The SR-71 Blackbird spy plane could be considered the crown jewel of Lockheed’s legendary ‘Skunk Works’ department, at the height of the Cold War. Built almost entirely out of titanium, it was a flying platform so revolutionary for its time that it could simply fly higher and faster than anything the Soviets could throw at it—if they could even detect it at all, given its reduced radar cross-section.

The SR-71 was so elusive that to this day the CIA still brags about it being the source of many UFO reports during the 1960s and 70s—a claim that could be justified with high altitude sightings by commercial pilots, but which becomes questionable with observations at low altitude.

Featured in many movies due to its slick space-age design (X-Men: First Class; D.A.R.Y.L.; etc) the Blackbird broke dozens of records and earned an unbeatable place in the annals of aviation history, before it was finally decommissioned in the late 1990s.

…That is, until now.

Aviation Week has just published a story confirming the rumors that NASA had been secretly contacting retired Lockheed engineers, with the purpose of returning the SR-71 back into the air.

[Mike] Relja, an ex-U.S. Air Force and NASA test engineer for the SR-71A, could not believe his ears. David Ash, a former U.S. Navy and Joby test pilot who was hired in June as a special projects director for NASA, asked Relja to provide his expertise for a secret effort to return a long-retired and neglected Blackbird to flight.

“I told the guy, ‘You know, I’m too old to be doing this,’” Relja recalls to Aviation Week. “‘I wish you well. I’d like to see you make it. It would be interesting. But I just don’t think you can get there from here.’”

It appears NASA is going to try.

SR-71A Tail No. 844. Removed from display before April 2026, and rolled it into the former space shuttle hangar at Armstrong Flight Research Center, California.

Now, the $60-million-dollar question is… why? Why would NASA (now under the leadership of Trump-appointed mogul Jared Isaacman) be interested in recommissioning an impressive, albeit clearly outdated 61-year-old relic, retrieved from a public exhibit at the Armstrong Flight Research Center on Edwards AFB, California, developed during an age before satellites and digital surveillance could retrieve critical imagery intel faster, cheaper, and more safely?

Jared Isaacman, NASA Director

The official stance (for now) is that NASA is seeking to reinvigorate their fleet of ‘X-planes’ (craft developed to go beyond what was technically possible, including the speed of sound way back when)

“In the service of the first ‘A’ in NASA, we are rebuilding our X-plane fleet,” Isaacman said. “It will not be long before NASA is once again flying as high and as fast from decades past—and then even more.”

After the Blackbird was officially retired, many rumors persisted that Lockheed was developing its successor—codenamed Aurora—capable of overperforming its 3+ Mach predecessor with superior scramjet engines that would push it beyond Mach 5. A few sporadic sightings (some by trained observers) kept the hope among aviation enthusiasts (and UFO buffs obsessed with secret military tech) that Aurora was more than just a conspiracy theory; but to this day, no tangible evidence of its existence has ever surfaced.

And now, instead of moving ahead to develop some sort of unmanned hypersonic platform (which wouldn’t need to accommodate a pressurized cabin for a pilot only capable of withstanding a limited amount of G-forces) NASA wants to bring the old Blackbird back into service. An odd decision, to say the least.

Never mind the whys, then: Can it be done? It’s not just a matter to bring Skunk Works engineers back from retirement. The project also requires restoring technologies and industrial processes that have long become obsolete; for an aircraft in which many of its key components were kept secret for National Security reasons, no less. One aviation enthusiast in Twitter/X points out how they may not even know how to create the special jet fuel the SR-71 used!

Point being this is not your daddy’s pet project to fix his old ’65 Corvette. Bringing an ultra-sophisticated system like the SR-71 back into the air may be cost-prohibitive, even if you have enough expertise and know-how backing you up.

Again… why?

Maybe it’s just another testosterone-driven decision by one of Musk’s associates (Isaacman) who dreams about bringing back the glory days of American aviation. Of maybe there’s something else going on behind the curtain we haven’t learned yet. Whatever the reason, I’m sure the late “Kelly” Johnson and Ben Rich would have gotten a kick out of all the efforts to bring their old lady back from retirement.

Speaking of Rich, it’s weird to remember his cryptic statements about the US now having in their possession the technology to ‘bring ET back home’, now that what they are actually trying to bring back is a plane first conceived during the Eisenhower administration. Does that mean those remarks were purely fictitious, or does it mean somebody else is in control of the true aerospace breakthroughs that could have taken place in the last 30 years?