Haven't seen that Blackstar recently?

[Byeman]

It dates from April 2007. In it Scott states:
"Ref. the Blackstar system: I now have several photos of the XOV spaceplane sitting on a Lockheed Martin flightline ramp, so the vehicle definitely exists. Based on 15+ years of sighting reports, inside sources, etc., I determined that Blackstar's SR-3 carrier aircraft and several versions of the XOV were built and flown."

It can't be that the pictures are the FDL-5 mock-up sitting outside the Flight Test Hangars at Area B WPAFB ?

Do you think that ex-AWST editor didn't know of existence of FDL-5 in 2007?

You mean another vehicle that never flew.

 

[sublight_]

Its Schrodinger's Spaceplane - it exists and doesn't exist at the same time and you can't prove it either way.

I like that. We need to add "Schrodinger's airship" to the list as well.....

 

[Whisperstream]

I have not seen Bill Scott's alleged "space plane" photos that he claimed showed the craft on the Lockheed Martin ramp but I suspect I know what it was. Spoiler alert: not a space plane. Without seeing the images I prefer not to say any more. It's nothing classified. They may be the same pictures that a certain individual (not Scott) tried to foist off on a popular Area 51 web site, but that were rejected by the webmaster because they seemed suspect.

 

[Dew]

It dates from April 2007. In it Scott states:
"Ref. the Blackstar system: I now have several photos of the XOV spaceplane sitting on a Lockheed Martin flightline ramp, so the vehicle definitely exists. Based on 15+ years of sighting reports, inside sources, etc., I determined that Blackstar's SR-3 carrier aircraft and several versions of the XOV were built and flown."

It can't be that the pictures are the FDL-5 mock-up sitting outside the Flight Test Hangars at Area B WPAFB ?

Do you think that ex-AWST editor didn't know of existence of FDL-5 in 2007?

You mean another vehicle that never flew.

Exactly!

 

[antigravite]

and (3) Scott mentions in an article in the Smithsonian magazine reports of XB-70-like aircraft over Georgia and Pennsylvania in the 1990s, but it's unclear that those sightings were of aircraft similar to the XB-70, even though the reported Georgia sighting described an aircraft painted white.

Just reading his account of the alleged witness sighting in Pennsylvania is head-scratching. An "avid birdwatcher" saw a large white bomber-like aircraft flying at 200 feet over Pennsylvania? Because we all know that the military likes to test their top secret aircraft in daylight at 200 feet over Pennsylvania. He didn't exactly think that one through.

But I'd note that he wrote that in 2010 and he mentioned the Blackstar. But three years earlier (in 2007) he claimed that he had actual photos of the spaceplane. If he had the photos then, why didn't he publish them in his 2010 article? It's been 15 years and no photos.

His claims just didn't make sense. Looking at these various articles, he starts to look like a guy who had a lot of imagination.

Here's his 2007 claim:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0702.html

[link is now dead, but it's probably archived somewhere]

It dates from April 2007. In it Scott states:
"Ref. the Blackstar system: I now have several photos of the XOV spaceplane sitting on a Lockheed Martin flightline ramp, so the vehicle definitely exists. Based on 15+ years of sighting reports, inside sources, etc., I determined that Blackstar's SR-3 carrier aircraft and several versions of the XOV were built and flown."

Hi.

Here we go:

Wayback Machine

Full quote:
" Ref. the Blackstar system: I now have several photos of the XOV spaceplane sitting on a Lockheed Martin flightline ramp, so the vehicle definitely exists. Based on 15+ years of sighting reports, inside sources, etc., I determined that Blackstar's SR-3 carrier aircraft and several versions of the XOV were built and flown. An AvWeek cover story describing the system ran in the March 6, 2006, issue.

Blackstar spaceplane? (Aviation Week)

Despite considerable feedback that spanned the spectrum from attaboy support to flaming criticism, the stories DID prompt airtight confirmation to come back to me from impeccable sources. Bottom line: some may dispute it, but the Blackstar system exists and has flown. Whether it can achieve orbit and was/is used exactly as we've depicted via "Speed's" flights in Space Wars is strictly an educated guess, based on my AvWeek reporting."

source: William B. Scott, "Space Wars: The First Six Hours of World War III," kurzweilai.net, 2007
[scooped up / captured via wayback on April, 25th 2007]

A.

