Spies in the Sky

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2023

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Spy balloons are really blowing up right now. The US has shot down one confirmed Chinese balloon and has engaged several other unidentified flying objects. But like so many things we cover on this podcast, it's an old method in a new outfit. Spy balloons for reconnaissance go back all the way to the French Revolution and pop up again in the American Civil War.

To talk through the history of spying from the sky, Dan is joined on the podcast by the curator at the International Spy Museum Dr Andrew Hammond who also hosts their podcast Spycast. They discuss the ideas that have taken off and the ones that haven't... including pigeons with cameras, drones disguised as dragonflies and satellites in outer space.

Produced by Mariana Des Forges and mixed by Dougal Patmore.

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Transcript

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0:28.3	Visit go.acast.com forward slash start.
0:33.0	Hello everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit.
0:39.4	Everyone's talking balloons at the moment.
0:41.5	The US military has shot down one confirmed Chinese balloon and has engaged several other
0:47.6	unidentified flying objects which may or may not be balloons.
0:51.7	This story, although when I first heard it, I thought it might be a bit of a hot air.
0:54.6	No, it's really blown up.
0:57.0	As ever you come to this podcast to remind you that what seems new is in fact very, very
1:01.8	old.
1:03.4	In the 18th century building on the work of Robert Boyle, it was proposed that if you could
1:08.6	fill a balloon with hydrogen, it would be lighter than the air surrounding it, thus would
1:14.7	rise into the air.
1:17.0	In the 1780s, Jacques Charles and the Hobbaire brothers constructed airtight gas bags.
1:24.2	They filled these bags with hydrogen that was made by pouring sulfuric acid onto a beold
1:31.0	pile of scrap iron.
	...

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