Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 864 posts

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#601

Post by wizofaus »

irrational wrote: post #436
Ninjinka wrote: post #4

I mean maybe I'm just not up to date on recent history, but when was the last time we shot down anything in our our airspace prior to last week?

Maybe Japanese fire balloons during WWII? "One of the most unusual military actions of World War II came in the form of Japanese balloon bombs, or “Fugos,” directed at the mainland United States. Starting in 1944, the Japanese military constructed and launched over 9,000 high-altitude balloons, each loaded with nearly 50 pounds of anti-personnel and incendiary explosives. Amazingly, these unmanned balloons originated…

Hawaii was still an "incorporated territory" of the US though, surely it would have qualified as "US soil"? I gather at least some deaths did occur in Honolulu itself too.

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#603

Post by blululu »

paranoidrobot wrote: post #593
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much does a weather baloon cost? ...compared to a F22 flight, a missle + all the logistics? If it's cheap enough, there will probably be youtubers and tiktokers buying them en-masse just "for the lulz".

Depends on your payload weight. Some random searching found a 300g payload baloon for USD$30[1]. That excludes filling costs and other bits. Anyone stupid enough to do it without following FAA rules (assuming launched in the US) is going to find themselves in some serious trouble. [1] https://www.highaltitudescience.com/collections/all

The helium is generally the biggest cost for a launch. You generally need welding grade helium instead of the party balloon variety which costs more. The price fluctuates a lot because of some complicated economics related to natural gas production, but getting that high can easily set you back $400.

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#604

Post by boc »

georgeg23 wrote: post #477
georgeg23 wrote: post #286

Given the Chinese have been complaining to the UN for the last year about American Low Earth Orbit satellites spying on them (Starshield, Space Development Agency, etc..) this balloon thing is pretty clever.

Also maybe gives China cover/justification to start shooting down these low satellites.

That’s an escalator that China can’t afford to ride.

The US would deorbit everything China ever put into space if they started shooting at satellites. Those satellites are part of the strategic triad and would be a direct threat to the US nuclear umbrella. The AEGIS systems off the Chinese coast would take care of any attempts to add satellites back into space.

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#605

Post by nikcub »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #505
hinkley wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard rumors that during the bosnian war they were making fake SAM sites using microwave ovens with the door taken off. Get them to fire an air-to-ground missile at a device you got from the junkyard and an extension cord.

This was supposedly done during the US bombing of yugoslavia... open microwaves transmit pulsed radiation, automatic systems think it's a radar and bomb the site.

Can confirm this and that it happen in both Bosnia and the Serbia campaigns. I had family members who were involved [0].

The deception methods that were applied were truly remarkable, they used decoy tanks and sent people out to imprint fake tank tracks into fields.

They also understood IR and would shield real troops while leaving coal to burn in empty pillboxes and bunkers

There was also the shoot down of the F-117A by what was effectively a rag-tag group of AA who planned the operation and pulled it off

A lot of what was learned in the earlier Bosnia campaign was applied later in '99 - not just the use of decoys and microwaves, but using spotters to track the regular flight paths of incoming fighters and intermittently switching radar off and on (this is how Scott O'Grady was shot down in his F16)

Gen. Wesley Clark was a huge advocate of the doctrine that you could win wars with air power alone and never have to sacrifice ground troops - that thinking changed after '99

[0] note that I in no way condone the overall goal of what took place there and those same family members would be the first to tell you it was horrific

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#606

Post by wizofaus »

ncr100 wrote: post #525
throwaway4good wrote: post #12

I like how the measurement unit seems to be either small cars or school busses.

/s If that unit causes you any pain, @throwaway4good, here is a translator perhaps to more native units: https://www.converttobananas.com/ 1 car == about 26 bananas. Improvement?

If that were a volume conversion, bananas must've grown a whole lot bigger in the US since I was last there.

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#608

Post by cardamomo »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #567
ilyt wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes the useful and oh so important lesson that F-22 is indeed capable of disposing of not only maneuverable airborne crafts but also non-maneuverable ones! Clearly a baloon is so hard to dispose target that making sure the aircraft indeed can be up to this task is worth any money!

In some scenarios, balloons are more difficult to shoot down than aircraft.

Can you expand on this? What scenarios are you thinking of?

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#609

Post by wizofaus »

Mindless2112 wrote: post #260
tsimionescu wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your own government has a much higher ability to affect your life than China does, so what you're saying is completely irrational. Not that it's OK for the Chinese to spy on us, mind you, or to claim that they don't have nefarious purposes.

You can bring your own government to account for what it does. You can do nothing about what what China does.

Assuming you ever find out. I don't doubt Western governments have the ability to spy on their citizens as needed, and it's likely at some point most of us have been spied on in some minor way, but unless we happened to be doing something particularly nefarious at the point it happened, very unlikely they'd bother acting on it*. Whereas I very much doubt China could see much advantage in trying to spy on an average citizen from another country at all.

* unless perhaps you were applying for military clearance

Re: US jet shoots down unknown object flying off Alaska coast

#610

Post by troops_h8r »

jasmer wrote: post #468
smcl wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What mechanisms do you recommend for reining in, say, the NSA or GHCQ? Were either reined in at all after the Snowden leaks, or was it business as usual after things calmed down a bit? I think we have to accept that these intelligence agencies are effectively untouchable and here to stay. With that in mind I think it boils down to: who can do the most harm by spying on you: - a country thousands of miles away which y…

They are 'touchable', there is oversight, and their powers are very limited. Give me an example of Americans who have been materially harmed by those agencies? And what was the damage? Have Americans been oppressed, slandered for political gain, wrongly imprisoned, illegally targeted by police because of NSA activity? I think it's doubtful for anything other than a few incidents; the proportionality of these tradeoff…

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

Naively, one might say "ah but that ended in 1971!" - but let me put it this way: if you spotted a cockroach in your house, you'd be a fool to think that was the only one.

Also: the oversight/limits you're protected by could disappear some day, they're imaginary and socially constructed. Sure, you trust our current government to handle these powers responsibly, (though you really shouldn't, see above), but why are you so confident you can trust _tomorrow's_ government?

Post reply on HN