U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon • Hacker News Board

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

#901

Post by unity1001 » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 12:25 PM UTC

jasmer wrote: post #332

unity1001 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know, that time we rushed headlong into two useless forever wars Don't say it like that. Say it like as it is: "... rushed headlong into murdering 1 million people to rob their oil". Because that's what it was. And until people start calling it as it is, this kind of thing will keep repeating. ... And yeah, recently the US Congress arranged $500 million to anti-China propaganda, so you will see a LOT more of su…

The US didn't get any of the Iraqi Oil. Ironically, it was Europe and China who benefitted in that regard. Also notably, the US 5th fleet defends freedom of navigation in the Gulf, which is mostly about Oil, and China is the #1 recipient of Oil! Funny, that.

> The US didn't get any of the Iraqi Oil

This is the funniest escape from cognitive dissonance that is used in the US in this topic.

The US did rob Iraqi oil: Forcing Iraq to continue selling its oil for dollars is directly monetizing Iraqi oil. Its worse than robbing it, because in a robbery you get the actual quantity. By forcing it to be traded for dollars, the US was able to print an unspecified and unquantifiable amount of dollars, even over what the actual quantity of Iraqi oil that was sold for dollars would support - the uncontested dominance of dollar as foreign exchange currency forced everyone to stash more dollars than they needed 'just in case' they needed to buy oil and other commodities.

It was literally a money-printing operation. Over someone else's oil.

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

#902

Post by pas » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 12:33 PM UTC

torpfactory wrote: post #900

The big question is why China would send a balloon. My best guess is it carried electronic warfare sensors to try and collect specific information about US radar and missile capabilities. They may have in fact wanted us to shoot it down, ideally first painting it with advanced radar (both air and ground based) and then firing an advanced missile at it. Data could be streamed out until the moment of impact and used to…

... why didn't they simply declared it a shooting range target? thousands of volunteers would have tried to shoot it down with bullets and various DIY things! it would have been endless streaming content!

oh, well, maybe the next one. :(

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

#903

Post by unity1001 » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 12:33 PM UTC

mardifoufs wrote: post #493

jasmer wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US didn't get any of the Iraqi Oil. Ironically, it was Europe and China who benefitted in that regard. Also notably, the US 5th fleet defends freedom of navigation in the Gulf, which is mostly about Oil, and China is the #1 recipient of Oil! Funny, that.

I'm sure those million dead people in iraq are glad the fifth fleet is protecting trade or that America didn't actually directly steal their oil. The same goes for the countless lives and futures ruined for the people still living with the consequences of the Gulf War. This is absurd and sounds exactly like a chinese nationalist rhetoric about what Mao did in the great leap forward. Hey, millions died, but think of h…

> protecting trade or that America didn't actually directly steal their oil

"Protecting the trade of Iraqi oil in dollars to prevent them from moving to euro and other currencies" - thats 'protecting' alright. And apparently its ok if the theft is not 'direct'. Just printing dollars like a banana republic by forcing Iraq to sell their oil for dollars is ok. Of course its ok - its much better than actually robbing it since it allows printing an unspecified amount of dollars in return.

> This is absurd and sounds exactly like a chinese nationalist rhetoric about what Mao did in the great leap forward

If there is nothing wrong with the American nationalism that you blatantly exhibit, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Chinese nationalism or the nationalism of every other country.

> By the way, the US profits immensly from a stable gulf trade...

...in dollars. Too bad that its not happening anymore, as countries move to trade in Yuan, Ruble and other currencies and the inflation skyrockets in the US as unused dollars flow back to the US. Which is precisely why the us attacked Iraq to prevent them from moving off of dollar...

> it's even more essential to American hegemony, which I agree can have its upsides

What an unrepentant display of jingoist imperialism. This is not even mere 'nationalism'. So, the US bashing the heads of small countries in and forcing them to trade their commodities for dollars so it can print unlimited dollars is 'having upsides'. Im sure 1 million dead iraqis will rest in peace, knowing that how they died to make that 'upside' happen.

...

Its amazing how the comments objecting to my original criticism just 'disappear' the 1 million people that have been murdered but talk about delirious things like 'upsides'. Amazing social study opportunity on the topic of how people avoid cognitive dissonance.

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

#904

Post by willis936 » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 12:43 PM UTC

Rebelgecko wrote: post #606

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.

