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Hobby Club’s Missing Balloon Feared Shot Down by USAF
- bmitc 4y agoThese balloons don't seem to match the, however brief, descriptions of what was shot down. Also, do they not have mechanisms that report the balloon's position? Seems like a lot of speculation.
- ceejayoz 4y ago> Also, do they not have mechanisms that report the balloon's position? Pico balloon payloads look like this: https://www.rmham.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/IMG_5385-scaled.jpeg https://www.rmham.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/IMG_5385-sc... Most ADS-B transponders are substantially larger than the entire payload.
- ianburrell 4y agoI wonder if APRS transmitter would be acceptable as transponder. It should be possible to make a tiny, cheap ADS-B transponder. They are similar to APRS, with GPS and VHF radio. But there really isn't a market now for small ones, and there are regulations that make expensive.
- ianburrell 4y agoI don't think we have a description of the Canada object that is suspected to be this balloon. The car-sized cylindrical object in Alaska could easily be a balloon if the shape was misreported. The octagonal object in Lake Huron trailing cables could have similarly misreported. It is hard for fighter pilots to observe small objects passing by them at high speed. I also suspect that they will see balloon as interesting object when can't see the payload.
- Sharlin 4y agoIdentification missions are supposed to also photograph the target though, presumably with an appropriate telephoto camera. No need to rely solely on the Mk I eyeball. But admittedly that’s not trivial either at high relative velocities.
- silexia 4y agoHow much did the missile cost that shot it down?
- puffoflogic 4y agoIn hindsight, "Mass hysteria (and pethaps a need to distract the news cycles) lead US administration to order destruction of private property by US military" really should have been on my 2023 bingo card.
- m3kw9 4y agoThey don't allow drones to fly in most places, but allow these ballons fly all over the place?
- boomboomsubban 4y agoFlying hundreds of feet above the ground is very different from floating thousands (tens of thousands?) of feet up.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- CydeWeys 4y agoRegardless of whether it's allowed or not, it's very hard to stop, and laws are routinely broken all the time (like drivers speeding).
- hoppyhoppy2 4y agoSee also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34814717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34814717
- password4321 4y agoA link to buy a balloon of your own! https://balloons.online/orbs-32-silver/ https://balloons.online/orbs-32-silver/
- arbuge 4y agoI'm not sure what the prorated cost of the fighter jets and crew to shoot these things down was, but I have seen multiple news reports that the cost of the missiles was around $450k apiece. In at least one incident, two missiles were needed after the first missed.
- Invictus0 4y agoWhy do people keep bringing up the cost of the missile? The cost to run the us military is much more than 1 million dollars per minute.
- andrewmunsell 4y agoBecause if we kept thinking this way, then the cost of the military would never go down below $1m per minute. Unnecessary spending-- and not just shooting down Arduinos-- contributes to the total spend & therefore budget
- kube-system 4y agoThe value in training and lessons learned from these events will likely greatly exceed the value of the materials spent.
- jjtheblunt 4y agoOver 525 billion dollars / year ? https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2980014/the-department-of-defense-releases-the-presidents-fiscal-year-2023-defense-budg/ https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/298001... Well over $1million / minute.
- rootusrootus 4y ago525.6B per year would be 1M/minute.
- jjtheblunt 4y ago
- matt3210 4y ago[flagged]
- jb12 4y agoDon't worry, we've been laughing since the GW Bush days.
- thehappypm 4y agoThe rest of the West really has got it made. Spend nothing on defense because the USA will always bail you out. Meanwhile US citizens get ridiculed for producing the most powerful economy in world history.
- vuln 4y agoIt's really easy to pay for healthcare and social benefits for your citizens when your military defense is subsidized by American Tax Payers.
- ceejayoz 4y agoI see this statement a lot, but the US spends about 2-3x the cost per capita for healthcare than the rest of the OECD. That includes both public and private spending. (see https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm) We can afford it, with or without the military spending.
- programmarchy 4y agoEurope: I feel sorry for you. USA: I don’t think about you at all.
- pphysch 4y agoThe US has by far the largest trade deficit in the world. It's a net consumer, because it can print dollars. It is not remotely the most powerful productive economy on a per-capita basis.
