Balloons Are Above Earth, Nearly Everywhere
The United States would need a lot of missiles if it were to shoot down every stray balloon that sets off a radar warning in American airspace.
“At any given moment, thousands of balloons” are above the Earth, including many used in the United States by government agencies, military forces, independent researchers and hobbyists, said Paul Fetkowitz, president of Kaymont Consolidated Industries, a maker of high-altitude balloons in Melbourne, Florida.
Mr. Fetkowitz and other experts say this flotilla may explain the origins of some of what John Kirby, a National Security Council spokesman, called the “slow-moving objects at high altitude with a small radar cross section” that were shot down over the U.S. and Canada recently.
Since February 4, when the United States shot down a large Chinese surveillance balloon, U.S. officials have sought to enhance radars and atmospheric trackers so they can more closely scrutinize the nation’s airspace. Balloon experts say the upgrade might generate a paralyzing wave of false alarms.
On February 10, fighter jets in waters over Alaska fired on an object the size of a small car that a U.S. Defense Department official said was most likely a balloon. The next day, an American F-22 attacked a cylindrical object over the Yukon Territory in Canada that was smaller than the Chinese balloon. On February 12, an octagonal structure with strings hanging off it and no evident payload was hit over Lake Huron after first appearing over Montana days before.
Mr. Fetkowitz said he worried that the U.S. government might not realize how crowded American skies had become with high-flying balloons.
Each year, around 60,000 balloons are launched by the National Weather Service, the agency said. The balloons are designed to rise about 32 kilometers, far higher than the altitude of the four objects detected recently. Mr. Fetkowitz noted that Alaska, where one of the objects was shot down, had more weather-balloon launching sites than any other state.
These balloons gather data that keeps passenger jets out of harm’s way and lets experts predict the likely onset of violent storms, Mr. Fetkowitz said.
Over the years, NASA has sent over 1,700 large balloons on scientific missions that can last for months. The balloons fly up to 35 kilometers high. Some carry sensors that explore the health of the ozone layer.
Experts in the balloon industry said that DARPA, the secretive defense agency in the U.S. in charge of advanced technology development, was experimenting with long-duration balloons for battlefield use that would act as communication relays. But Randolph Atkins, an agency spokesman, said neither he nor his boss knew of any such project.
Many of the 193 member states and territories of the World Meteorological Organization, based in Geneva, regularly send up stratospheric balloons in large numbers, some designed for long-term missions that collect data from around the globe.
“It’s endless,” said Mr. Fetkowitz, who added that a customer once used one of his company’s balloons to carry a Thomas the Tank Engine toy to stratospheric heights.
“We’ve turned away people,” he added. “We don’t want to do business with a guy who wants to send up a gun.”