this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2024
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Many years ago my grandfather was involved in an air force test of aerial defense platforms that used balloons.
The idea was you could station these things all around the country and at the first sign of an attack you could have missiles launched from 10k feet to anywhere from anywhere.
The test encountered two problems that caused them to abandon the idea.
These balloons were incredibly easy to shoot down. Which would, presumably, rain volatile rocket fuel and munitions down on whatever was beneath them.
And if a missile launched, but failed to separate completely from it's housing, it would carry that balloon on a wild, unpredictable trajectory, until it collided with something or it decided it had reached it's detonation time.
Ideally internet debates wouldn't get THAT heated though.