alt Hacker NewsIt seems no one else offered any other concrete uses that would justify the efforts that went public regarding the frame reuse.
That likely concentrated the discussions towards this single idea I presented. However, I'm not actually that committed to it. If you have any other, I would very much would like to hear about it.
It's boring, but "aerial hypersonic testbed" is almost certainly NASA's intention, just like they did in the 1990s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Aerospike_SR-71_Experim...
This is a NASA/JPL project; there are a limited number of airworthy SR-71s, they are not modernized for combat, and they cannot scramble to intercept. The M-21 variant has a well-documented conversion to a mothership[0] that can ferry payloads externally to-altitude and at high speed. This is incredibly ideal for testing captive ramjet/scramjet technology, since they require Mach 3+ speeds to attain ram pressure through the engine.
Sending the SR-71 into denied or uncontrolled airspace seems like a terrible idea, in 2026. Chinese and Russian naval interceptor missiles could shoot down the plane at it's maximum speed and altitude; it's not going up against 1980s missiles anymore. The risk is absurd, and there's not enough SR-71s to treat them like they're expendable.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_D-21