Popular Mechanics some years ago, printed a photo of “donuts on a rope” being produced by an SR-71 that had it’s engines “burp.” (Some kind of minor problem, which is apparently fairly common for the type of engines in the plane.)
There is no difference. They’re synonymous. Commasense’s point was that the F117, which you lopped in which you called a “spy plane” is most assuredly not a spy/reconnaissance craft. I don’t believe it is equipped with cameras or anything a spy plane would normally have. The F-117 performs a combat role, and is equipped with missles and bombs to accomplish this; neither the SR-71 nor the U-2 were armed (so far as I know.) There was the short lived YF-12 project which was an (armed, of course) interceptor based on the same airframe as the SR-71, but that didn’t get past the prototype stage. IIRC, it was a precursor to the SR-71.
Stranger, thanks for the very informative reply and links to my OP. From yours and the other responses thus far, I have been able to glean the following:
[ul]
[li]While there may well be a future for hypersonic planes for spy and reconnaissance missions, the underlying long-term goal is to be able to bring strategic weapons to a target anywhere on the planet within a two hour time frame from a launch site in the US.[/li][li]The Aurora program has been (some obvious conjecture here) underway since 1985 and there “may” be a functional plane(s) built under the program. The “lead time” required to bring programs like this onboard can often exceed 20-25 years and in the case of Aurora the initial objective is to get a UAV “spy” plane operational before any work can really start on a plane capable of delivering weapon systems.[/li][li]The SR-71 program, while apparently technically capable, was a financial disaster that the government twice determined wasn’t worth the cost.[/li] [li]The future of hypersonic flight seems to rest with scramjet or ramjet type or “pulsed” engines for the power train and that additional work needs to be done in terms of developing additional materials and designs for airframe designs. [/li][/ul]
Now for some additional questions regarding this information (some/most of which have to do with an obvious amateur looking for enlightenment):
- What were the underlying reasons of why the SR-71 program was so prohibitively expensive (i.e., operating costs, etc.)? Wouldn’t the “Aurora” program, almost by definition, suffer similar problems since the program will rely on the development of much new technology that will still be relatively untested?
- Does the development of long-term strike capability to deliver weapons to a target require the use of a manned plane or can this objective be met with a UAV?
- If satellites suffer from the inability to define (or find) objects due to cloud cover and other problems, won’t the same problems plaque a hypersonic plane that would be flying at an altitude of 100,000+ feet (I realize that satellites are in much higher orbits but what are the limitations)?
- Typically why are programs like “Aurora” developed entirely in secret or is this more in keeping with the Bush Administrations normal way of conducting business? Somewhat related, does the US ever develop technology like this working with other allies (such as Great Britain) or are these efforts usually done “solo”?
- Finally, what can an enemy of the US, whether that be a country potentially like China or an organization currently like Al Qaeda, do with the knowledge that the US is either developing or has developed some of this technology? It seems like the cat is already out of the bag and I don’t fully understand what our enemies can gain by the knowledge. All I can see is this veil of secrecy that allows our government (and I realize that Bush is not the first or last to develop these types of programs) to hide the expenses.
- The Blackbird required massive ground and aerial support to operate. The planes leaked fuel on the ground due to the nature of their construction that allowed the skin to expand at the extreme temperatures caused by Mach 3.5+ speeds. This meant heavy tanker support was needed to get the plane to the target area which could be several thousand miles away. Due to operational and security considerations, the only places they routinely operated from outside the US were Okinawa and Britain (RAF Lakenheath, IIRC). Their camera systems were designed in the early sixties so getting pictures from a mission wasn’t as easy as it would be from a more modern digital camera system, not to mention the real-time video data links offered by today’s UAVs. There is no available data to use to estimate operational requirments for the Aurora.
- We’ve already seen Predator exhibit the capability to operate and hit targets without direct support from manned aircraft culminating in the destruction of a car carrying six suspected terrorists in Yemen in November, 2002.
- Satellites cannot fly around cloud cover or wait for it to clear. They are overhead when orbital mechanics says they will be overhead. Changing orbital paths is expensive in terms of the limited amount of fuel they carry to maintain stable orbits.
- & 5. Military services often have a near-paranoid fixation on security. The USAF is certainly no exception. Don’t expect any such policy to be logical.
You know, something just occurred to me. Do we officially have a stealth recon plane? If not, why not? It seems like recon would be the ideal application for stealth technology. Maybe the Aroura wasn’t a super-high speed recon plane, but a super stealthy plane, the existence of which is still secret. Hell, maybe it’s both high speed and stealthy.
During the Cold War, cost was far less of an issue than effectiveness. The plane was originally conceived as the YF-12, a high altitude supersonic fighter for which the Soviet Union failed to develop a counterpart (talk about throwing a party and no one showing up!) and was later adapted to a reconnaissance (or spy, if you like) platform with no equal or counter. It went from conception to operation in less than 18 months, and to describe it as a financial disaster is to presume that it didn’t return the intelligence demanded by its proponents, which is not the case. If you want to look at a couple of true financial and operational disasters, take a look at the Operation Jennifer affair (which commissioned Hughes Glomar Explorer) and the Peacekeeper Rail Garrison effort.
