and outer planet orbiters.
load more comments
(2 replies)
In the words of the nasa director themselves during the keynote speech "Are you sure that the silhouette we showed was an SR-71?"
The NY Post is a diseased maga rag and should never be used as a source.
load more comments
(2 replies)
It’s fun speculation to assume this is for military reasons but remember nasa s a civilian agency. Perhaps it’s connected to their research on supersonic and hypersonic flights
load more comments
(2 replies)
They're selling it to Disney to use in the new X-Men movies.
They did it back in the 90s to do some research. Probably the same now.
We can’t really build stuff like that anymore. The people who designed it had an intuitive grasp for aeronautics. You can’t teach intuition to a computer.
I mean it flew in operations up until 1990 and its last actual flight was in 1999.
We can’t really build stuff like that anymore. The people who designed it had an intuitive grasp for aeronautics. You can’t teach intuition to a computer.
I mean that's just a silly claim, the HTV-2 drone has literally gone mach 20, which is nearly 10 times faster than the SR71. Plus the SR72 project is currently in development with aims to be nearly twice as fast as the SR71.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Yes, we can build such stuff these days. There is no shortage of engineers in the USA, there is a shortage of employers willing to pay well.
There is no shortage of experienced machinist, in fact we have far more advanced manufacturing capabilities than we did in the 1950's. We just have a smaller industrial footprint than we did in the 1950's but there are plenty of companies that can machine titanium (in fact there are more machinist nowadays that know how to machine titanium because its more common than it was in the 1950's.)
The shortage is in investors willing to invest in talented labor and the tooling to make the aircraft. The idea that we "lost" these skills is a general misunderstanding of how things work and reddit-tier click-bait "i'm smart" type headlines.
Yes, we can build a lunar lander even thought all the guys who built the original are dead. It would be a better lander than the originals. Yes, we can build rocket engines as good or better than the F1's on the Saturn V. In fact SpaceX developed engine technology that far surpasses the F1's for their boosters and just because they didn't make 5 gigantic ones (opting for 33 smaller units) doesn't mean they aren't a better platform. The Saturn V couldn't land it's booster to be reused later on.
lord dipshit no-doubt has something to do with this.
It's the only way they can be sure it's not full of AI slop.