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However, balloons were still used for some specialized purposes, such as for meteorological observations and for training pilots. During the Cold War, the United States sent hundreds of high-altitude balloons over Eastern Bloc countries to gather intelligence on their nuclear capabilities, before replacing them with its newer spy planes.
The missions led to diplomatic protests from many countries, including Albania, China, and the Soviet Union, for the balloon flights over their territories. [4] [5] The United States claimed that the project was a worldwide meteorological survey and compared the balloons to "miniature satellites" out of the way of commercial air traffic. [11]
Their payloads were then tracked across the continental United States to map and study high altitude wind trajectories. [ 1 ] Project Flying Cloud, Weapons System 124A , was a derived concept to use balloons to deliver weapons of mass destruction .
The incident occurred at a time of severely strained relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. [1] Responding to the Soviet Union's deployment of fourteen SS-20/RSD-10 theatre nuclear missiles, the NATO Double-Track Decision was taken in December 1979 by the military commander of NATO to deploy 108 Pershing II nuclear missiles in Western Europe with the ability to hit targets ...
By 1947, the United States had launched thousands of top-secret Project Mogul balloons carrying devices to listen for Soviet atomic tests. [1] [2] On June 4, researchers at Alamogordo Army Air Field in New Mexico launched a long train of these balloons; they lost contact with the balloons and balloon-borne equipment within 17 miles (27 km) of W.W. "Mac" Brazel's ranch near Corona, New Mexico ...
Project Mogul (sometimes referred to as Operation Mogul) was a top secret project by the US Army Air Forces involving microphones flown on high-altitude balloons, whose primary purpose was long-distance detection of sound waves generated by Soviet atomic bomb tests. While successful, the balloon method was soon superseded by seismic detectors.
"Code 'Fu' [Weapon]") was an incendiary balloon weapon (風船爆弾, fūsen bakudan, lit. "balloon bomb") deployed by Japan against the United States during World War II. It consisted of a hydrogen -filled paper balloon 33 feet (10 m) in diameter, with a payload of four 11-pound (5.0 kg) incendiary devices and one 33-pound (15 kg) high ...
During the Cold War, the United States sent hundreds of high-altitude balloons, ostensibly for "meteorological survey" under Project Genetrix, over China and other Eastern Bloc countries to gain intelligence on their nuclear capabilities, drawing their protests. [24] [25]