Current aircraft is not capable of reaching those balloons, read my other commentary. Your link points to a Chinese balloon that dropped way below its operational range.

SR-71 or not, there are already contracts for filling this niche:

https://www.war.gov/News/Contracts/Contract/Article/4613098/... (search for "swamp gas").

If money is flowing to counter/develop high-altitude balloons and declared as urgent, it's likely it's flowing in more than one vein.

The frame modifications you mentioned are already specified and tested, part of the YF-12 programme. It can easily carry air-to-air missiles instead of reconnaissance equipment, and the frame has flown with that configuration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12

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nradov 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

AIM-120 range and altitude upgrades have been in the works for many years, and balloon defense is a relatively low priority mission. It will also be supplemented by the new AIM-260 which has greater capabilities. The primary goal of those programs is to achieve greater stand-off range versus near-peer adversary aircraft.

The YF-12 prototypes looked superficially similar to the SR-71 but had substantially different airframes. There is simply no place in an SR-71 to mount the necessary weapons, sensors, and avionics without completely rebuilding the entire aircraft. That would be a stupid waste of resources when existing platforms can already accomplish the mission well enough.

	▲	gaigalas 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		What are you talking about? The YF-12C was a converted SR-71. It flew exactly as I'm describing. All of this has already been done before. You might be confusing the YF-12 with the A-12, which is related but a significantly different airframe. I won't engage in discussing whether balloons are high priority or not. Let the 2023 events and the funding towards those areas speak for themselves.

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walrus01 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> Current aircraft is not capable of reaching those balloons

Is a missile a form of aircraft? Because there's variants of the Standard Missile which can hit a low earth orbit satellite, with the right timing, fired from effectively zero velocity and at sea level from a frigate.

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gaigalas an hour ago | parent [-]

Well, it's not reusable. You're wasting a resource destined for hypersonic deterrence on some sheets of mylar that float around.

I mean, you can do that, but it would be a tremendous embarrassment.

	▲	walrus01 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> Well, it's not reusable No it's not. And it's indeed very costly. But on the grand scale of things of what the US DoD spends per day as a fully loaded lifetime cost to operate a single SSN, SSBN or aircraft carrier, it's a drop in the bucket. They spend absurd amounts of funds on all sorts of things.