The SR-71 program was cancelled for a couple of reasons: one was that the cost of maintaining the aging operational fleet was growing, while the array of abilities it uniquely offered were being squeezed by better satellite resolution and UAV development; the other is the speculation (based upon the almost complete lack of objection the Air Force offered for shutting down a $300M program) that the Air Force already had a replacement in the Aurora (or whatever it is now called), and thus no longer had a need to operate the expensive and tempermental Blackbird.
To be fair (and I think you already know this) Aurora was in development well before even the former Bush Administration; certainly at least as far back as Reagan’s first term and most likely back to Carter. Even though it is a generational leap in technology, it is assured than an opponent will eventually come up with ways to counter the development; even a few years of operational secrecy offers a tactical and perhaps strategic advantage. Consider the U-2; for several years the US was able to maintain overflights of Soviet Russia and the Baltics, and not only could the USSR not shoot down the plane but they couldn’t even admit to its existance or complain about the violation of airspace lest they be seen as incompetent in protecting their own borders.
More cynically, keeping programs like this under wraps conveys two advantages: first, the opposing nations aren’t able to sniff out the flaws in your technology; even if your superstealth transhypersonic technology isn’t actually all that undetectable or fast you still force your enemies to devote time and resources to countering the rumors of your bad-ass ninja-black, anti-gravity superweapons. The other is that you don’t have to justify expendatures to every junior Congressman and peacenik; these sorts of programs waste money like Donald Trump at a East European flesh club, and by necessity; you spend a lot of money going down blind alleys, finding all the ways things don’t work in order to figure out how to make something function in reality (as opposed to computer simulation). Witness the development of the thermonuclear bomb, or the Redstone/Jupiter/Titan/Atlas program, which suffered launch failure after launch failure before getting it right. Compare that to the current GMD program, in which each failed booster IFT is held up to public scrutiny and forces a work stoppage. Failures are part of any development program and should be built into the schedule; certainly, failures should be analyzed and root causes determined, but when the issue becomes less of finding a technical error and more about looking for a body to hang from the lamp-post, programs don’t maintain the needed inertia to come to quick results, which is at least part of the more lengthy program development times. We spend an inordinate amount of time analyzing and modeling rather than risk even a relatively cheap test that might fail.
As for cooperative development, we did try to do this with the British after the war and going up through the 'Sixties, with very limited success. (The AV-8B Harrier II is probably the most successful example of this; the Douglas AGM-48 Skybolt missile was a failure, although admittedly one of primarily American culpability.) The opportunity for industrial and political espionage, as well as difficulties in information transfer, differing engineering standards and measurement systems, and general political and cultural differences make such cooperative efforts of limited value, not to mention the impetus by industry (at least in the American case) to keep the work “in the family”, i.e. internal to the incestous and politically entangled defense industry. Boeing would rather see work go to Raytheon or Northrop Grumman (in hopes of getting to bill back for the subcontract work) rather than handing it off to British Aerospace or Dassalt.
There is a difference between the vague hints of capabilities and the sort of detail that public scrutiny would offer; consider, for instance, the efforts that the CIA goes to in order to conceal the visual resolution of satellite cameras by detuning video images and deliberately bluring or distorting photographs. (The real fear in Powers’ U-2 crash, and the reason that there was a detonation charge on the film cannister, is that examining the photos would offer the Soviets the altitude and resolution capabilities of the plan.)
Certainly, some of this is merely gamesmanship; there were a number of programs during the 'Eighties, for instance, that were intended to serve no other purpose than to intimidate the Soviets and/or be negotiated away over treaty summits or to give the appearance of “doing something” (the current MDA programs, IMHO, fall into this category). Hiding expenses is no doubt an issue as well, though, as I’ve addressed above, this isn’t totally out of avarice but at least in part an effort to maintain project focus without having to account to every loudmouth with a bad combover and a cheap suit who managed to dupe his constituants into paying for a two year sinecure in the Concrete Swamp. And it gives you a few years of at least marginal technical superiority while your opponent is trying to figure out how to shoot down your new toy.
Plus, people just like to be sneaky, which we must acknowledge, is the primary reason for intrigue; it’s fun and sexy to know something that other people down, and almost as much fun to speculate about what other people know and don’t tell. In truth a lot of this stuff is pretty boring and/or not nearly as cutting edge or effective as Tom Clancy would have you believe. But pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
And, just because I can:
Stranger
An excellent post, Stranger, but I would like to add two things. First, even the fuel for the SR-71 was tailor made for that aircraft, yet another reason for its high cost. Second, yes we do develop some technology like this with allies like Great Britain. We are doing so right now with the Joint Strike Fighter. This was is the new, all-branch fighter with oodles of super cool abilities. I am in the VTOL field so I get constantly told about it. I think the major difference between this project and something like the theoretical Aurora, Stealth Fighter/Bomber, or Blackbird (all developed in secret) is that while it is a significant advancement over current aircraft there is no single critical development that defines it. There is no super new drive system, shape, or stealth ability, but rather a gathering of the best of what is currently out there.
