711–720 of 1001 posts
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I don’t think they jammed it, considering how high it was. Intercepted .. I mean, China can use strong encryption too.
They can use strong encryption, but can they protect their private keys?
This is dumb. Same airship design has been seen around the world for years, https://twitter.com/BalloonSciDan/status/1479218147098038278 There are many companies building and launching balloon airships of similar size. The US weather service alone puts hundreds of balloons over China, https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/radiosondes
The government and DoD said it is a Chinese surveillance balloon. Do you disagree with that? Or with the decision to shoot it down? Or what?
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especially compared to satellites It is a lot easier to take pictures and collect data at 60,000 ft (balloon) than from a satellite in low earth orbit, which is closer to 6,000,000 ft.
They also could have had ground penetrating radar. Note the path of the balloon was over the US missile silos https://geo-matching.com/content/new-approach-to-use-ground-... Outside the atmosphere you would not be able to do it
The Space Shuttle flew missions with an imaging radar that discovered ancient riverbeds beneath deep sand in the Sahara. At the time, some thought it would have worked equally well to disclose buried military infrastructure.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/shuttle-imaging-radar-a-si...
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When an aircraft doesnt have a transponder, doesnt respond to radio calls, no flight plan on file, and seems to be adrift, it is a hazard to navigation irrespective of altitide. Such things get intercepted and, if in any way dangerous, are shot down. Post-9/11, there are even protocols for shooting down unresponsive airliners.
Name one plane that flies at more than 60,000 feet, I'll wait.
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China has ICBMs with nuclear warheads. No one is confused about whether China has the ability to harm Americans on American soil.
No one is confused about the result of the use of nuclear weapons. Has Russia used them yet in their almost year-long war against Ukraine? Has the U.S.? Update your assumptions. All major powers are exploring how they might wage war short of nukes.
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especially compared to satellites It is a lot easier to take pictures and collect data at 60,000 ft (balloon) than from a satellite in low earth orbit, which is closer to 6,000,000 ft.
They also could have had ground penetrating radar. Note the path of the balloon was over the US missile silos https://geo-matching.com/content/new-approach-to-use-ground-... Outside the atmosphere you would not be able to do it
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For what it's worth, I'm not sure this is healthy; you should be able to consume news without having it effect your mood so negatively. Might be time to talk to a therapist about it.
I disagree and while I think I understand what you're saying I'm surprised by it. News is often intentionally devicive, misleading, and salacious for a reason. Being affected by propaganda does not come anywhere near a need for therapy. In fact I'd say it is a sign someone has critical thinking and a likely a fair base of information. In the face of the facade of trust clearly lying or engaging in rhetoric, hyperbole…
If someone struggles to apply that to the consumption of news media, I worry about their ability to apply this skill to events in life that are much more impactful, like a speeding ticket or the loss of a job.
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I posted this link earlier but it was tracked. Here is a flight path of Canadian fighters checking the balloon out as it crossed towards Montana. https://twitter.com/steffanwatkins/status/162136299808111001... The link was in this longer, and good article: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/chinas-spy-balloon-ove...
CF18 seem to have a service ceiling of 15km. This thing was about 20km high. Could they shoot it if they wanted?
I was reading about the choice of missile used for shooting it down uses lasers for the fuse instead of radar which might have had issues with the balloon depending on the material. Also this seems be the first F22 kill.
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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…
It could’ve actually been a “science experiment” just launched at the behest of the military as a test like you say. So they’d have plausible deniability like the “fishing boats” in the South China Sea
The U-2 spy plane did just that, as did Project Genetrix (Unmanned surveillance balloons), and then later, the SR-71 Blackbird, and as much as the Soviets complained, complaining and shooting at them was pretty much all they could do.
They shot down/recovered so many Project Genetrix balloons, in fact, that their left-over radiation-hardened film was re-used by the Soviet space program in their Luna 3 Moon probe.
All the sound and fury around this seems to be a serious case of 'the shoe is now on our foot'.
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Must be nice being so privileged to talk down the very thing that maintains global trade channels (diplomacy) and keeps most of the world in check. Most of the world is backwater nations who oppress the shit out of their population making whatever faults you find in the US seem trivial. And yes the world isn’t fair and entropy exists. EU is basically a forced alliance after thousand years of constant fighting that le…
The idea people would still function while the entire east and west coast burns is the same fantasy at massive scale as people who walk around with guns thinking they are going to somehow defeat someone who has planned and already actively shooting at them. I believe great many ICBMs would definitely make it to major cities and that is the end of the world. We've already seen how people handle a pandemic, imagine act…