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U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

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Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#91

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin »

mfkp wrote: post #82
jpgvm wrote: post #30

Pretty interesting platform. Looks to have around 16x300W solar panels, so roughly 4.8KW. A lot but no unreasonable given it has 4 electric turbines and it would take a lot of grunt to influence a balloon of that size especially given air density altitude. If it is a civilian craft it's either government or maybe one of the big Chinese universities. Supporting the spy angle is the pretty obvious connectivity (looks t…

$100k of solar? 360w panels are sub-$300 at full retail prices. So that's under $5k of panels (unless you're including batteries in the calculation, but even then, it's maybe $10k).

$100k of solar if installed by one of those door to door salespeople… it’s unfortunate how many people only have numbers from such interactions.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#92

Post by SoftTalker »

Scoundreller wrote: post #67
walrus01 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ordinary commercially available terrestrial solar panels (which are heavy when built into glass front panel and backing sheet + aluminum frame), made from high efficiency monocrystalline si cells are commonly maxing out like: 60 x 6W 156mm cells = 360W STC rating 72 x 6W 156mm cells = 430W STC rating or around there. If they used triple junction GaAs cells or something exotic like you'd see on a satellite it could be…

How much more efficient does solar get at -60C? Or is it just better for longevity?

At 60,000 ft there’s also less atmospheric absorption or reflection of sunlight also.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#93

Post by dmix »

Alupis wrote: post #59
jpgvm wrote: post #30

Pretty interesting platform. Looks to have around 16x300W solar panels, so roughly 4.8KW. A lot but no unreasonable given it has 4 electric turbines and it would take a lot of grunt to influence a balloon of that size especially given air density altitude. If it is a civilian craft it's either government or maybe one of the big Chinese universities. Supporting the spy angle is the pretty obvious connectivity (looks t…

If I recall details of this story as it was breaking - there was an emphasis that the US tried repeatedly to communicate with counterparts in China to discern the nature of the balloon and cool the situation. From memory, the Chinese side refused to engage on any level... which ultimately led to the balloon being shot down. The Chinese are advanced - there's no chance they couldn't/didn't monitor a balloon of this si…

Didn't some analysis say the balloon likely deployed from Latin America? If it was a Chinese university it's strange we don't have a 3rd country involved yet. Unless it came off a warship or Cuba or something.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#94

Post by dan_linder »

nonethewiser wrote: post #74
titzer wrote: post #56

Maybe they weren't just surveilling, but actually attacking cell networks and/or mobile phones through a vulnerability that requires line-of-sight. Just speculation though. Could also just be a distraction from something else they were up to at the same time.

What sort of attack? Like stealing data? Or something else that you wouldn’t pick up on? Because attack sounds like you are degrading performance or something, in which case we (or someone) would know about it.

One attack could be a RF receiver in any of the Huawei cell towers or networking equipment to accept a signal to start someone.

it sounds like an outrageous opening scene from an 80's movie...

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#95

Post by dannyphantom »

tjohns wrote: post #78
dreamer7 wrote: post #65

Apologies for the naive questions in advance. Is it not possible to go up there in a hot air balloon to inspect it from a closer distance? Also, what about base jumping onto it? Are there any methods of getting it back to the ground intact?

It's theoretically possible to get up there in a manned balloon, but this was up at FL600. Most aircraft can't even go that high. It's not something that's done casually. Going up to those altitudes is the domain of either the military or someone trying to set a record. It's not a forgiving environment - you basically need a space suit up there. I'm fairly confident that nobody has the equipment for such a mission si…

Your comment reminded me of something I saw in grade-school that was probably the biggest inspiration in sticking with USASA (Red Bull is a long-time sponsor) for so long.

Red Bull Stratos: 'A high altitude skydiving project'

- Baumgartner flew approximately 39 kilometres (24 mi) into the stratosphere over New Mexico, United States, in a helium balloon before free falling in a pressure suit and then parachuting to Earth.

