La France vend à l'Allemagne le ballon espion que l'Amérique a perdu pour 2,7 milliards

France sells Germany the spy balloon America lost for $2.7 billion. On October 28, 2015, a 74-meter (350-foot) American military balloon, the centerpiece of Raytheon's JLENS program, broke its tether and drifted for nearly four hours over two states, dragging a 2-kilometer (2-mile) cable that left tens of thousands of homes without power. The cost of the fiasco: $2.7 billion swallowed up since 1998, for only two balloons built out of the 32 planned. While America picks up the pieces in a Pennsylvania forest, a small French company in the Var region, A-NSE, founded in 2010 by Vice Admiral Patrick Hébrard, demonstrates how this weapon should have worked. Its tethered balloons can detect a vehicle 40 km away, a person 25 km away, remain airborne for up to 40 days, and cost a fraction of the price of a drone. As a result, Rheinmetall chose A-NSE for the Bundeswehr in Niger, the UN deployed its balloons in Mali, Frontex monitored the Aegean Sea, and France broke a monopoly the United States had been unable to maintain. From the ground to orbit, discover how a Provençal workshop humiliated the world's leading military power. Music used: Eyes of Glory - Aakash Gandhi, Duty Calls - Rod Kim. Photos from archive.org, royalty-free and in the public domain.