- googlryas 4y agoDoes the government have the right to destroy whatever it wants in the air? Could this club sue for the cost of the balloon?
- ceejayoz 4y ago> Could this club sue for the cost of the balloon? Almost certainly not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...
- michaelhoffman 4y agoIf you read the linked article, you will find that the United States has laws that waive sovereign immunity for torts committed by people acting on behalf of the federal government. Which is what I assume would be alleged here. That doesn't mean that they would win such a lawsuit, however.
- ceejayoz 4y agoThey can waive torts, yes. Doing so is a very specific process. Cops regularly get qualified immunity for absolutely egregious conduct. The military is not going to get successfully sued for shooting down a $12 balloon while acting in good faith on national security duties.
- michaelhoffman 4y agoWhat do you think the "very specific process" involved for the federal government waiving immunity to tort claims? I assume that is what you mean by "waive torts" which is a phrase that doesn't really make sense. Since it is "very specific", can you describe it? Again, you may want to carefully read the article you linked, and linked articles within such as the one on the Federal Tort Claims Act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Tort_Claims_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Tort_Claims_Act
- diebeforei485 4y agoIf a balloon flies at an altitude used by commercial aircraft, it should have a transponder similar to commercial aircraft.
- ceejayoz 4y agoThe balloon pictured in the article has essentially a zero percent chance of causing harm to a commercial airliner.
- buildbot 4y agoPersonally I am not an expert, but since you seem to know, what happens to a turbofan when ingesting a ballon like this?
- ceejayoz 4y agoOf this small, thin, lightweight sort? Nothing. The engines will fairly happily mulch an entire human (warning: graphic; https://imgur.com/a/1T5YQ https://imgur.com/a/1T5YQ). A Mylar balloon isn't gonna faze it.
- jaywalk 4y agoAn airliner can completely lose a single engine in flight without much of a problem. But the engine in that picture is significantly damaged.
- operatingthetan 4y agoThat's not true. Bird strikes are a thing and cause flameouts. You can't even takeoff/land on dirt runways with most jets because the dust will damage the engines.
- ceejayoz 4y agoSmack someone with a goose, then smack them with a Mylar balloon. Compare the results. You don't want to routinely ingest gravel from a dirt runway (nor balloons!) into your engines. Having one pebble kick up off the runway won't cause an issue.
- arwhatever 4y agoWould actually be quite impressive if it’s confirmed that NORAD is able to track and target a balloon/payload weighing between 11 grams-6 lbs, and flying between 30k-40k feet altitude.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kylehotchkiss 4y agoI wouldn’t be surprised if they did; and the same sensitivity captures flocks of birds over the entire continent
- kragen 4y agoif it's metal foil or metallized foil it could have a quite large radar cross section, more so if it's carrying a corner reflector to make radar tracking easier
- cmsj 4y agoTherefore this is the start of open source stealth tech - hobbyists fearing military intervention will begin to construct their balloons out of radar-absorbing materials.
- kragen 4y agoor just radar-transparent materials, like polyethylene, like many existing balloons aluminum has real advantages though
- TkTech 4y agoMobile and fixed systems like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea-based_X-band_Radar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea-based_X-band_Radar exist around the US and are reported to be able to pickup baseball sized objects from the other side of the continent (and that's what they claimed a decade ago before the upgrades). They're just typically not used with such precision because of the sheer amount of false positives they'd generate and how little concern there typically is about something so small.
- jhbadger 4y ago"Three countries—North Korea, Yemen and the UK—restrict transmissions from balloons in their airspace, so the community has integrated geofencing software into the tracking devices. The balloons still overfly the countries, but do not transmit their positions over their airspace." That's an interesting collection of countries. Why I wonder the UK and not other Western countries?
- t0mas88 4y agoThe UK has some strange leftover laws about radio communication. Recently there was a post here about their system of TV detector vans to collect license fees for public television (something most sensible countries have put into their normal taxes a long time ago). And the UK for example is also missing from Live ATC because listening to (open, unencrypted) ATC communications is illegal there.
