This time, an F-16 sufficed.
Shame they can’t just gun them down with a tucano. This all seems like a large waste of money.
Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
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Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots and lots of satellites that keep passing overhead and you compose the images to abstract away the fact they came from multiple physical satellites. Idk how many companies/govs have this capability but: https://www.palantir.com/offerings/metaconstellation/
Interesting that Palantir video shows SpaceX dragon as an example of "integrating with existing satellites". Plantir's Thiel and Elon go way back...
They don't call it the Paypal Mafia just cause
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#73"The American people don't need classified details, just that they're safe. That's it."
Just waiting for the "My fellow Americans, we have made contact with extraterrestrials" speech from Biden
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
The AIM-9X is infrared imaging based rather than heat signature based. The pilot resolves that contrast between the object and sky before firing the missile and missile targets the object based on the image.
Do you know what sets it off? Seems like it wouldn't be from impact as these balloon materials couldn't be comparable to say hitting another plane, right?
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#75Random question - anyone know how a sidewinder missile hits these objects (whatever they are)? My missile knowledge is non-existent but movies show me it has something to do with heat signature - which these don’t seem to have.
Not much is known of the AIM-9X but it is probably similar to the AIM-9L. The AIM-9L doesn't lock on to the hottest thing, it takes an IR picture of the scene and follows the targeted "blob" in the image that's generated. Additionally it has laser proximity fusing so it knows when it is close to the shape it is tracking. By not simply picking the hottest thing in a scene you can't hide in front of the sun anymore, an…
Not to sound like a Redditor, but this username checks out.
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#76Ok so it’s either a massive foreign program or UFOs.
There has been speculation that China is testing our response. It seems unclear what the purpose of hovering over Montana is. Maybe they are actually testing something they'd like to attack or monitor Taiwan with and the way to test in an obfuscated manner is releasing them over the US to get the response without triggering the idea that they are preparing for another, real target.
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
The AIM-9X is infrared imaging based rather than heat signature based. The pilot resolves that contrast between the object and sky before firing the missile and missile targets the object based on the image.
Do you know what sets it off? Seems like it wouldn't be from impact as these balloon materials couldn't be comparable to say hitting another plane, right?
These payloads are duds - all you need to do is to pierce the balloon.
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#78I wish there was more clarity on if these are balloons or not.
Yeah, I don't understand the ambiguity from the government and military. They have to have pictures of these things. Show us what they look like. Tell us if they are balloons. Are they under power against the wind? What speed? All these details must be known, it's been days, why aren't they telling us?
Strongly suggests against balloons - mainly because they already shot one down and it was no biggie. Aliens are not impossible any more, but drones of some kind remain the vastly most probable option.
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting that Palantir video shows SpaceX dragon as an example of "integrating with existing satellites". Plantir's Thiel and Elon go way back...
They don't call it the Paypal Mafia just cause
Pretty clear this guy is a key player in their mafia
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_D._Griffin#Career
Re: Military shoots down another high-altitude object, over Lake Huron: officials
#80Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34766703
Which has been taken off the front page remarkably quickly, given its large number of votes in a short time.
Perhaps there’s some system where downvotes encourage a post to be taken off the front page quicker. But I suspect moderator involvement. Which is misguided if so: people will simply post dupes and continue to upvote them. Thus, the story is still on the front-page, but in a fragmented manner.