recounted the Chinese balloon episode, and toured an Alaskan NORAD base. Base personnel’s routine missions include flying air tankers to refuel F22s, so they can intercept other harmless balloons. The technology they have is more than capable of tracking balloons, but NORAD is seeking new technology anyway.
This segment can best be compared to an advertisement: Instead of selling shoes, soap, or cars, they’re selling a rapidly expanding budget for the machinery of global empire. At one point, Holt asked a radar operations commander whether or not NORAD’s technology was capable of detecting those kinds of balloons. The answer was a resounding yes; the commander explained that the warning systems were set to alert for objects traveling at higher velocity, but operators have since adjusted their warnings to look for other objects.