 

[blackstar]

Given the hassle Jim Goddall had over classified Senior Prom photos that LM wouldn't endorse in his Skunk Works book it doesn't seem a stretch to say that even if a journalist had photographic proof he might never be able to publish it unless they took 100% of the personal risk. Either way either the DoD or LM would soon be making displeased noises about leakage of declassified material.

The internet existed in 2007. If he had the proof about his 2006 article, he could have put it on the internet. He didn't even do that.

It's much more likely that he didn't have what he claimed he had. Either he never had anything and was bluffing, or what he had was not the "XOV" and somebody pointed that out to him. Since he never mentioned anything about having photographic proof in his 2010 article, clearly he had changed his mind by then (or he was bluffing in 2007).

 

[RanulfC]

It dates from April 2007. In it Scott states:
"Ref. the Blackstar system: I now have several photos of the XOV spaceplane sitting on a Lockheed Martin flightline ramp, so the vehicle definitely exists. Based on 15+ years of sighting reports, inside sources, etc., I determined that Blackstar's SR-3 carrier aircraft and several versions of the XOV were built and flown."

It can't be that the pictures are the FDL-5 mock-up sitting outside the Flight Test Hangars at Area B WPAFB ?

Do you think that ex-AWST editor didn't know of existence of FDL-5 in 2007?

You mean another vehicle that never flew.

Er,... actually it did. Arguably in model and test vehicle form but it did actually fly

 

[Byeman]

It dates from April 2007. In it Scott states:
"Ref. the Blackstar system: I now have several photos of the XOV spaceplane sitting on a Lockheed Martin flightline ramp, so the vehicle definitely exists. Based on 15+ years of sighting reports, inside sources, etc., I determined that Blackstar's SR-3 carrier aircraft and several versions of the XOV were built and flown."

It can't be that the pictures are the FDL-5 mock-up sitting outside the Flight Test Hangars at Area B WPAFB ?

Do you think that ex-AWST editor didn't know of existence of FDL-5 in 2007?

You mean another vehicle that never flew.

Er,... actually it did. Arguably in model and test vehicle form but it did actually fly

Not on a launch vehicle

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

it is possible that one B-1B was used to launch a suborbital technology demonstrator for an orbital reconnaissance spaceplane because the B-1B's canards are similar to those of the alleged carrier plane for the Blackstar).

The logic of this completely escapes me. Are you suggesting that people mistook a B-1B for a 'B-70 like vehicle' because the canards were similar?

I honestly don't see how anyone could mistake a B-1 for the XB-70. Even as a kid I could tell the difference. That really is a bit of a stretch.

By the way I'm loving the continuation of this thread. I really should get out of my office more. ;-)

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

I have not seen Bill Scott's alleged "space plane" photos that he claimed showed the craft on the Lockheed Martin ramp but I suspect I know what it was. Spoiler alert: not a space plane. Without seeing the images I prefer not to say any more. It's nothing classified. They may be the same pictures that a certain individual (not Scott) tried to foist off on a popular Area 51 web site, but that were rejected by the webmaster because they seemed suspect.

I'm going to take a wild guess here... retouched photos of the F-117 sitting out on the Holloman ramp?

 

[Whisperstream]

I have not seen Bill Scott's alleged "space plane" photos that he claimed showed the craft on the Lockheed Martin ramp but I suspect I know what it was. Spoiler alert: not a space plane. Without seeing the images I prefer not to say any more. It's nothing classified. They may be the same pictures that a certain individual (not Scott) tried to foist off on a popular Area 51 web site, but that were rejected by the webmaster because they seemed suspect.

I'm going to take a wild guess here... retouched photos of the F-117 sitting out on the Holloman ramp?

No, nothing retouched. It was an enlarged crop of a small piece of a larger photo of something fairly mundane.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Digging through my files... Scott produced these images of what was apparently a wind tunnel model in a thread on 'Black Star' on Above Top Secret around 2007. What intrigued me about the shape was that the surfaces were either flat or curved in only one plane, which one would expect with the early stages of materials technology. Has any information emerged since?

 

[Rhinocrates]

Some doodles I did at the time.

 

[Rhinocrates]

What I mean by flat or simple curved surfaces - a German DLR concept. High-temperature materials are either flat or curved in only one plane until techniques emerge for manufacturing more complex curves.

 

[serg.gonzp]

Digging through my files... Scott produced these images of what was apparently a wind tunnel model in a thread on 'Black Star' on Above Top Secret around 2007. What intrigued me about the shape was that the surfaces were either flat or curved in only one plane, which one would expect with the early stages of materials technology. Has any information emerged since?

