The CIA’s involvement in the development of the SR-71 had much more to do with the sourcing of the raw materials. Titanium wasn’t readily available to the US at the time and that was problematic because the biggest producer of Titanium was....the Soviet Union.
So, the CIA created a number of incredibly well-hidden front companies that it used to buy the Titanium from the Soviets that Lockheed’s Skunk Works division needed to build the aircraft (an incredible story that surprisingly hasn’t been made into a movie...yet.) That certainly wasn’t an insignificant contribution, to say the least. But, the primary agency on the project was still the US Air Force.
I agree that compartmentalization is a thing. I just don’t think it’s a thing that could explain how technology that advanced aeronautical engineering generations has been hidden away for decades in absolute secret.
The compartmentalization theory taken to its logical conclusion would mean: The Navy can’t get their electromagnet catapult to reliably work and at the very same time, there’s another group at DoD that has created tech that would render the catapult obsolete? It just doesn’t sound plausible.
The compartmentalization theory taken to its logical conclusion would mean: The Navy can’t get their electromagnet catapult to reliably work and at the very same time, there’s another group at DoD that has created tech that would render the catapult obsolete? It just doesn’t sound plausible.
Actually, it sounds like government.