Following the loss of a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft over the Soviet Union on May 1, 1960, the Eisenhower administration sought a new aircraft from Lockheed (NYSE: LMT)—“one that would fly faster than any aircraft before or since, at greater altitude, and with a minimal radar cross section,” according to Lockheed Martin. Lockheed needed “to build the impossible—and do it fast.”
Development work on an aircraft to improve the United States’ intelligence-gathering capabilities had already begun at Lockheed’s Skunk Works in Burbank, California.