View attachment 682094View attachment 682095

then something like this would be what united pilots saw in the early 90s, and that many related to the blackstar/brillant buzzard and the aurora

 

[orion2001]

Digging through my files... Scott produced these images of what was apparently a wind tunnel model in a thread on 'Black Star' on Above Top Secret around 2007. What intrigued me about the shape was that the surfaces were either flat or curved in only one plane, which one would expect with the early stages of materials technology. Has any information emerged since?

View attachment 682094View attachment 682095

I haven't seen these views from Scott in Aviation Week and Space Technology! The source please ?!!

 

[RanulfC]

Digging through my files... Scott produced these images of what was apparently a wind tunnel model in a thread on 'Black Star' on Above Top Secret around 2007. What intrigued me about the shape was that the surfaces were either flat or curved in only one plane, which one would expect with the early stages of materials technology. Has any information emerged since?

View attachment 682094View attachment 682095

I haven't seen these views from Scott in Aviation Week and Space Technology! The source please ?!!

It's in the paragraph: thread on the "Above Top Secret" forums under a thread titled "Black Star". Being as it's from 2007 I doubt any link would work so you'd likely have to search the website.

Picture titles are for "sm Lockheed X-151" but I doubt that's true or verifiable. Pretty speculative

Randy

 

[greenmartian2017]

I'd like to add my two cents here.

There is a Web-based article by Michael Schratt that contains the original drawing by Nancy Certain of the aircraft she saw, as well as the sketches by the F-15 pilot (that was reported on in Aviation Week) of the hypersonic piloted vehicle, this so-called "XOV." You have to scroll down fairly far to get both drawings. (These are the only illustrations with this article that I consider of significance, as they were drawn by eyewitnesses.) The Certain drawing is not of a B-1. The F-15 pilot drawings got me scratching my head.

I contacted Schratt asking if I could obtain reproduction rights to the drawings. He flat out refused, but he did hint there was some legal implications if he tried to. He didn't elaborate, and I don't know what he meant.

Here is the link.

www.openminds.tv/thats-classified-exposing-silver-bullet-technology/41717

To me, the Blackstar story is NOT a canard. But there may be others who visit this forum that have more accumulated wisdom than myself on this.

Keep this in mind: the actual story of US prowess in high performance exotic flight technologies has not been adequately told to this day. Lockheed (/Martin), Northrop (/Grumman), and Boeing have all tested flight articles at Area 51, over the southwestern US, as well as over the Pacific Ocean (in the environs of San Nicholas Island) that have no counterpart in the current publicly-seen military aircraft inventory. These test or developmental or short-number-in-build aircraft are flown for the CIA/NRO, USAF, and USN.

I once had a discussion about 20 years ago with an old engineer, and we were talking about USN technologies, beginning with the firing solution, computer-controlled (analog mind you) battleship guns that could fire quite accurately, to the tech that allowed submarines to avoid running into sea mounts in the pitch-black of the deep sea. "You know Pete," he told me, "the US Navy has technologies that are usually 25 to 40 years ahead of the commercialized tech you see in public use."

That comment has serious ramifications not only for USN historians, but USAF and CIA historians as well when it comes to exotic flight technologies.

RE: Scott's claim of having seen classified photography of the Lockheed piloted hypersonic vehicle on an on-ramp or off-ramp (Area 51?). It's probable someone (illegally) showed him those photos. Those photos, if they exist, would have had a lot of classification stampings on them, at the top and bottom of the photograph. If it was an SAP (and it probably was), there would have been extra stampings for that on the photo (some of this perhaps on its reverse) indicating handling procedures.

 

[sublight_]

Michael has developed a number of contacts who have had first hand experience dealing with classified “black programs”, including former USAF pilots, retired Naval personnel and aerospace engineers who have maintained a TOP SECRET Q “MAJIC” clearance.

Yea, that top secret Q Majic clearance sounds reallllllllyyyy....... Special....

 

[Sundog]

Digging through my files... Scott produced these images of what was apparently a wind tunnel model in a thread on 'Black Star' on Above Top Secret around 2007. What intrigued me about the shape was that the surfaces were either flat or curved in only one plane, which one would expect with the early stages of materials technology. Has any information emerged since?

View attachment 682094View attachment 682095

I doubt the shaping has much to do with materials tech and more to do with hypersonic aerodynamics. Faceting/flat shaping works better aerodynamically at very high speeds than subsonic blended shaping. It also helps with structural strength and the required volume of propellant tanks, given how one shapes a hypersonic fuselage.

