Gizmodo has an appreciation of the ultimate gadget: The sadly grounded SR-71 Blackbird.

One moonless night, while flying a routine training mission over the Pacific, I wondered what the sky would look like from 84,000 feet if the cockpit lighting were dark. While heading home on a straight course, I slowly turned down all of the lighting, reducing the glare and revealing the night sky. Within seconds, I turned the lights back up, fearful that the jet would know and somehow punish me. But my desire to see the sky overruled my caution, I dimmed the lighting again. To my amazement, I saw a bright light outside my window. As my eyes adjusted to the view, I realized that the brilliance was the broad expanse of the Milky Way, now a gleaming stripe across the sky. Where dark spaces in the sky had usually existed, there were now dense clusters of sparkling stars Shooting stars flashed across the canvas every few seconds. It was like a fireworks display with no sound. I knew I had to get my eyes back on the instruments, and reluctantly I brought my attention back inside. To my surprise, with the cockpit lighting still off, I could see every gauge, lit by starlight.

The excerpt also includes an account of a flight over Libya during which the author and his recon officer were fired upon. Apparently, when you’re in an SR-71, a perfectly acceptable defensive maneuver is to simply accelerate, which they did. To Mach 3.5+, over three and a half times the speed of sound.

Whoa.

Sadly, the author’s book is out of print, and the only copies available are limited edition, signed pressings at $400+ a pop. Oh well.