Fascinating!
No reason not to use hydrogen given the balloon is on its own death mission. More easily available. Any reason why not?
And, how big could these balloons be? Could one lift a larger payload, a proper cruise missile. Save all that launch fuel.
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Do they fly high enough to avoid interception? Gary Powers U2 spy plane was at 21,000 metres when shot down, google tells me.
And, you could launch swarms of little balloons, party balloon size with strips of alu hanging from the, like chaff in World War II. Or just release chaff from a balloon. Or whatever the modern, better equivalent would be. A swarm of school boy paper aeroplanes with some annoying and noisy electronics mounted on it. A 100 of those with one actual weapon launched.
And, what about as temporary replacement for Starlink? A balloon very high could be steering a ground hugging cruise missile.
One final thing, the wind might carry them onwards to China, Japan, then the USA... that could be a problem. But overall, I see only advantages.
