[deleted_account]

This may be the wrong take-away, but the Air Force shooting your balloon down would be a massive source of pride for the science clubs I remember from my youth. We would have had that on a t-shirt within a week.

[blamazon]

I would be right away dialing my congresspersons to demand an appropriate victory marking[1] be placed on the relevant aircraft.

It would make for a great photo op someday when all this is just a historical footnote.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_marking

[dylan604]

I nominate this as the Victory Marking: https://mellywilliams.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/red-balloo...

[thepasswordis]

I feel like this sort of spirit is now completely gone. If your science experiment gets shot down, my expectation is you're going to get labelled a terrorist and thrown into a prison cell.

[jollyllama]

Yeah, if I were the guy who launched it, I wouldn't say anything.

[krisoft]

> you're going to get labelled a terrorist and thrown into a prison cell

You are making up things.

[NDizzle]

Yep.

Float around and find out.

[par]

Yes, but that was a different America. Post 9/11, post housing crisis, post global terrorism, post decline into late stage capitalism is changing the narrative substantially. Everyone is constantly on guard these days. But I agree with and love the sentiment.

[WillPostForFood]

Pride for club and a little shame for the government.

[dylan604]

God. Country. Corp. Unit. Balloon.