99 Balloons I.

This is coolbert:

"You and I in a little toy shop buy a bag of balloons with the money we've got Set them free at the break of dawn 'Til one by one, they were gone Back at base, bugs in the software Flash the message, 'Something's out there' Floating in the summer sky 99 red balloons go by."

SkyHookers!

I am reading from the web sites: "Reconnaissance Balloons (WS-119L / WS-461L)"  by Andreas Parsch and
"[3.0] Cold War Balloon Flights 1945:1965" - - details and statistics of the American balloon reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union and it all makes for very sad and depressing reading. The VAST MAJORITY of these balloon missions were just abject failures, abysmally so, the results apparently gleaned as compared to the money, time, and effort suggesting that these various projects were almost a NO GO from the start.

1. "Between May and October that year [1955], more than a hundred WS-119L  balloons were launched under operation "Moby Dick Hi" (as usual, the Moby Dick name was used as cover). Although only 11 successful mid-air recoveries were made in 33 attempts  Grayback [Moby Dick Hi]." This was Grayback the classified missions.

2.  "[From] 10 January 1956, until 1 March. About 448 balloons had been launched, with about 40 gondolas recovered. The balloons had returned some useful imagery, but their haphazard flight paths made the 'catch' a matter of sheer luck." This was Genetrix the classified missions.

3. "Between 10 January and 6 February [1956], a total of 448 balloons were launched, and resulted in 44 successful camera gondola recoveries. Of the about 380 balloons, which actually reached Soviet airspace, more than 300 were either shot down or came down prematurely because of malfunctions or ballast depletion. The balance of the unsuccessful balloons reached the recovery zones, but couldn't be retrieved for various reasons." This too was Genetrix the same classified missions.

4. "The Genetrix photos covered only a small part (8%) of the Soviet and Chinese land mass. Because of the balloons' drift pattern, particularly interesting areas in high latitudes were not covered at all." More Genetrix.

5. "Three MELTING POT balloons were launched in July 1958 . . . Due to various bungles, all three dropped their gondolas when over Communist territory." Melting Pot the last three balloon missions, recce, 1959.

6. "In hindsight, the most useful results of the program was the development of the HYAC-1 high-resolution high-altitude camera system, which formed the technology base of the camera systems in the first U.S. photo reconnaissance satellites." Again from Melting Pot missions, THOSE GONDOLAS CARRIED ALOFT AND CAPTURED [?] BY THE SOVIETS HAVING THE MOST ADVANCED STATE-OF-THE-ART CAMERAS IN THEM, THE TOTAL LOT COMPROMISED TO THE SOVIETS, THAT EQUIPMENT AS ALSO USED IN THE FIRST OUTER SPACE RECCE SATELLITES [CORONA]!

There you have it. Less than ten percent of the gondolas with cameras and photographic images ever recovered, and the "take" less than spectacular, even so mundane to be more or less worthless.

And from what I read, it is not like these balloons were such crude objects that they no chance of success. Seem to have been more or less for the time state-of-the-art, especially with regard to the camera systems contained in the gondolas. Some pretty good thought had gone into the planning of these balloon missions, but for whatever combination of reasons, again, it was predominantly a NO GO!

You can always with hindsight suggest that a lot of experience was gained from these various balloon missions. Finding out what will NOT work is a step on the road to finding out what will work. Those cameras for instance and I would have to assume the industrialized method of processing the film was a big step forward in the field of photo recon? The balloons themselves we have to give pause to and consider also what alternatives were available. Still, those various stats do make for painful reading, the lack of success most jarring!

coolbert.