Of course it is more than a possibility that Aurora is a sensor array as much as the aircraft that carries it. Known intelligence platforms seem to lack a good ground-penetrating radar capacity, and the need for some sort of nuclear detection device is long-standing. I would also note the US Navy is now talking about non-acoustic stealth for submarines.
Perhaps this secret program is aimed at submarine detection.
Secrecy in military programs also helps to mask waste, fraud, and abuse, which, I hasten to add, is not the exclusive province of any particular party or administration. However, it is safe to assume that the greater the secrecy, the greater the abuse.
Stranger depicts a noble and selfless defense industry just trying to get its job done without the incompetent meddling of elected representatives. To characterize our congressmen as the ones “duping” the public into paying their salaries while ignoring the corruption (both legal and illegal) that is rampant in defense contracting is slightly disingenuous, to say the least.
Make no mistake: I have no illusions about the integrity of the average member of congress. They are a venal, self-serving, and corruptible bunch. But “loudmouths” or not, they have the constitutional duty to supervise the spending of our tax dollars, even when such oversight would be embarrassing to Boeing, Northrop, and Lockheed Martin.
And so do we, as citizens, “peacenik” or not.
IMO, secrecy in all aspects of government is to be avoided as much as possible, and questioned whenever it is said to be necessary.
Many of you responding seem to be “in the business”, which makes me (as a very humble and unknowledegable outsider) rephrase my original question.
Does the United States need Aurora or, from a strictly military point of view, are there other more important programs that should be getting higher priority?
(Full disclosure: I’m “in the business” but don’t work on any surveillance aircraft or satellite programs and all of my knowledge comes from public sources.)
Since we don’t know the actual capabilities of Aurora, it’s blind speculation as to whether we actually need it. It seems like our high and slow UAV capabilities are better suited to the current threat (guerillas in desert or mountainous terrain). A hypersonic, round-the-world surveillance plane is more of a strategic asset, useful for penetrating deep into enemy territory and evading sophisticated anti-aircraft defenses. Given that the Aurora, if it exists and offers the faculties suggested here, was developed primarily as a Cold War capability against the Soviet Union, it isn’t as applicable to current threats…which isn’t saying that those capabilities won’t come back into vogue as we potentially face new strategic threats in Asia (China, North Korea, India, Pakistan). Also, the technology developed from the program mmay find use in other applications, such as long range “stratobombers”, space planes, and (possibly) even nonmilitary and nonintelligence craft.
Is it “worth” the expense? Hard to say, particularly since secrecy (whether necessary or not) makes our knowledge of it capabilities and drawbacks speculative at best. Even if we did have a detailed Janes entry on it, it’s hard to tell where the development could lead. Some people would say no defense spending is worthwhile, which may be philosophically sound but questionable in light of the noncombat benefits derived from it. William Proxmire argued for years against the “waste” of the space program, insisting that the money would be better spent on social programs (and dairy farm subsidies :rolleyes: ). Our ability to “waste” more money than other nations collect in a decade has resulted in a lot of the technological and social advances Americans (currently) enjoy.
In terms of its military value, I’d say its relatively low on the ladder of waste; at least it fills a niche. If you want to see waste, take a look at our ballistic missile submarine fleet, which satellite MAD sensors have rendered valunerable to detection despite how quietly they run, underfunded missile defense programs which deploy untested boosters and incomplete integration systems and serve only to encourage proliferation by competing nations, and the whole Peacekeeper ICBM which was ill-conceived and politically handicapped before it left the gate.
If you want efficiency in military expendatures (and a policy of nonintervention in the military affairs of other nations), look at Switzerland. No significant standing army or military adventurism abroad; in Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. 
Stranger
For the most part there is no current threat against which Aurora - in any of the multiple guises we hear about - needs to be deployed. But that doesn’t mean that there won’t be in the future, and these programs take a long time to mature. You can’t whip up a fighter jet or a jet bomber overnight. As for other programs, well, anybody who could tell you can’t.
I would like to see America buy a whole heap of Typhoons, but then I’m biased.
Judging by the last replies, there are no easily defined scenarios to try to gauge the need for Aurora (either now or in the future).
All of this unfortunately leads me on to another tangent but I now wonder what are the priorities in terms of deciding on land, air or sea based defense solutions? How much (%) of our research resources are typically allocated to the different branches of the military?
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/aurora.html
I am so glad you posted this. I went to the site and it said that I was chosen to win free gas for year 