 

[RanulfC]

Michael has developed a number of contacts who have had first hand experience dealing with classified “black programs”, including former USAF pilots, retired Naval personnel and aerospace engineers who have maintained a TOP SECRET Q “MAJIC” clearance.

Yea, that top secret Q Majic clearance sounds reallllllllyyyy....... Special....

This always makes me laugh a lot. I've actually held a very high security clearance*, (who says playing games is useless ) and it took me all of 30 seconds to find out the "Q" in the "Top Secret" clearance isn't a level of security. It's the drug testing schedule for a Top Secret clearance

(* Oddly if I tell people the highest level they almost always say "That's silly! That's how I know it's fake because the government would NEVER use a silly word like that! )

Randy

 

[Dynoman]

Oddly if I tell people the highest level they almost always say "That's silly! That's how I know it's fake because the government would NEVER use a silly word like that!

Y.W. is the highest, however I thought that it was only for access to the likes of Celtic, Mogul, and Renegade. Is it still used?

 

[quellish]

There is a Q clearance, it is a DOE clearance roughly equivalent to TS. The background investigation is the same as for TS, a Q clearance gives access to DOE Restricted Data.

 

[RanulfC]

I'd like to add my two cents here.

Feel free as it's a 'free' forum but I hope you don't mind if I fire back my own opinions

There is a Web-based article by Michael Schratt that contains the original drawing by Nancy Certain of the aircraft she saw, as well as the sketches by the F-15 pilot (that was reported on in Aviation Week) of the hypersonic piloted vehicle, this so-called "XOV." You have to scroll down fairly far to get both drawings. (These are the only illustrations with this article that I consider of significance, as they were drawn by eyewitnesses.) The Certain drawing is not of a B-1. The F-15 pilot drawings got me scratching my head.

No my initial impression is that Certain was drawing the Tu-144 from memory (which would explain getting the canard deployment backwards) and not the supposed "Mothership" as the planeform isn't much use above Mach 2. Ya the XOV drawing is crap as it doesn't make any sense in a lot of aerodynamic ways. (The 'cockpit' is certainly not a 'high-speed' design and not very applicable to a supposed spacecraft) I also don't buy the "F-15" pilot angle simply because if it WAS a "secret" design it would have been fully covered by tarps at all times if outside. It's not hard to do and pretty much any airbase can and would do the job given the supposed 'level' of security.

Further the nose and under-surface are not really right for a high speed airframe, they could be but they certainly would not work for something that's supposed to reenter the atmosphere at near orbital speeds. (As noted you want a flat bottom for that)

(I'm totally unfamiliar with a "Red 3" lockdown and having worked at high security bases myself it doesn't sound like an actual security level you could get away with on a public base like Kadena. I also have to question the "super-C5" given bases like Kadena and Holloman have regular and very persistent 'runway watchers' and SOMEBODY would have a picture of them if they existed. The "Chipmunk" cheeks make no sense either and would make the aircraft stand out and be VERY memorable to anyone who worked near or on them or any base they visited. Again there would be hundreds if not thousands of witness)

I contacted Schratt asking if I could obtain reproduction rights to the drawings. He flat out refused, but he did hint there was some legal implications if he tried to. He didn't elaborate, and I don't know what he meant.

That's a "red-flag" for me, while I can understand keeping your sources tight if he won't allow them to be reproduced and then publishes them where they will (you know) be reproduced and quite often given the subject he's literally got no legal leg to stand on. I suspect he commissioned the drawings and the artists who did them for him retains the rights to the drawings.

Here is the link.

www.openminds.tv/thats-classified-exposing-silver-bullet-technology/41717

I'm going to immediately point out how disappointed I am the article continues the debunked "over Salt Lake City" myth and does not point out that Mr. Petty said it was not even on that side of the lake. Guess it's still because "Salt Lake City" sounds "out-west" enough to not be an actual, you know, CITY of millions of people with huge suburbs that could not possibly MISS something like that flying over and NOT leaving Mr Petty as the ONLY witness.

