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U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

cnbc.com

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Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#221

Post by unity1001 »

LarryMullins wrote: post #199
unity1001 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their continued atrocities Before it comes to China's alleged atrocities that every single Muslim country's parliamentarians and diplomants say they dont exist: Have you yet persecuted and jailed those who murdered 1 million in Iraq?

America voted for a president who said he would, but then reneged on that promise. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/31/obama-... Fuck you Obama!

Well. If the Americans at least showed the actual war criminals in their midst same rencor that they are exhibiting against concocted/alleged war criminals abroad, things could change. But they aren't. They aren't even using harsh language against them. Instead, they are directing all their ire and harshest words always against "others' crimes"...

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#222

Post by dahdum »

chitowneats wrote: post #33
Kibae wrote: post #12

I wonder what the cost to take down the balloon was for the US (including monitoring it) vs. the cost of the balloon for China. If the ratio is something greater than 10:1, then I would say China got a pretty good ROI on a small investment.

I really do wonder if this is them testing that they can reliably and cheaply get high-altitude balloons to the U.S. mainland. In the event of a military conflict, I can imagine them swarming us with these. They must cost far, far less than the average American military aircraft. If our air power becomes partly tied up defending Taiwan, dropping bombs from craft like these might be an effective strategy to demoralize…

> If our air power becomes partly tied up defending Taiwan, dropping bombs from craft like these might be an effective strategy to demoralize the U.S. population.

No, it would have the opposite effect, like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor. They'd be starting WW3 and deciding to solo it vs NATO and friends.

> Suddenly, lots of people in the U.S. have Chinese aggression on their mind. Knowing Americans pretty well, I would expect this to actually increase public support for the defense of Taiwan.

Yeah, I think you're right.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#223

Post by sebzim4500 »

pxc wrote: post #102

I am so tired of China being used to stoke American jingoism, of politicians making a contest of who is really 'tough on China' and, most horrifyingly, of seeing other USians online practically salivate as they fantasize about a war with China. It's some cold war boogieman horseshit. And it's depressing to watch here on Hacker News, too, any comments that question the beating of those war drums go dead. Yesterday I h…

I recall very similar comments a year ago talking about how there was no way that Putin would attempt to invade Ukraine and it was just American jingoism.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#224

Post by xuki »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #182
scotty79 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? The west is not a friend of China as well. And US has downright militant rethoric agains China.

The US and Europe brought China into the WTO, gave it most favored nations trading status, transferred trillions in technology, and financed the modernization of the country. Pretty good friends, IMO. But it is not been reciprocated, and is now going bad. The crushing of the democracy movement in Hong Kong was a wake up call as to the intentions of China going forward.

You said as if it was out of the goodness of their hearts and not because they wanted to access the cheap labor market of China. The west would not have their living standard as high as today if it wasn't for China.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#225

Post by zzzeek »

hfbff wrote: post #180
yohanshi wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a taiwanese who lurks on hacker news for many years but when I saw this post I had to make an account. You are dead wrong, China is an enemy of the free world, pure and simple. South Koreans and Ukrainians would agree with me here. Especially since China has declared no limit friendship with russia

From your point of view, I can see how China is bad and the USA is good. But ask someone whose country got invaded by the USA or whose bloody dictator got supported by the USA. Over here in Latinamerica we still remember the horrible things that the USA did. It seems to me (but I could have a false perception) that China is a horrible bully in their corner of the world (nine dash line and, of course their will to inv…

That's what they did to Tibet for example and they absolutely are an extreme ongoing threat to Taiwan

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#226

Post by scotty79 »

eganist wrote: post #164
scotty79 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? The west is not a friend of China as well. And US has downright militant rethoric agains China.

> US has downright militant rethoric in defense of the independent nation of Taiwan * Fixed that for you.

Remind me which independent nations US unilaterally defended with militant rhetoric and to what effect?

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#227

Post by sabujp »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #187
sabujp wrote: post #146

Spy balloon cost : $3k - $50k , you can even buy them on alibaba and some other sites: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-hot-sale-surveillance-balloon-with_60454941082.html https://www.made-in-china.com/showroom/jennerjiang/product-list/catalog-1.html?view=0 Cost to shoot down balloon with F22 $400k for the AIM-9X, ~$85k for 1 hour of flight time, so ~$400 - $500k to shoot down one balloon that cost < $50k

Presumably if this becomes common we can think of cheaper ways to do it.

i wonder if we could do it with a SHIELD laser weapon

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#228

Post by LarryMullins »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #171
cududa wrote: post #25

I had seen reports that the balloon was the length of 3-4 school busses but it appears that was misreported and just repeated. The PAYLOAD was the length of 3-4 school busses. I haven’t been following this much until today/ vaguely aware as an amusing background story. But, has anyone seen high res photos of the balloon or someone doing back of the envelope math on the size of the balloon portion? I ask simply becaus…

It looks like the large size is mostly just solar panels (I'm assuming that's what they were; they could have been 'sails' to help steer it) and their scaffolding. From some of the available photos there's two wings, each with eight panels. There's a tradeoff between the weight of the solar panels vs simply using batteries (though batteries don't like the cold, and solar panels do), so I think maybe they were hoping…

> solar panels (I'm assuming that's what they were; they could have been 'sails' to help steer it)

Or perhaps both at once. I really hope the details of this craft are published, the machine nerd in me needs to know.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#229

Post by yongjik »

yohanshi wrote: post #158
pxc wrote: post #102

I am so tired of China being used to stoke American jingoism, of politicians making a contest of who is really 'tough on China' and, most horrifyingly, of seeing other USians online practically salivate as they fantasize about a war with China. It's some cold war boogieman horseshit. And it's depressing to watch here on Hacker News, too, any comments that question the beating of those war drums go dead. Yesterday I h…

As a taiwanese who lurks on hacker news for many years but when I saw this post I had to make an account. You are dead wrong, China is an enemy of the free world, pure and simple. South Koreans and Ukrainians would agree with me here. Especially since China has declared no limit friendship with russia

As a South Korean, well, I don't like the Chinese government either, but these aggressive rhetorics don't help. My own country was under decades of pro-American dictators, all the while conveniently enjoying the membership of the Free World(TM): at that point, what does "free" even mean?

I'm not saying America is the force of evil; it has done some nice things, and some other pretty horrible things. What I'm trying to say is: if you have a sitting superpower and a rising wannabe, and you view it as a fight between good and evil, then you are practically inviting horrible things to happen, "because otherwise the bad guys will win."

Think of all the horrible things that happened during the cold war.

Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon

#230

Post by gnicholas »

HybridCurve wrote: post #209
gnicholas wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think China would have hesitated to shoot down an American "weather" balloon, the size of three school buses, if it entered China's airspace? I doubt it would have been allowed to float for thousands of miles before being downed.

That's because China does not value human life as much as the US. The reasons for not engaging it sooner were stated publicly.

We were aware of it when it was over Montana, which is a very sparsely-populated state. Is it really that hard to shoot something like this down over such a territory? I have no way of knowing, but I'd think they could bring it down without risk to human life. The main thing I'd worry about is that it might have some sort of unannounced payload that would be spread widely if it were exploded mid-air. But I didn't hear anyone talking about the risk of biological/chemical weapon possibilities as the reason to not bring it down sooner.
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