Xref: utzoo rec.aviation:12944 sci.space.shuttle:2578
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!ames!oliveb!sun!worke!macs
From: macs%worke@Sun.COM (Manuel Cisneros)
Newsgroups: rec.aviation,sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: SR71 to be retired October 1st, rumors regarding SR-71
Message-ID: <94193@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 16 Mar 89 00:05:27 GMT
References: <524@gonzo.UUCP> <1475@petsd.UUCP> <13987@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> <976@nbife.NBI.COM> <1993NU052179@NDSUVM1> <7593@june.cs.washington.edu> <1829@hp-sdd.hp.com>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Reply-To: macs@sun.UUCP (Manuel Cisneros)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
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In article <1829@hp-sdd.hp.com> hinojosa@hp-sdd.hp.com.UUCP (Daniel Hinojosa) writes:
>
>It is fairly clear. The 'pilot' is wearing a silver looking suit, much
>like the Mercury astronauts, and a helmet much the same. Too, looking

As I understand it, the pilots wear some kind of pressure suit with
environmental control included.  This is probably due to the extreme
temperatures encountered by the plane (600 F skin temperature?) as well
as the pressure 'way up there'.

>reminds me of the shuttle. I've got to believe like much of the rest of 
>our progress in the arena of aviation, portions of this design found 
>their way into the design of the shuttle. 

There was certainly a lot of accumulated knowledge put into the Shuttle,
but as for the nature of the beast, I think that the Shuttle is considered
more of a lifting body than a delta wing aircraft, which the Blackbird is.
The very nature of the missions the Blackbird and the Shuttle are so 
different (SR-71= take off from a runway, go high, fly fast, land on a runway,
Shuttle= TAKE OFF on top of a rocket, go really high, orbit the earth a few
times, glide back (with no chance for a go-around), land on a runway) that
it is very likely that the two don't share a whole lot of technology.

Anyone out there want to agree/disagree?

Manuel.