- traceroute66 4y ago> UK for example is also missing from Live ATC because listening to (open, unencrypted) ATC communications is illegal there. Actually no. You CAN listen to it. Anyone is free to buy a scanner. You CANNOT record it or redistribute it.
- pc86 4y ago> Anyone is free to buy a scanner. "Technically possible" doesn't always mean "legally permissible."
- traceroute66 4y ago> "Technically possible" doesn't always mean "legally permissible." In the UK if a radio device is 'inherently incapable of transmission', you do not need a licence to install or use it. A scanner is very much that. It is legal to use a scanner in the UK as long as it is clear from the context that the message being listened to was intended for general reception. There are many circumstances in aviation where this could be the case.
- yawnxyz 4y ago"Air Force pilot shooting down 6yo's birthday balloon" is going to be a popular Halloween costume this year...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mr_toad 4y agoAn F22 strafing children’s birthday party balloons sound like a sub plot from South Park episode.
- fuoqi 4y agoI wonder if Russia and/or China will start launching a bunch of relatively cheap stratospheric balloons with foil-covered cardboard boxes to imitate payloads to troll the US and make it spend millions on shooting them down. To make the trolling a bit less obvious they even may add some innocent recording devices to claim that they are "scientific experiments".
- pipeline_peak 4y ago[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mauvehaus 4y agoThe Russians are already doing it in Ukraine: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64661145 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64661145
- throwaway67743 4y agoNo, they "started" doing it the day after a fake spy balloon was shot down, it's narrative not truth (and actually soviet balloons predate everyone else by about 60 years)
- pixelesque 4y agoThe US was doing it on the Soviets and Chinese in the 50s: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cold-war-balloon-surveillance https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cold-war-balloon-surve...
- throwaway67743 4y agoYeah, but actually the Soviets started before then even, pioneers really - just like the Nazis pioneered a lot, but we can't possibly acknowledge that because they're evil
- karaterobot 4y ago> In fact, the pico balloons weigh less than 6 lb. and therefore are exempt from most FAA airspace restrictions, Meadows and Medlin said. Is this 6 pound rule up to date with the weight of actual surveillance and broadcast equipment? Feels like you could do a lot with 6 lbs.
- mrandish 4y agoAs a long-time RC hobbyist who designs, builds and flies small, short-range battery-powered foam aerobatic planes and gliders for fun and relaxation, it sounds like yet another engineering-centric, technical hobby is about to have their fun ruined by lack-of-understanding, politically-driven performative "safety theater" and media-fueled runaway paranoia.
- trallnag 4y agoComplete agreement. I like how this is approached in German law. Everything that is not forbidden is allowed.
- School-Cotton 4y ago> Everything that is not forbidden is allowed. Isn’t that also true in the US, and virtually everywhere?
- jgrahamc 4y agoYep. When I heard the description of this balloon I was sure it was a picoballoon. Having done balloon flights and dealt with the regulations and reporting etc. I can see how this hobby is going to get shut down for no good reason. Sucks.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y agoLike I always say. People. They ruin everything.
- AlexandrB 4y agoFor proof of this just check these HN threads where many commenters think this balloon was a danger to commercial airliners. And this is a forum populated by nerds.
- sam345 4y agoI've been wondering about the nerd/engineer mindset when it comes to rules and regulations. I've always leaned toward curiosity, freedom, experimentation, and logical reasonableness and thought this was common among the nerd set. Unfortunately, it seems there are a lot of people who bring their desire to control objects into the regulatory realm and lean toward engineering society - favoring manipulation, control, and centralized planning at the expense of reasonableness, the free market, and social benefit.
- causi 4y agoThe launch teams seldom recover their balloons. reported its last position on Feb. 10 at 38,910 ft. off the west coast of Alaska Oh neat, I always wanted to be a litterbug and a floating aviation hazard at the same time. If you launch something into the sky, be it a drone or a balloon, you should be responsible for retrieving it.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- shadowgovt 4y agoRegarding small research balloons: that has never been the case. Even the NWS has a return rate of 20% for the radiosondes they attach to weather balloons. Not saying a rules change can't be considered, but the current rules are "n'ah." No more than people are expected to retrieve their plain-old helium balloons from birthday parties (and we know those do ecological damage).
