Did an F-22 shoot down an Illinois club's hobby balloon over Canada last weekend?
. The later objects were “most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation, or research institutions, studying weather or conducting other scientific research,” Biden said.
That’s apparently what Scientific Balloon Solutions founder Ron Meadows, whose California company designs pico balloons, has been trying to tell anyone in the U.S. government who will listen. “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.
It’s not clear if an F-22 popped NIBBB’s K9YO-15 on Saturday or not — and it may never be. Canadian forces sent to retrieve the wreckage may not find it, and pico balloons regularly disappear on their own without the help of a heat-seeking missile, asLaunching high-altitude, circumnavigational pico balloons has emerged only within the past decade.
Nonetheless, balloon enthusiasts are understandably worried that their projects will now become military targets. They’re also afraid they’ll face new flight restrictions, even though it seems highly unlikely that the lightweight balloons, which are usually less than a meter wide, pose much risk to commercial air traffic — one of the only reasons Biden and the Defense Department have given for shooting down the objects .
Then again, while it’s surely cool to build anything that can circumnavigate the globe and disappointing when the balloon finally goes dark, building something an F-22 blows out of the sky is a pretty amazing accomplishment, too.Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world.
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