Today I learned that a research lab at the University of Florida has been launching rockets for some time now - with the purpose of triggering lightning strikes! The idea is very similar to Ben Franklin’s kite experiment, but instead of tying a key to a kite, you tie a very thin and long copper wire to a rocket that is grounded. You then proceed to launch it into a storm, bringing the copper wire with it, in the hopes that electricity will take the path of least resistance back down to earth, and vaporize the copper wire, thus triggering a strike. Some rockets even put cesium salts within their propellant, and thus rely on the conductivity of the salts to trigger the strike instead of a thin wire.
The interesting thing is that besides lighting research, this technique is actually also used for lightning control, as you can time when and where you would like the highest chance of the strike to hit. This reminded be of the Apollo 12 mission which was hit by lightning on ascent. The description of that mission was actually pretty great in Gene Kranz’s autobiography, in which he highlights Pete Conrad guessing they got hit by lightning, and EECOM engineer John Aaron’s famous ‘SCE to AUX’ fix.
So, while rockets and lightning have been foes in the past, I’m happy to hear they’ve since made up!