Search results

I'm seeing some people claiming that the balloon had an explosive self-destruct in it but I haven't found anything I consider reliable. Anybody else seen similar claims?

You must have watched very different footage than everybody else. We pretty clearly see the big burst of black smoke from the missile exploding directly on top of the instrument package, not the center or top of the envelope. Impact of the missile (closeup) starts at 21 seconds.

It had a missile detonate maybe a dozen feet away. The odds that any watertight seal could survive the shockwave that would generate, even if there was somehow zero shrapnel involved, is highly unlikely.

No, you're the one being blatantly disingenuous. The effects of slamming into water at terminal velocity are pretty much the same as hitting dirt once you get up to that speed. Water only provides protection from fall damage at that kind of height if you're playing Minecraft. OTOH, salt water...

Yeah, electronics that have been soaked for days in salt water after being hit with a missile are always in so much better condition than ones that lay on the ground outside for a few hours.

I'm somewhat amused at just how much cope, even here on this thread, revolved around "They didn't shoot down the balloon because they wanted to take it intact to study it" followed by the US shooting down once it was guaranteed it would fall into the ocean and be lost instead.