- Baumgartner broke the unofficial record for the highest manned balloon flight of 37,640 m (123,491 ft)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHtvDA0W34I&t=3s

Interestingly enough: Alan Eustace, a former SVP of Engineering at Google surpassed that record (2) years later (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Eustace)

- On October 24, 2014, he made a free-fall jump from the stratosphere, breaking Felix Baumgartner's world record.

- The jump was from 135,890 feet (41.42 km) and lasted 15 minutes, an altitude record that stands as of 2023

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Stratos (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Eustace

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#96

Post by Alupis »

dmix wrote: post #93
Alupis wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I recall details of this story as it was breaking - there was an emphasis that the US tried repeatedly to communicate with counterparts in China to discern the nature of the balloon and cool the situation. From memory, the Chinese side refused to engage on any level... which ultimately led to the balloon being shot down. The Chinese are advanced - there's no chance they couldn't/didn't monitor a balloon of this si…

Didn't some analysis say the balloon likely deployed from Latin America? If it was a Chinese university it's strange we don't have a 3rd country involved yet. Unless it came off a warship or Cuba or something.

No, there was a separate balloon over South America, also launched from China.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#97

Post by pixl97 »

dmix wrote: post #93
Alupis wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I recall details of this story as it was breaking - there was an emphasis that the US tried repeatedly to communicate with counterparts in China to discern the nature of the balloon and cool the situation. From memory, the Chinese side refused to engage on any level... which ultimately led to the balloon being shot down. The Chinese are advanced - there's no chance they couldn't/didn't monitor a balloon of this si…

Didn't some analysis say the balloon likely deployed from Latin America? If it was a Chinese university it's strange we don't have a 3rd country involved yet. Unless it came off a warship or Cuba or something.

On the path over Missouri coming from the west coast... I don't think prevailing winds work that way in the US.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#98

Post by jpgvm »

mfkp wrote: post #82
jpgvm wrote: post #30

Pretty interesting platform. Looks to have around 16x300W solar panels, so roughly 4.8KW. A lot but no unreasonable given it has 4 electric turbines and it would take a lot of grunt to influence a balloon of that size especially given air density altitude. If it is a civilian craft it's either government or maybe one of the big Chinese universities. Supporting the spy angle is the pretty obvious connectivity (looks t…

$100k of solar? 360w panels are sub-$300 at full retail prices. So that's under $5k of panels (unless you're including batteries in the calculation, but even then, it's maybe $10k).

That is house solar panels. For a craft like this you are using aerospace materials. If you were building it in your backyard yeah, you could probably do it cheap but my experience with commercial grade aerospace components makes me think you are going to be in for sticker shock.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#99

Post by jahewson »

jalino23 wrote: post #31

is there c code running in that baloon? with dependency to stdlib, possibly compiled with gcc or clang? did they use vim to write the code for it? can they ssh to it? what kind of code is running there? I'm soo curious!!

Given that it’s now lying beneath the Atlantic, it may have been rewritten in Rust.

Re: U-2 pilot's selfie above China's balloon taken over Missouri

#100

Post by mercutio2 »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #90
amscanne wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the whole “land shouldn’t vote” thing is used to criticize the electoral college, but within the state what exactly are you referring to? I can’t think of any mechanism that wouldn’t be a simple tyranny of the majority but it sounds like you’re implying something more sinister.

I mainly mean that Missouri is a super Red state despite the majority of the population being liberal. They just all live in the 3-4 counties that comprise the St. Louis and Kansas City areas, and Republicans in power use all the usual tricks to disenfranchise more liberal voters. Compared to, say, Seattle/WA, voting in Missouri is clearly designed to make it hard for "certain types" of people to have a say in their…

I lived for a long time in Missouri, and... I'm not sure how you got the idea the majority of the population is liberal.

I don't see how there's any gerrymandering that could lead to the senators and governors being so consistently Republican since 2016 (and I'm pretty confident McCaskill would've lost in 2012 if Akin hadn't made his "legitimate rape" comments).

I agree that Missouri's house representation is heavily skewed by gerrymandering, if that's what you meant.

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