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NASA mysteriously trying to pull world’s fastest plane, SR-71 Blackbird, out of retirement — and won’t say why (nypost.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Seeing Blackbird fly again after all these years would be incredible. I'd love to know what NASA has planned for it.

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[–] 47 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

On one hand, this news is really fucking cool!

On the other, the motivation for this is guaranteed to be really fucking dumb!

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  • [–] [S] 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    I'm really hoping it's NASA doing some really cool science shit, otherwise you'd expect a military organisation to be doing this.

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  • [–] 9 points 3 weeks ago

    They're conducting on-going research into aircraft designs that can go supersonic without producing a sonic boom (the thing that made supersonic jets impractical for cross-country flights along with the insane about of fuel they burn) so I'd guess they need a reliable supersonic jet to test against.

    NASA probably has lots of data on the SR71 so it makes sense to use that to test new concepts on.

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