4 ms·

In November 1950, the USAF began development of a balloon reconnaissance system

21 points by curtis 9y ago

mariuolo 9y ago
Ironically, film from captured balloons was of such quality that it was used by the Soviets to take pictures of the far side of the moon: https://www.damninteresting.com/faxes-from-the-far-side https://www.damninteresting.com/faxes-from-the-far-side .
- orbital-decay 9y ago
  Interesting. Not trying to say it's not possible, but are there any sources on that other than the article calling Luna probes "Luniks"? I've never heard this story despite reading quite a lot about the soviet space program. I see a lot of speculations on this story on the net without citing the original source, some are even claiming that Luna-3 engineers kept the use of this film in secret from the designers, which is absolutely impossible. Seems a lot like a typical urban legend from after the fall of USSR...
  - new299 9y ago
    From what I can tell, the original source is mentioned here: http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/trackind/luna3/Luna3story.html http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/trackind/luna3/Luna3story.html (V. Efimov, Novosti Kosmonavtiki, August 2000.) It appears to be a Russian language magazine (and/or website), possibly this: http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/ http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/
    - orbital-decay 9y ago
      Thanks, yes it's NK and it's quite a reputable magazine which is seldom wrong, they usually have a lot of first-hand details from archives and industry sources. I was a bit sceptical about this because any intel was in KGB/GRU hands, and they generally weren't ready to share anything with anyone, even with people working on the space program (according to Boris Chertok and many others); everything was top secret.
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
Seems like this was a win. They got a bunch of money to figure out how to take pictures at altitudes difficult for surface to air defense systems to reach. Think about what aircraft were in the development pipeline at this time. I would not be surprised if the people higher up the chain considered intelligence gathering to be secondary to developing reliable camera systems for use at ~80'0000ft
sharkbot 9y ago
There was just a story in CBC News about one of these devices discovered in New Brunswick, Canada in the 50's; http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/thing-in-the-woods-cia-spy-camera-1.4221705 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/thing-in-the-woo... There was a fair bit of cloak and dagger to recover the device at the time, nice to see the veil pierced a bit to get the history on it.

21 points by curtis 9y ago

Ironically, film from captured balloons was of such quality that it was used by the Soviets to take pictures of the far side of the moon: https://www.damninteresting.com/faxes-from-the-far-side https://www.damninteresting.com/faxes-from-the-far-side .

orbital-decay 9y ago
Interesting. Not trying to say it's not possible, but are there any sources on that other than the article calling Luna probes "Luniks"? I've never heard this story despite reading quite a lot about the soviet space program. I see a lot of speculations on this story on the net without citing the original source, some are even claiming that Luna-3 engineers kept the use of this film in secret from the designers, which is absolutely impossible. Seems a lot like a typical urban legend from after the fall of USSR...
- new299 9y ago
  From what I can tell, the original source is mentioned here: http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/trackind/luna3/Luna3story.html http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/trackind/luna3/Luna3story.html (V. Efimov, Novosti Kosmonavtiki, August 2000.) It appears to be a Russian language magazine (and/or website), possibly this: http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/ http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/
  - orbital-decay 9y ago
    Thanks, yes it's NK and it's quite a reputable magazine which is seldom wrong, they usually have a lot of first-hand details from archives and industry sources. I was a bit sceptical about this because any intel was in KGB/GRU hands, and they generally weren't ready to share anything with anyone, even with people working on the space program (according to Boris Chertok and many others); everything was top secret.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

Seems like this was a win. They got a bunch of money to figure out how to take pictures at altitudes difficult for surface to air defense systems to reach. Think about what aircraft were in the development pipeline at this time. I would not be surprised if the people higher up the chain considered intelligence gathering to be secondary to developing reliable camera systems for use at ~80'0000ft

sharkbot 9y ago

There was just a story in CBC News about one of these devices discovered in New Brunswick, Canada in the 50's; http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/thing-in-the-woods-cia-spy-camera-1.4221705 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/thing-in-the-woo... There was a fair bit of cloak and dagger to recover the device at the time, nice to see the veil pierced a bit to get the history on it.