(As far as I'm aware he never said exactly where he was other than "west" of the Salt Lake, not Salt Lake City btw but WEST of the Great Salt Lake, but considering that's mostly the Utah Test and Training Range, which does in fact have auxiliary fields capable of handling a large jet aircraft, I going to guess he was on the wrong side of the UTTR fence at any rate)

And the triangles stuff is just bizarre... (I will point out that some of the sightings actually WOULD make sense if the vehicle was an unmanned Lighter Than Air UAV actively TESTING lighting systems to see how many reports it could generate. Yes the military would do that )

To me, the Blackstar story is NOT a canard. But there may be others who visit this forum that have more accumulated wisdom than myself on this.

Well honestly we'll likely never really know unless someone comes forward which will happen eventually if it was actually a "real" project

Keep this in mind: the actual story of US prowess in high performance exotic flight technologies has not been adequately told to this day. Lockheed (/Martin), Northrop (/Grumman), and Boeing have all tested flight articles at Area 51, over the southwestern US, as well as over the Pacific Ocean (in the environs of San Nicholas Island) that have no counterpart in the current publicly-seen military aircraft inventory. These test or developmental or short-number-in-build aircraft are flown for the CIA/NRO, USAF, and USN.

And most if not all those 'projects' eventually come to light, especially any that got anywhere near operational capability or testing such as is suggested for Blackstar. Which makes it highly unlikely it ever existed or was flight tested to the extent suggested. (The support infrastructure alone would have been noticed. Boron is a terrible fuel additive to work with which is why the US abandoned it in the 60s)

I once had a discussion about 20 years ago with an old engineer, and we were talking about USN technologies, beginning with the firing solution, computer-controlled (analog mind you) battleship guns that could fire quite accurately, to the tech that allowed submarines to avoid running into sea mounts in the pitch-black of the deep sea. "You know Pete," he told me, "the US Navy has technologies that are usually 25 to 40 years ahead of the commercialized tech you see in public use."

That's kind of cute and totally misleading actually. Oh the US military DID at one time have a pretty close to 20 year 'advantage' over commercial tech but that was 50 years ago at the end of WWII. Since then the commercial/military gap has closed to only a couple of years at best and more likely none at all. In most cases where "Military" tech is 'superior' to commercial tech it's where the military is willing to spend money on technology the commercial/civilian world has no use for. If a tech has commercial use or interest it's not unlikely or unusual for the civilian tech to actually be advanced over the military tech. (We tend to be more conservative than a lot of people think)

Using the given examples the battleship fire control 'computer' was invented in the mid 1890s but lacked the mechanical ability to actually build and it took the development of electronic tube (and then chip) technology to make it work and both those were civil, not military driven developments. (The 'submarine technology' oddly enough is called charting as submarines almost never use 'active' sensors )

That comment has serious ramifications not only for USN historians, but USAF and CIA historians as well when it comes to exotic flight technologies.

Actual historians know that the 'comment' is hyperbole and not indicative of the actual history or situation though so I kind of doubt it. Let me put it this way, the military will tend to classify and KEEP classified technology that gives then an edge for as long as they can. If that edge goes away or the technology fails to keep up with other technology they will (reluctantly ) let it go and seek new solutions.

This is historically seen in the evolution of spy planes and 'stealth' technology which actually tends to argue AGAINST systems like "Blackstar" and the "XOV" in fact. "Faster" has proven to not be 'stealther' and is usually the opposite of 'stealth'. (Again the article makes quite a hash of supposed 'stealth' characteristics which themselves are not really compatible with high speed flight)

The SR-71 replaced the high flying U2 with a high speed, high flying platform and in fact it was less stealthy than the U2 in many respects and flying higher and even faster was found to be even less of a bonus than thought. (Oddly the KINGFISH spy plane was found to be steather AND faster than the SR-71 but suffered from loads of additional problems that would have made it to difficult and expensive to operate. Even then it would have suffered the same issues as the SR-71 given improving detection technology and likely sooner)

The military use "exotic technologies" as its own justifications far to often and that tends to come back and bite them when push comes to shove. Take SCramjets for example, the military has tried over and over again to justify them for everything from hypersonic flight to space access when in fact they don't work much better than standard ramjets over the required speed ranges. Meanwhile real breakthroughs such as detonation engines languished due to lack of support and funding. (At least their getting some loving now, still being oversold though )

RE: Scott's claim of having seen classified photography of the Lockheed piloted hypersonic vehicle on an on-ramp or off-ramp (Area 51?). It's probable someone (illegally) showed him those photos. Those photos, if they exist, would have had a lot of classification stampings on them, at the top and bottom of the photograph. If it was an SAP (and it probably was), there would have been extra stampings for that on the photo (some of this perhaps on its reverse) indicating handling procedures.

