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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

#851

Post by ghayes »

evolve2k wrote: post #697
blululu wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a clever method and I appreciate that you posted the Wolfram alpha link - always happy when people show their work and I did not realize that you could do things like include (diameter of moon) as variables with it. This is a nit, but if you're busting out an AI enhanced calculator there is no need to make a 40% rounding of 70K to 100k. I got ~200 ft across.

60m (200ft) - 85m (285ft) for the rest of the world.

Which, at 40ft (12m) per school bus, is 5-7 school buses.

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

#852

Post by OJFord »

za3faran wrote: post #734
heartbreak wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw it from my car today while driving before I knew it was going to be in my area. It was very visible to the naked eye. It was large enough that the perspective made it seem a lot lower altitude than it actually was.

Not sure what the CCP is thinking. Are they simply trying to instigate a response with such a brazen display?

Russia frequently has military jets head for the UK, as I understand it just to test reaction time. (E.g. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/raf-ukraine-... as a search result, I haven't read)

I assume this is something similar, just more to assess what the response is than how quick a known response is.

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

#853

Post by vegasea »

petemir wrote: post #839
darkerside wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Size of a football field, got it

Which football? Real football or American football?

What is real football? I've heard of association football (shortened to soccer by the British), rugby football, Australian rules football, American football and Canadian football but I've never heard of real football.

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

#854

Post by a3w »

notimetorelax wrote: post #699
IIAOPSW wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wish it was a drone that shot it down. Then it would be the first unmanned aircraft dog fight.

It wouldn’t be the first. Drone on drone fights happened in Ukraine.

First one above 10.000 meters, then? Fight, with no fighting back, though? Also, as to no fighting back: destruction between different states, since blowing up your own balloon, rocket or satellites for testing purpose has (probably/surely) happened before.

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

#855

Post by jcynix »

cm2187 wrote: post #836
za3faran wrote: post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what the CCP is thinking. Are they simply trying to instigate a response with such a brazen display?

I am equally puzzled. But the recent aggressive statement by China [1] makes me think they are testing Biden's resolve. If you fly something in a foreign country's airspace, you don't get to complain that it has been shot down, particularly if it's just hardware. It looks like some sort of provocation to see how confrontational the US gets beyond cheap speech on TV. And I can't help suspecting that what made the US w…

>It flew over huge areas of empty fields, it certainly isn't safety.

Ok, but having it drop into water should increase the chance to retrieve less damaged parts to investigate then. I'd call this thoughtful, not indecivise.

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

#856

Post by a3w »

ineedasername wrote: post #372
pyuser583 wrote: post #17

Am I the only one with “99 Luftballoons” in my head?

Ah, who knew that a 1983 pop song was actually a prescient geopolitical analysis of the state of affairs between China & the West 4 decade in the future! Ahead of her time.

Were any american U2 spy planes ever shot down?

How is a novel weather balloon different from a spy balloon, before you shoot it down?

Is shooting at unmanned aircraft legal in international law? Is sending balloons over other states illegal?

Media in germany as usual did nothing to explain anything about the actual facts of what anything means. They just copy and paste the official DPA news and let people without a clue write comments about that, but no actual expert is ever shown in 8 o'clock news for any crisis that takes less than a week.

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

#857

Post by beebmam »

yongjik wrote: post #229
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

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 t…

The cold war against the Soviet Union was an attempt to manage a communist power insistent on expanding its borders through coups, annexations, and puppet states. The whole point of a cold war is to stop a country from committing territorial aggression, while preventing an escalation to a hot war. It's a deeply moral thing to do.

In this sense, the cold war against the Soviet Union was profoundly successful. Let's hope this will be the same for the ongoing cold war with China to contain its territorial ambitions in east asia, like for Taiwan (which it is actively threatening with force[1]) and all of the other countries which China is expanding its territory into (illegally, through the use of artificial islands)[2].

1. https://www.voanews.com/a/china-reaffirms-threat-of-military... 2. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/21/china-has-full...

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

#858

Post by bxs24p »

The fact that this became a story at all is purely geopolitical in my opinion. Perhaps to do Blinkens up coming Beijing visit (which has since been canned). As far as I can tell the chinese dislike bad press like this. Having the balloon become a fiasco becomes a reason to cancel the trip. Can't exactly tell the why's but this is my guess.

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

#859

Post by cm2187 »

jcynix wrote: post #855
cm2187 wrote: post #836

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am equally puzzled. But the recent aggressive statement by China [1] makes me think they are testing Biden's resolve. If you fly something in a foreign country's airspace, you don't get to complain that it has been shot down, particularly if it's just hardware. It looks like some sort of provocation to see how confrontational the US gets beyond cheap speech on TV. And I can't help suspecting that what made the US w…

>It flew over huge areas of empty fields, it certainly isn't safety. Ok, but having it drop into water should increase the chance to retrieve less damaged parts to investigate then. I'd call this thoughtful, not indecivise.

Water will behave like concrete to an object of the size and weight of a car dropping at high speed (which seems to be the payload minus the solar panels). You can just see what happened to planes that crashed into water head on.

And they are claiming it was for safety purposes.

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

#860

Post by hutzlibu »

OJFord wrote: post #852
za3faran wrote: post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what the CCP is thinking. Are they simply trying to instigate a response with such a brazen display?

Russia frequently has military jets head for the UK, as I understand it just to test reaction time. (E.g. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/raf-ukraine-... as a search result, I haven't read) I assume this is something similar, just more to assess what the response is than how quick a known response is.

But to be fair, this sort of game is going on since the cold war in both directions.
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