Chinese "weather" balloon shoot-down over US

In summary: Russians and Chinese. In summary, the Chinese government said that this weather balloon was a research balloon, but it was shot down with an AIM-9X missile. The missile cost several hundred thousand dollars, and the balloon was less useful than that because it didn't have any countermeasures.
  • #246
Oh, I didn’t realise the marginal lift advantage. But He is getting more and more relatively costly.
Plus you can’t get an H balloon to ‘explode’. H will burn rapidly in contact with air as there’s only O2 outside the bag. Wooof is not Bang. I doubt if you’d hear much at 10km distance.
No fun being up there though. A gondola with pyro cable disconnect and a delayed opening chute could land you safely. And think of the money you save.
 

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