Ya very much if he has anything that is still classified he's in a world of hurt, (look at recent events in Florida for example ) the problem is if he does NOT have them and just 'saw' them then there's really no proof they exist. I can't take the man's "word" because so far he's been a really, really poor source and lacks credibility to me.

As a side-note here I'm going to point out that the WORST kind of testimony is "eyewitness" testimony for a number of very good reasons and there's a reason law enforcement does not like to rely on it. Let me point out that quite often "expert eyewitness" testimony is by far the worst kind of testimony because more often than not the 'expert' sees the subject through the lens of their particular expertise and that can throw off the 'picture' far worse than someone who has no clue what they are seeing. Large parts of the cited article are exactly like that with "expert" opinions given for items that may not even be anything like what is claimed.

The problem with having 'seen' classified photos is that the likely required time to actually study and set such memories in ones mind were likely not given and therefore the whole picture becomes suspect and this is worse if there is no way to actually examine the photos in question because I'm relying on someone who may have a totally wrong idea about the subject because they WANT it to be something else.

Randy

 

[RanulfC]

There is a Q clearance, it is a DOE clearance roughly equivalent to TS. The background investigation is the same as for TS, a Q clearance gives access to DOE Restricted Data.

That's actually where I looked it up, (due to the whole "Q" thing) and where I found it listed as the drug testing schedule not an actual clearance level.

Oddly if I tell people the highest level they almost always say "That's silly! That's how I know it's fake because the government would NEVER use a silly word like that!

Y.W. is the highest, however I thought that it was only for access to the likes of Celtic, Mogul, and Renegade. Is it still used?

My information is (outside the public record) about 20 some odd years out of date Mine was "NATO Cosmic" due to very funny and odd circumstances. (And yes, "Role Playing Gaming" was involved )

Randy

 

[quellish]

There is a Q clearance, it is a DOE clearance roughly equivalent to TS. The background investigation is the same as for TS, a Q clearance gives access to DOE Restricted Data.

That's actually where I looked it up, (due to the whole "Q" thing) and where I found it listed as the drug testing schedule not an actual clearance level.

Departmental Personnel Security FAQs

The Personnel Security Program ensures that individuals who are being considered for access to classified information or special nuclear material

www.energy.gov

 

[Dynoman]

I believe Y.W. is a site access clearance and is only for presidential access. There maybe others on par with this level for other TS-Special Access Programs, although I assumed Y.W. was the highest.

 

[RanulfC]

There is a Q clearance, it is a DOE clearance roughly equivalent to TS. The background investigation is the same as for TS, a Q clearance gives access to DOE Restricted Data.

That's actually where I looked it up, (due to the whole "Q" thing) and where I found it listed as the drug testing schedule not an actual clearance level.

Departmental Personnel Security FAQs

The Personnel Security Program ensures that individuals who are being considered for access to classified information or special nuclear material

www.energy.gov

Thanks

 

[In_A_Dream]

Randy, you don't believe there was ever any operational Mothership/TSTO type system or high-speed successor to the SR-71?

 

[Archibald]

Stealth, spysats, Soviet air defenses, the heat barrier and the rocket equation conspired to ensure that the A-12 Mach 3.5 remained a dead end.
Don't forget that A-12s and SR-71s were not allowed to overfly PRC and URSS. Just border penetration flights.

 

[RanulfC]

Randy, you don't believe there was ever any operational Mothership/TSTO type system or high-speed successor to the SR-71?

No operational SR-71 replacement, no good evidence for an operational (or semi-operational) "Mothership/TSTO" type system either. It would take a LOT of infrastructure to support such a system and be pretty impossible to hide. Not saying we couldn't have done either because we obviously could. The technology is literally half a century old after all

But hiding such a program is harder the bigger the platform is and a TSTO system has to be pretty damn big. (This is the reason most of your actually "hidden" programs are smaller aircraft with very small foot-prints in both support and infrastructure)

Randy

 

[RanulfC]

Stealth, spysats, Soviet air defenses, the heat barrier and the rocket equation conspired to ensure that the A-12 Mach 3.5 remained a dead end.
Don't forget that A-12s and SR-71s were not allowed to overfly PRC and URSS. Just border penetration flights.

And high speed is the opposite of stealth in the first place, especially once you get past Mach 3 or 4. At hypersonic speeds you really want to be out of the atmosphere because it's no longer 'helping' you much if at all.

