Chinese spy balloon

Fired by Congressman George Santos.

 

I agree that our military will recover some or even a lot of the remains. In fact, it will be a good exercise for them; valuable training. I just think it would be easier and more valuable if it settled into the water at less than terminal velocity (sans balloon lift/drag) largely intact.

 

Still skeptical that we were worried about debris over land and waited for that reason as opposed to intelligence gathering and that no intelligence was being gathered

 

It was at 58,000 feet. That somewhat limits the options....let Santos shoot it down in an F-22 or give Greene a go at with a Jewish space LASER.

 

Ahhh-hoooo!

 

I am a Republican and far from a Biden fan, but this is a big "nothing burger" for them to make a stand on. If we had a chance near Alaska, yes a mistake, otherwise the more we talk about it, the worse we sound. He (Biden) now comes off as making a rational decision, and those critical will regret it. JMHO

 

Are we sure the balloon wasn’t just a reminder for Trump that his balloon payment is due to the Bank of China this year?

 

Thanks for the 4th grade cliff notes. I go away for awhile then I come back and quickly realize why I left. Why does everyone have to be aholes on this board?

 

So there isn't mass carnage on the ground from falling debris?

 

The disruption to air traffic during the shoot down.:



FAA ground stop for Chinese spy balloon shootdown results in massive flight radar gap off South Carolina coast

 

Is this the F-22’s first official kill ?

 

It was downed over the Atlantic Ocean. No mass carnage on the ground and no whales escaping from wind turbines were hit, either.

 

So much for it being impossible to shoot down.

 

These people really do play to rubes. If shooting down this balloon was pertinent we would have done it. No questions asked. I like that people think China was flying some super important spy tech on a damn balloon that was obviously going to be spotted by us.

 

Impressive

 

Yes the balloon has been shot down. Now the recovery begins. Whether or not we will get any information out of it remains to be determined.

None the less if in fact this was a spy operation - Why would China wait until this balloon floated around the globe on the westerly winds to retrieve the information? They would be watching real time and uploaded the data via satellite transmission. In this case there is no data to retrieve. The Chinese are not dumb so you're not going to get data out of this.

Then again in the end it may well have been a weather balloon collecting atmospheric data. What's the potential use of that data? Possibly an aerial chemical attack (released from the stratosphere highly unlikely) or maybe global warming research. In fact China wasn't the only one tracking that balloon we tracked for them.

Then there is the aspect of potential technological value. To this I say that is a load of bunk. China is not going to put any state of the art secret technological information on a balloon for data collection. They have access to the same cameras as everyone else as well as network technology so no break through there. There is no guidance system on the balloon as the balloon was drifting so that's out of the question. The composite of the balloon may be of some value but then again maybe not.

We will have to wait and see what our federal government has to say.

As an aside it is reported that an F-22 Raptor shot it down with an AIM-9X Sidewinder infrared air to air short range missile. Video shows two missiles in flight one hit the balloon and the other missed. Cost per missile $472,000.00. Cost of China's balloon no clue.

Updated 2/25: Pentagon states one missile was fired.