CHICAGO (NewsNation) — According to Politico, the U.S military is jump-starting its plans to use high-altitude balloons — think Goodyear blimps at 60,000-90,000 feet — to track hypersonic missiles.
Hypersonic missiles can fly at Mach 5 speeds within the atmosphere, making them much harder to track with traditional radar than traditional missiles.
Experts tell NewsNation that high-altitude balloons will enable the U.S. to offer an early warning about, and possibly destroy, the new generation of weapons.
“There is a lot of value to strategic warning, independent of the capability to intercept. We saw this in Iraq and Al Assad base attack that Iran executed where strategic warning was able to allow the soldiers to take cover, and that was able to sufficiently save lives through things like passive defense,” said Wes Rumbaugh, a CSIS associate fellow at Missile Defense, on NewsNation’s “Rush Hour” on Tuesday.
He added that “the Department of Defense is certainly working on capabilities for active defense in certain theaters, as well.”
And speaking of defending against enemies of the U.S., America is in another spat with China — this time over space.
On Tuesday, China called claims from NASA administrator Bill Nelson that China might try to take over the moon an “Irresponsible smear.”
Nelson said we should be concerned that China was putting more focus on the moon in its space program with launches set for the end of the decade and that the world power is basically saying, “It’s ours now, stay out.”
The Chinese foreign minister called Nelson’s comments a lie.