- jakear 4y agoI get that NOAA and NWS and whomever else release balloons that they never see again, but those at lease provide helpful data that benefits the public in some way. These seem to just... blast some portion of the EM spectrum with their location?
- shadowgovt 4y agoThe interesting data they provide is how they move and the air currents that cause that motion. Amateur science is still science and woe betide the free people that moves towards reserving science to professionals disproportionate to risk of harm.
- jakear 4y agoWhats the bar for the amount/type of data an individual needs to collect for the random trash they discard in the sea to be "science"?
- moomoo11 4y agoI’m imagining Tom Cruise being serious and doing all sorts of crazy maneuvers to take down enemy hostile bogeys.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y agobandits
- pastacacioepepe 4y ago> “I tried contacting our military and the FBI—and just got the runaround—to try to enlighten them on what a lot of these things probably are. And they’re going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down,” says Ron Meadows, the founder of Scientific Balloon Solutions (SBS) Way to overreact, USA. It feels like they're just looking for excuses to escalate the situation with China. As if what's going on already in the rest of the world wasn't enough.
- throwaway67743 4y agoWell duh, that's the narrative, curtailing their own freedom is just collateral damage
- deleted_account 4y agoThis may be the wrong take-away, but the Air Force shooting your balloon down would be a massive source of pride for the science clubs I remember from my youth. We would have had that on a t-shirt within a week.
- NDizzle 4y agoYep. Float around and find out.
- blamazon 4y agoI would be right away dialing my congresspersons to demand an appropriate victory marking[1] be placed on the relevant aircraft. It would make for a great photo op someday when all this is just a historical footnote. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_marking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_marking
- dylan604 4y agoI nominate this as the Victory Marking: https://mellywilliams.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/red-balloon.jpg https://mellywilliams.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/red-balloo...
- WillPostForFood 4y agoPride for club and a little shame for the government.
- e4e5 4y agoAlso see here: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/02/16/us/biden-china-balloon-ufo https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/02/16/us/biden-china-ballo...
- yieldcrv 4y agoRed Scare!
- nostromo 4y agoPeople keep saying a lightweight craft under six pounds poses no threat to commercial aviation, but is that really true? I doubt a balloon with a circuit board could cause an engine to fail, but there are lots of sensitive measurement devices, like a pitot tube, that I imagine could fail if a balloon hit it. (For reference, Aeroperu 603 was brought down by tape that wasn't removed from the plane.) I'm all about hobbyists hobbying, but it does seem like there should be at least some so of registration system so we know what people are launching into shared airspace.
- ceejayoz 4y ago> People keep saying a lightweight craft under six pounds poses no threat to commercial aviation, but is that really true? True enough for the extremely risk-averse FAA. > there are lots of sensitive measurement devices, like a pitot tube, that I imagine could fail if a balloon hit it. (For reference, Aeroperu 603 was brought down by tape that wasn't removed from the plane.) Tape over all of the multiply-redundant static ports on the aircraft. We don't treat tape as a critical threat to aircraft. The 737-MAX has three pitot tubes and six static ports, deliberately placed on both sides of the aircraft. (https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Boeing-737-NG-and-MAX-primary-air-data-sensors-with-processing-systems_fig4_343474935 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Boeing-737-NG-and-MAX-pr...)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- liketochill 4y agoBut only 1 angle of attack sensor on some models …
- Sakos 4y agoNo, but that's fine, because Boeing needs to make money upselling carriers on redundancy.
- fredoralive 4y ago
- nodesocket 4y agoIs it just me, or is the tone of the title and this article a little absurd? "Feared"? It's a hobby balloon for goodness sake, it's not a human being. We are living in a extremely heightened state of alert and security and frankly we all should be worrying a lot more about larger problems than science experiment balloons.
- krisoft 4y agoI think “feared” in this context means they think it happened but have no proof of it. > We are living in a extremely heightened state of alert and security I recommend that you take deep breaths. There are many worrying things but none of them will be better handled by panicking over them.
