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Fascinating history. The original intention of the planes was for the purpose of breaking international law (violating airspace in a way believed to be undetect
by notveryrational 8y ago
Fascinating history. The original intention of the planes was for the purpose of breaking international law (violating airspace in a way believed to be undetectable) until flights, in practice, showed that other countries were in fact able to detect them. Rather than retract the program, the US doubled down on stealth technologies so that it would be able to continue.
Also, the history (70 year old plane) has a great look into military and intelligence collaboration with American industrial design firms, like Lockheed Martin.
The "grown up versions" of this are probably all classified at this point. The declassified modern capabilities give some hint to what the CIA is able to do. The ARGUS-IS is able to surveil, in high definition, in real time, entire cities while tracking thousands of targets, identifying them as people by their shadows, synthesize data with other sensors (cellular, wireless surveillance, etc), all without being detected.
- mikeash 8y agoNote that overflights of the USSR started well before the U-2. As early as 1946, the US was flying reconnaissance planes (usually modified strategic bombers) over the Soviet Union. The U-2 came about because the Soviets began to gain the ability to intercept and possibly shoot down those flights.
- Fnoord 8y agoAnd it was introduced before the SR-71, and is still in service (the SR-71 was retired in '98/'99). If you compare the price differences, one U-2 costs ~3% of a SR-71, though that's excluding maintenance.
- TylerE 8y agoThat's not really accurate. It was never intended to be undetectable, just unhittable, because it flew so high that missles and guns didn't have enough velocity to even reach that high.