Randy

 

[Archibald]

A Blackstar like TSTO would be grossly inefficient, complex and expensive.
The lower airbreathing stage to Mach 4 or 6 would run deep into the heat barrier, including to release the so called XOV.
A veeeery scary manoeuver to achieve in the thermal and aerodynamic hell of hypersonic flight.
Being rocket powered the XOV would need a very high prop mass fraction.
A mach 5.5 release would cut 3000 m/s out of 9000 m/s to orbit so 1/3rd of the delta-v gone.
BUT the rocket equation potential energy is non linear and logarithmic so not one-third but much less than that: not 33% of the energy to orbit but 20% or even less.

Overall a very poor concept and I'll be very surprised to learn it was ever build or even considered.

 

[Archibald]

Stealth, spysats, Soviet air defenses, the heat barrier and the rocket equation conspired to ensure that the A-12 Mach 3.5 remained a dead end.
Don't forget that A-12s and SR-71s were not allowed to overfly PRC and URSS. Just border penetration flights.

And high speed is the opposite of stealth in the first place, especially once you get past Mach 3 or 4. At hypersonic speeds you really want to be out of the atmosphere because it's no longer 'helping' you much if at all.

Randy

That's the reason why I'm a suborbital / ballistic flight groupie. So much easier than hypersonic flight. No more heat barrier and few sonic booms to worry about. With Preston H. Carter "hypersoar" ricochet trajectories to extend the range. Or a suborbital refueling to hit orbit.

 

[In_A_Dream]

A launch vehicle that can quickly deliver time-sensitive ISR collection into LEO was/is something very valuable to intelligence planners. It would never be efficient and cost effective because the national security imperative outweighs the enormously high cost.

For several reasons, any ISR vehicle that can get to the edge of space is great for intelligence gathering, but doesn't necessarily have to be SSTO or TSTO, nor does it have to be low-observable in the traditional sense.

In this case, speed = stealth.

 

[Archibald]

Yes, but as far as "speed" is concerned, there is hypersonic and there is suborbital; and the parameters are very differents.
For the trajectory and for the airframe.
1 km/s = 3600 km per hour = Mach 2.91 (a bit less than a SR-71)
2 km/s = 7200 km per hour = Mach 5.82 (close from the X-15 speed record)

But 2 km/s flying horizontally 30 km in the atmosphere (hypersonic) is not the same as shooting suborbital and out of the atmosphere into space, even at the same speed.
Suborbital is technically easier but ballistics & the rocket equation can be as unforgiving as hypersonic flight - in a different way.

Ballistic Missile Classifications

Computing Delta-vee required for Ballistic Missiles

 

[Archibald]

I would say that the main problem of any winged / high speed / manned / suborbital / orbital / hypersonic SR-71 successor is kind of "spysats are always cheaper" (even if they are "chained" to an orbit).

Consider the fact that the present breed of NRO spysats (whatever they name) still have the same mirror size as the first KH-11 launched in October 1976. Bottom line: proven systems, even if not exactly cheap. But a dumb satellite in orbit is tried and tested, unlike any Mach 4+ reconnaissance vehicle.

To me the reason why the SR-71 still has no successor remains wit spysats. Plus the new commercial ones like Maxar, doing wonder over Ukraine. Heck, the NRO itself is buying commercial high-res imagery - despite having 3rd or 4th generation mightily powerful KH-11s.

 

[Whisperstream]

Randy, you don't believe there was ever any operational Mothership/TSTO type system or high-speed successor to the SR-71?

The SR-71 was retired for a variety of practical and political reasons. Was that a good idea? Maybe not, but it happened. It does not necessarily follow that the Blackbird would then be replaced by another high-speed, high-altitude platform. At the time, a combination of satellites, subsonic high-altitude platforms, and UAVs were available to provide overhead reconnaissance coverage. The idea of a Blackstar-type vehicle was very appealing to fans of exotic aerospace vehicles but, nevertheless, appears to have been a fantasy.

Mike Dornheim, the senior West Coast editor of Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine thought the Blackstar article was crap. He told me it had so many flaws that he believed it should not have been published, but he had no choice in the matter. He elected not to try to fix any of those flaws so that knowledgeable people would spot them and, perhaps, provide appropriate feedback to the publisher.

"Though the magazine is ill," said Dornheim, "it may respond to outside assistance, which is often more effective than inside complaining."

Subsequently, several excellent rebuttal articles by Dwayne Day, Jeffrey Bell, and others, appeared online and elsewhere.

