141–150 of 864 posts
"Not sure what the object was" "Shot Down using an Aim9x" That actually narrows it down a bit. Heat seeking warhead.
I just learned (yesterday[2]) about the rolleron[1], a stabilizing mechanism that prevents roll. It uses the airstream to spin up a gyroscopic mass. The AIM9 is the only use I'm aware of. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolleron [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfzj3rRIVU4
> Officials said the object was far smaller than the previous balloon, did not appear to be maneuverable and was traveling at a much lower altitude. "Not maneuverable" and "previous balloon" so is it fair to assume that it's a balloon as well?
* Flying at 40k feet altitude
* Size of a small car
* Not manned
* Didn't appear to be maneuverable
* Shot down with an AIM-9X heatseaking missile
What could that be? Also, seems premature to assume China again when Russia is far closer to the Alaskan coast and just as antagonistic.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A government that spends more money on their military than the rest of the world combined isn't at risk of bankruptcy from firing a couple missiles. We're at risk of bankruptcy because our debt is 31 trillion dollars and in June we won't even be able to issue securities to continue bullshitting ourselves out of cutting spending. Welcome to America, we're broke because we spent all our money on guns rather than infras…
We spend more on Healthcare and education per capital than almost any other country. Don't let people bullshit you on the amount spent. Now results on dollars spent is a different question with a different answer.
We changed the url from https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/us/politics/unidentified-... to what appears to be the article with most recent updates (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34745940 - thanks yabones!).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A government that spends more money on their military than the rest of the world combined isn't at risk of bankruptcy from firing a couple missiles. We're at risk of bankruptcy because our debt is 31 trillion dollars and in June we won't even be able to issue securities to continue bullshitting ourselves out of cutting spending. Welcome to America, we're broke because we spent all our money on guns rather than infras…
We spend more on Healthcare and education per capital than almost any other country. Don't let people bullshit you on the amount spent. Now results on dollars spent is a different question with a different answer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a very reasonable explanation for the otherwise mysterious question of why even use an (obvious, provocative) balloon in the first place, when China has perfectly good satellites. It may not be exactly what they have in mind, but I think it's the right way to think about the question - they are engineering scenarios which work to their advantage no matter how the US responds. US shoots them down? Play outrage…
Presumably if not shooting them down looks weak, then shooting them down looks competent. And playing outraged confers no advantage to China.
Cheap balloon vs expensive missile, seems a good way to bankrupt us by sending continuous balloons.
> An F-22 fighter jet shot down the object using an A9X missile What a waste if $200k, shooting Chinese baloons. These shold be zapped using lasers.
Don't most f-22s come with a 20mil cannon? Wonder we we're preferring the missiles to just plain old lead?