554
NASA mysteriously trying to pull world’s fastest plane, SR-71 Blackbird, out of retirement — and won’t say why (nypost.com)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
338 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Seeing Blackbird fly again after all these years would be incredible. I'd love to know what NASA has planned for it.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I would just like to point out that while not confirmed, it has been speculated since the mid-2000s that the actual imaging resolution of the satellites is closer to 2mm. Or as the joke goes, we'll figure out what brand of cigarettes you smoke by reading the filter.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    I would say that that's purely speculation. Physics won't allow it. The diffraction limit basically limits the best resolution to about 10 cm (assuming an altitude of 200 km, blue light and a humongously large lens with a diameter of 1 m). It's likely that they're quite close to the diffraction limit and maybe they have even more extreme hardware than I would guess, but a two orders of magnitude better resolution isn't happening anytime soon I think.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •