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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 .
"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 ...
Not since a balloon crashed in Roswell, New Mexico have inflatable unmanned craft so dominated the American discourse. Alex Woodward and Andrew Feinberg sum up what we learned this week
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 While successful, the balloon method was soon superseded by seismic detectors.
The Union Army Balloon Corps was a branch of the Union Army during the American Civil War, established by presidential appointee Thaddeus S. C. Lowe.It was organized as a civilian operation, which employed a group of prominent American aeronauts and seven specially built, gas-filled balloons to perform aerial reconnaissance on the Confederate States Army.
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]