- chrismsimpson 4y agoQueue “Frolic” by Luciano Michelini
- zxcvbn4038 4y agoA large weather balloon is like $100 and the sidewinder missiles being used to shoot them down cost ~$500,000. If some prankster launched a thousand balloons wouldn't it cost half a billion dollars to shoot them all down? "I'm Steve-O and this is the moon festival..."
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- thaumasiotes 4y agoThe moon festival is September 29 this year. Interestingly, despite requiring foods named after the moon, featuring special moon-related holiday blessings, and having viewing the moon as one of the primary celebratory activities, the name of the festival doesn't mention the moon.
- zxcvbn4038 4y agoI was picturing Steve-O launching a thousand butt shaped weather balloons and calling it the "moon festival" as a play on words. Unidentified Flying Orifices seemed too obvious. Hope Wee Man doesn't go airborn and get shot down. Would also be hysterical if Kim Jong-un declared that the Great Leader had a great sense of humor so he commanded all the caterpillars of the fields and forests to weave a thousand giant balloons of the finest silk which he then filled with the rays of the sun and sewed shut with a single hair from the purest school girl, and then sent them to America with a wave of his hand to confuse and bewilder the Great Advisory. And the generals around him did laugh and then they cried because fate was so fortunate to allow them to witness the Great Leader's spectacle. One day someone is going to train ChatGPT on that, and that's why we can't have nice things! m-(O.o)-m
- jklinger410 4y agoIt is so funny that it is literally as simple as: Air Force found one Chinrese balloon and now they are shooting down every similar one. I'm imagining some red-faced colonel barking this order, embarrassed by being caught on their ass about the first balloon. I would be absolutely SHOCKED if this represented anything more than simple incompetence. This will be followed shortly by new regulations emulating what other countries do about their air space. This whole balloon fiasco is a straightforward case of CYA. Which is why we have no details, and everyone thinks they are UFOs now. Priceless.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoThere is no way to know what it is exactly until you shoot it down.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Barrin92 4y agoThat sentence qualifies for America's 21st century national slogan, and not just in the military.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y agoIs it inaccurate?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ScoobleDoodle 4y agoCYA: cover your ass
- throwaway67743 4y agoThis is horrifically embarrassing, the anti China rhetoric has now strayed into paranoia, they could have easily determined what it was beforehand with their "world class" warfare suite - it's no wonder the east thinks they're a joke (which they really are)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mardifoufs 4y agoIt's really funny how just a few years ago, making fun of those "idiots" back in the 1950s-60s for being paranoid about the red scare and of their toxic, almost ridiculous commie paranoia was common and mainstream. Yet we are back at almost exactly the same spot, with the exact same rhetoric and a similar public/media discourse. Just wild.
- paganel 4y agoI called this whole thing as a joke a few days ago, glad that I was proved right. Of course that the propaganda machine won't touch the Air Force (or the US military more generally) not even with a feather, it's full "the Emperor's clothes are all so wonderful!"-mode.
- not2b 4y agoThe original Chinese balloon was completely different from these three tiny things that were shot down later, and that one was worth investigating. It was huge, the other three are tiny and probably hobbyist balloons.
- davidw 4y ago"Hey kids, remember the big balloon freakout of 2023?". I wasn't around for it, but this has some big 'red scare' vibes from what I've read of it.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- smm11 4y agoThe remaining two ballons were from a birthday party in Sitka, AK.
- jFriedensreich 4y agoas predicted by nena in 1983. we have 96 more to go, brace for a long ride.
- hinata08 4y agoI just ctrl-Fed the comment section to find that ref. thank you ! that news enlightened my day. the coldwar style of conflict we're living, the harmless Luftballons auf ihrem weg zu Hoziron (compared to UFOs), and the fighter pilots who're "going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down" make it really look like that song. now let's find out if we reach 99 luftballons, or some Dr Strangelove thing first ( a year before Nena made their song, NATO made an exercise with a plot that went all the way to using nuclear bombs _Able Archer 83_, and the Soviets almost retaliated to false warnings of ICBMs launches, that were issued by a computer that couldn't be wrong) How far are we actually from there with China ?
