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Some ideas, brainstorming here... Tracking: satellites are incredibly easy to track once you know their orbital parameters. A balloon, far less so. You need a
by mabbo 4y ago
Some ideas, brainstorming here...
Tracking: satellites are incredibly easy to track once you know their orbital parameters. A balloon, far less so. You need a lot of active tracking.
Altitude: a balloon is much closer to the ground than a satellite. That allows a much smaller camera to take the same picture. It also could give you access to radio signals that might not be as easily monitored from space.
Harder to spot: being closer to the ground, it will be beyond the horizon until it's much closer.
And of course it's far, far cheaper. The Chinese space program is doing well, but it's still very expensive to build and launch satellites.
There are of course numerous downsides.
- smalley 4y agoAdditionally Measure Response: Determine what an adversary nation does in response to the violation (what resources are scrambled, where do they come from etc) Messaging: All the permutations of two sets of government folks trying to send a message the pair mutually understand re: defense etc Tie up resources: Low cost provocation may divert higher cost resources and tie them up for a longer period of time since its a dwelling threat Acquire signal information: Use sensors and measurement systems outside of the threat to measure the locations and signatures of tracking systems deployed to assess and monitor the threat Deploy lightweight physical payloads: dust something of interest over an area etc
- floxy 4y agoI wonder what kinds of capabilities you could have in a $25,000 mass produced balloon. 100,000 of those would only cost $2.5 billion. It seems like that would be a pretty overwhelming problem to deal with if your job was to suddenly get rid of 100,000 balloons.
- flir 4y agoI've played that game. You need monkeys with darts.