I think some of that fudging was because the observer wasn't directly beneath the balloon

Indeed and trying to estimate how much someone panned across a clear blue sky with more than 20 degree precision isn't how I wanted to spend my Saturday. 80% of the answer for 20% of the effort.

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

#905

Post by foverzar » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 12:43 PM UTC

IAmGraydon wrote: post #527

foverzar wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should make military decisions based on how much the target costs Yes?.. > You don't understand why that's ridiculous? No?.. Don't you understand how the cost of action is the base of military economy? This is hardly a military decision, it's purely a PR decision.

It's you who doesn't understand. We don't care how much the target costs. We care about how much not taking it down can cost us. We stand to learn a lot from capturing the surveillance platform. This alone is priceless. We send a message that Chinese aircraft that violate our airspace and leave in tact. If data was stored onboard, it's possible that we prevented a large cache of surveillance data from making it back…

> We don't care how much the target costs.

Except with military you actually have to, which is perfectly demonstrated right now in Ukraine.

> We stand to learn a lot from capturing the surveillance platform. This alone is priceless.

Well since it was shot down over the sea, by a missile targeting the payload, it definitely won't be the case.

Sorry, I don't see the point of this conversation, when you base your reasoning on a fantasy, instead of a factual chain of events.

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

#906

Post by thebytefairy » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 12:44 PM UTC

pifm_guy wrote: post #898

tushar-r wrote: post #896

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty certain they did not. China controls the Internet a little too seriously and has banned Google for many years to allow them to fly Loon balloons beaming free internet to their population.

They didn't give permission for the internet service to launch there. But they did give overflight permission.

If they gave permission, then that's a very different scenario to this one.

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

#907

Post by junon » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 12:45 PM UTC

pas wrote: post #902

torpfactory wrote: post #900

The big question is why China would send a balloon. My best guess is it carried electronic warfare sensors to try and collect specific information about US radar and missile capabilities. They may have in fact wanted us to shoot it down, ideally first painting it with advanced radar (both air and ground based) and then firing an advanced missile at it. Data could be streamed out until the moment of impact and used to…

... why didn't they simply declared it a shooting range target? thousands of volunteers would have tried to shoot it down with bullets and various DIY things! it would have been endless streaming content! oh, well, maybe the next one. :(

They explicitly asked the public not to do this. It was something like 60k feet in the air. People shooting up would have a laughably low chance of hitting it, plus create a rain of bullets somewhere else far away.

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

#908

Post by sgt101 » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 12:45 PM UTC

SnowHill9902 wrote: post #411

404mm wrote: post #382

I feel like the balloon takedown was seriously mishandled. Imo it should have been shot down right after it crossed our borders and before it started move over populated areas. That way there would be no surveillance and you could examine the payload. Now that it’s in the water, you may not even find it.

It was purposefully taken down once it was on shallow waters to preserve the equipment as much as possible.

If this is a military item I would be very surprised if it doesn't have a lot of self destruct capability. Surely it will have a package that kicks in if it starts an uncontrolled descent without some sort of override signal from its operators. Especially as it's unmanned.

If I was in charge there would be magnesium strips and bars laced all over it and all that anyone would get from it would be ashes. At a minimum there would be stuff rigged to burn it if it suffered a 10G shock or more - I mean why not? It's junk at that point anyway, why risk it being interesting junk?

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

#909

Post by junon » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 12:46 PM UTC

blululu wrote: post #574

willis936 wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging from the videos that pan from the moon to the balloon: the balloon was about 3x smaller in the sky than the moon. Knowing the altitude of the balloon was 68,000 feet, we can fudge the distance from the observer to the balloon as 100,000 feet. Knowing the distance to the moon and the radius of the moon we can use like triangles to estimate that the balloon was ~285 feet across, +/- 20% for estimates. Edit: upd…

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.

Just a tip - put natural language variables in parenthesis. Helps disambiguate in a lot of cases and saves time in the long run if you use WA often.

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

#910

Post by egberts1 » Sun, Feb 05, 2023, 12:49 PM UTC

It was probably decided early on that the decision to down the balloon in question over non-populated area due to:

1. Balloon itself is filled with water vapor full of ABC material.

2. Payload has dispersal mechanism of dubious material

Nonetheless, in spite of political wrangling, I find it disturbing that we haven’t made a retrieval system capable of snatching things at 60,000 feet.