Dornheim added, "At the moment the powers-that-be think they have done a wonderful thing with the Blackstar story. Website traffic [quadrupled] and [Scott's article] is being discussed [online]."

AW&ST Executive Vice President and Publisher Ken Gazzola wrote to Bill Scott:
"Congratulations on your vintage AW&ST 'black program' cover story this week. This is a prime example among many which sets AW&ST far ahead of the rest."

Dornheim commented, "I worry that so encouraged, there may be more to come. Wiser views need to be brought in."

I agreed with Dornheim and worried that Scott's Blackstar article was a combination of yellow journalism and junk science.

With no documentation to back it up, it was no more than a collection of unverifiable anecdotes and rumors. Despite Scott's claim that "considerable evidence supports the existence of" the Blackstar system, he included no such evidence in his article. Although he admitted that "iron-clad confirmation that meets AW&ST standards has remained elusive," he claimed that a number of details about the project were hard facts.

He described a two-stage to orbit (TSTO) system and asserted that "the spaceplane can reach low earth orbit," but he seemed to have no real understanding of orbital mechanics. It would have been nice to have had at least one rocket scientist review the article prior to publication.

The entire section on "adaptive optics with an integral sodium-ion-sensing laser" was not scientifically accurate. Such a system would be useful for ground-based telescopes, not the other way around.

Scott wrote, "Many sightings of both an XB-70-like carrier and a spaceplane have been reported." Without photographic proof those claims were, at best, just UFO reports. We have no meaningful way of knowing what, if anything, the alleged witnesses saw. Could you really keep "observed spaceplane landings" at Hurlburt Field, Kadena Air Base, and Holloman AFB a secret?

The Blackstar system is allegedly so secret that top military space commanders apparently have never been "briefed-in" -- never told of the Blackstar's existence -- even though these are the warfighters who might need to employ a spaceplane in combat. So, what good is it?

Scott claimed an unnamed Pentagon official suggested that Blackstar was owned and operated by "a team of aerospace contractors" to provide government leaders with plausible deniability. They don't really need deniability if the system hasn't been publicly surfaced. They can simply respond to questions with a 'no comment.'"

Having a contractor-owned system certainly wouldn't give plausible deniability in the event that the vehicle's missions were exposed. If the missions of Blackstar included reconnaissance, satellite deployment, satellite retrieval or servicing, anti-satellite or space-to-ground weapons delivery, then government officials could hardly claim that a team of civilian contractors took such action on their own initiative.

Additionally, Scott's suggestion that Blackstar was developed to provide assured access to space in the wake of the Challenger and expendable vehicle failures of 1986/1987 flies in the face of logic. Why cobble together an unproven and likely hazardous vehicle configuration from 1960s-era technology (XB-70 and X-20 DynaSoar) rather than simply fix the relatively minor (by comparison) problems with the existing space launch fleet?

 

[Archibald]

He described a two-stage to orbit (TSTO) system and asserted that "the spaceplane can reach low earth orbit," but he seemed to have no real understanding of orbital mechanics. It would have been nice to have had at least one rocket scientist review the article prior to publication.

Absolutely.

 

[RanulfC]

A launch vehicle that can quickly deliver time-sensitive ISR collection into LEO was/is something very valuable to intelligence planners. It would never be efficient and cost effective because the national security imperative outweighs the enormously high cost.

Except it literally does not because we haven't deployed such a system to replace the SR-71 and all such concepts proposed have not been pursued. Quite obviously the "high cost" (including design, testing, operations, infrastructure and maintenance costs as well as life-cycle and end-of-life costs) ARE a factor and one that has precluded the deployment of such a system.

For several reasons, any ISR vehicle that can get to the edge of space is great for intelligence gathering, but doesn't necessarily have to be SSTO or TSTO, nor does it have to be low-observable in the traditional sense.

In this case, speed = stealth.

Actually high-speed at high altitude is the opposite of 'stealth'. And if you're operating at the "edge of space" then it makes vastly more sense to actually be IN space rather than the atmosphere as the engineering and operational problems of high speed atmospheric flight, (including getting sensors to 'see' through those effects) is neither cheap nor easy.

As time goes on being able to access "real-time" data for reconnaissance is becoming cheaper and easier to do with unmanned, "low" speed systems rather than a manned, high altitude, high speed system and this trend has been ongoing since the mid-60s with no significant change in direction.

Randy