- stan3223 4y agoWow. Knew '99 Luftballons' as a catchy song. Just checked lyrics thanks to your comment. Had no clue it was an anti-war song.
- runjake 4y agoIf all of this nonsense in the news is interesting to you, check out radiosondes[1]. There is a very active recovery community[2]. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiosonde https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiosonde 2. https://sondehub.org/ https://sondehub.org/
- lukewrites 4y agoI’ve been talking to my five year old about weather balloons lately and he’s interested in launching one of his own to try to get a picture of the Earth’s curvature. Can anyone recommend resources on this topic? Surely there are hobby groups around but I must not be searching for the right combo of keywords - haven’t found anything.
- tcmart14 4y agoCheck out the Ham radio community. There are amateurs who launch balloons and put things on board like radio with APRS and such. You might get some good ideas and help your kid down the road to a pretty interesting hobby.
- spoonfeeder006 4y agoHave you looked up FAA regulations? https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/atc_html/chap9_section_6.html https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/atc_html... Also, might be good to look into putting a device that will broadcast its location via radio or radar. I believe that above 60k feet airspace is unrestricted, but up till there it might be a good idea Plus a broadcast signal might scream "This isn't a spy balloon" to USAF lol
- pfych 4y agoI've only just got into radio after hearing about these pico balloons. I've found a decent community over on r/RTLSDR that share information and pictures about hobbyist/DIY radio stuff. I picked up the recommended gear for about $40 and will be trying to receive transmissions around my area. From some posts there it looks like even beginner gear can get images from the NOAA weather satellites.
- prawn 4y agoDoesn't answer your question, but if you're not aware, try watching some of Mark Rober's videos on YouTube with him. There was one recently about trying to safely drop an egg from space. He'd probably enjoy a lot of the other videos as well, including the squirrel obstacle courses.
- T-A 4y ago
- justin66 4y agoYeesh. This guy is not helping the future of his hobby, which I'm guessing is pretty precarious right now: “I tried contacting our military and the FBI—and just got the runaround—to try to enlighten them on what a lot of these things probably are. And they’re going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down,” says Ron Meadows, the founder of Scientific Balloon Solutions (SBS), a Silicon Valley company that makes purpose-built pico balloons for hobbyists, educators and scientists. In other news: Biden wants ‘sharper rules’ on unknown aerial objects https://apnews.com/article/biden-politics-united-states-government-guam-karine-jean-pierre-6457aaf3e7322dd24e2b7274c3ba4813 https://apnews.com/article/biden-politics-united-states-gove...
- zhte415 4y agoPerhaps it's better to seek to inform and influence policy, rather than be passively dictated by it.
- beebmam 4y agoWeren't these balloons at the altitude level that civilian aircraft fly? How exactly is it legal to do what these guys claim to have been doing? This is bizarre stuff. This guy should be thankful he's not in prison yet, even though he should be.
- trallnag 4y agoWow what a nasty comment.
- justin66 4y agoI expect they were operating their balloons within the lawful parameters set by the FAA. I also expect those parameters might soon change now that spy balloons are a thing. That guy's hobby needs a talented spokesperson right now, and he definitely is not it.
- Rebelgecko 4y agoIf you think that's bad, wait until you hear what the crooks at NOAA have been up to!
- bigmattystyles 4y agoI know it says a lot that's not great about the US military, etc.., but if I was a hobbyist, I'd wear the fact that the USAF shot my amateur craft down as such a badge of honor.
- idlewords 4y agoI remember how just last week people in some HN thread were scientifically proving that a small cylinder couldn't be a balloon, so it must be aliens.
- bonyt 4y agoWas in a group where we launched a couple of weather balloons back in undergrad. One we recovered and got cool pictures from[1]. The other one never returned. I now choose to believe it was shot down by the USAF back in 2010. [1]: https://imgur.com/a/1IAEBQs https://imgur.com/a/1IAEBQs
- bentobean 4y agoYou know what would sell like hotcakes? A large, inflatable party balloon shaped like the Chinese spy balloon. It would have an inflatable piece on the bottom shaped like the solar array. Someone needs to make this happen.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]