Hey! Remember this story from a couple of years ago, one that surely fulfilled the lustful fantasies of more than a few American military aircraft enthusiasts? You know — the news about Lockheed designing a successor to undoubtedly the most beloved plane ever dreamed up by the Pentagon and its wily, covert contract program “Skunk Works” — the SR-71 Blackbird? The supersonic spy plane that was retired in 1998 by the United States Air Force and in 1999 by NASA?

It seemed to have fallen completely off the radar (pun intended) between then and now, but guess what? It’s back. And Lockheed is talking a huge game (what else is new?) about making it a reality — only this time they’re claiming a technological breakthrough that will make it less laborious, time-consuming (some are saying as soon as 2018!) and expensive as previously stated.

They’re saying they could build the “hypersonic” beast the size of a modern fighter for — all told — less than $1 billion.

This from Defense Systems:

Lockheed Martin CEO Marilyn Hewson, speaking at an annual media day event this week, said the price tag for the SR-72 includes development, manufacture and flight-testing of a hypersonic plane. Hewson added that the company has already produced a “controllable, low-drag, aerodynamic configuration” under the HTV-3X program capable of “stable operation” from sub-sonic through hypersonic speeds up to Mach 6.

The Hypersonic Test Vehicle, or Blackswift Test Bed, is part of the Falcon program jointly funded the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Air Force. Falcon is a component of a larger Pentagon “prompt global strike” capability designed to develop hypersonic weapons and a delivery vehicle that would allow it to hit targets anywhere in the world within an hour.

You read that correctly: Mach 6. Meaning the aircraft would be twice as fast as the SR-71, capable of speeds approaching 4,500 mph. In other words, it could fly you from New York to Los Angeles in, umm … 15 to 20 minutes.

It’s all based on engineering known as scramjet propulsion — an advancement that might make your plane ride durations in the not-so-distant future minutes, rather than hours.

Of course, some experts, including those from the military aircraft blog Foxtrot Alpha, bring up the cogent question encircling all of this hubbub: is building this thing really necessary? Will it be money well spent? Or merely a vanity play — akin to someone buying a sports car during a midlife crisis:

“It seems that so many have desperately wanted there to be a replacement for the SR-71 Blackbird, something even higher flying than its predecessor, regardless if there was ever even a real demand for one. In the end there has been no concrete evidence to support the existence of such a machine, and especially not a fleet of them in operational form.”

Kind of sounds like a rebuttal to Neil deGrasse Tyson’s space program argument? Or is that reaching?