For the first time, one of the Pentagon’s spy blimps successfully detected and tracked an anti-ship cruise missile, which the Navy then proceeded to blast out of the sky. But it’s only a marginal success for the once-hyped blimp program. Once sweeping in scale and designed to use radars to help shoot down enemy missiles — a threat we could potentially face during a war with Iran — the blimps have seen drastic cuts after nearly $2 billion in development costs and years of delays.