I'm surprised to find no mentions of Alan Eustace, former VP Eng. of Google, and his record-breaking jump from a balloon that was even higher:
U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
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Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#722I'm very surprised that China would take the risk of fueling a political firestorm when these balloons are only marginally more effective than the satellites they already have.
These intrusions are clearly a violation of our airspace and could even be considered an act of war.
What the hell was Xi thinking? Is he trying to communicate that China can do whatever it wants with impunity? Did he even authorize this flight or was this someone else's decision?
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#723In previous times, the US would ignore these balloons and quietly take them down. Instead they made a big deal out of it and milked it. Brilliant and opposite of what china expected
Not sure where your info is from, but this balloon was seen by the naked eye and all over social media. As someone who lives in Montana, many many people could see it. The idea that the USG prompted the publicity is unlikely to be accurate (would suggest a calculated social media psyop). Not impossible, but not likely.
How did you know it was chinese ?
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#724Earlier quoted context omitted.
They put out a statement a few hours ago whining that it was shot down so I wouldn't take that "apology" for much.
Can you share a link to the statement?
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#725I 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…
Then I severely underestimated the size of the thing. This is a gigantic balloon with a gigantic payload.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#726Earlier quoted context omitted.
NYTimes is reporting that this is actually the fifth balloon to cross into our airspace. First four were seemingly ignored, three times under the Trump administration and once before during Biden’s.
The implication of that being the shootdown was a media-initiated event. After civilians saw the balloon from the ground, and it became lead story on every news site, with the MAGA press calling Biden "weak", something had to be done, whether it makes military sense or not. https://www.foxnews.com/media/biden-weak-response-chinese-su...
McCarthy like Pelosi looks to visit Taiwan because of playground pride.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-30/china-urg...
USA is being baited into war on multiple fronts.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#727I 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…
The world has enjoyed a Pax Americana, and if the continuance of that means being 'tough on China', then that is a price that must be paid.
What is this American Jingoism you are talking about? America has thrown open its doors to international trade with China, welcomes their students, visitors, businesspeople and immigrants in the hundreds of thousands, even millions, every year, and places very few restrictions on Chinese ownership of American firms. No nation has extended such favorable terms to another, particularly one with a diametrically opposed political system, for so long. All this while China brazenly steals intellectual property, builds and militarizes the South China Sea in open defiance of the UNCLOS, indulges in chicanery and deception to hide its handling of a deadly pandemic that has killed more Americans than all wars that America has fought in combined, rapidly builds up its navy and its fishing fleet to intimidate and coerce American allies and openly collaborates with America's geopolitical rivals, including dangerous megalomaniacs threatening the annihilation of America, such as Kim Jong-Un, Vladimir Putin, and the Ayatollahs of Iran, even to the extent of practically funding and otherwise propping them up.
It's a miracle Americans have shown such forbearance for so long, really. Jingoism indeed!
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#728Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I don’t believe that deploying the entire nuclear arsenal of the world would wipe humanity off the face of earth. Would it suck and render some places uninhabitable? Yes. Would it affect fresh water and air quality? You bet. But people will find a way like a worm and some will survive. I am in Bay Area so I probably won’t, but others will. What about places in Africa and South East Asia? Probably will be “fine”. Besi…
100% agree. The developed world might be deleted but there will be plenty of tribes in Africa/SE Asia etc who will pretty much continue unaffected. Except those bothersome missionaries will stop coming around. The human race will continue though.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#729I'm very surprised that China would take the risk of fueling a political firestorm when these balloons are only marginally more effective than the satellites they already have. These intrusions are clearly a violation of our airspace and could even be considered an act of war. What the hell was Xi thinking? Is he trying to communicate that China can do whatever it wants with impunity? Did he even authorize this fligh…
> What the hell was Xi thinking?
Pelosi visited Taiwan before last Chinese elections which ensured Xi would win.
If it's meant to be, better for Xi to have USA attempt to fight multiple fronts concurrently.
Re: U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon
#730Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t think F-22 pilots get to paint their aircraft. It would destroy the stealth coatings, which are so specialized they are measured to the milligram when removed (to ensure an adversary hasn’t taken some for analysis).
Where do stories like this come from? Simple logic would tell you there is no possible way to weigh an aircraft coating to a milligram and verify that it matches a somehow measured precise amount applied to the aircraft. The concept is ridiculous.
it is in-fact common in the plating industry to predict/assess coating thickness via weight of product before & after the process; if you know the density/weight of the coating material then strong predictions can be made about the coating thickness given the known uniformity of the plating/anodize process.
Whether or not that's done as a forensic measure after the fact, I don't know. It doesn't seem all that out of the possibilities of reality; but I don't know how they would know whether or not the cause was espionage or a particularly hard-headed birdstrike.