Chinese spy balloon..

[ironglow]

  Couldn't find that thread so started another one.

  Chinese balloon  coasting across the US..  Why don't we shoot it down?  Can't do that..it may be delivering payments to Hunter and the "big guy"... 

  .. But why don't we shoot it down?  Biden admin claims debris danger.. A weak excuse for not reacting... surely our Air Force can time it's shoot down, to minimize any fall out, especially over spacious Montana or the Dakotas.

  If the government was truly concerned with fallout, they would never launch another satellite.

  China is playing a big "gain face lose face" game !  They did it when Obama visited China Don't you remember..
   After Obama landed in Air Force One, he found that somebody had somehow "misplaced' the stairs that would have been placed against AF One, to allow our president to arrive in dignity. Instead, Obama obediently waited for a belated  stairs.

  KT McFarland, Trump's foreign relations adviser says Biden is so eager to have Blinken make that meeting in China, that he will accept any humiliation that will allow him to make it.
  She says Biden should ... 1) Shoot that balloon down. 2) Cancel the Blinken trip to Beijing.

  BTW: That balloon coasting over the US with impunity is a big "lost face" for both Biden and the U. S.

  China is at present, publishing the balloon pictures and the accompanying "lost face" all over the far east, where it really counts !

[gene_225]

We never have been good at the "save face" game. Nixon wasn't when he bowed to the then leader of China. And IMHO none of our presidents since have done well either.

[ironglow]

...Bet Trump would quickly turn that balloon into a rag bag...

[TrumpWon]

Popping it could release the latest China bio lab virus.

[GTS225]

A capture, if possible, just might allow us to reverse engineer it, as well as monitor frequencies that they use for intelligence gathering.  Then, we can send them more "intelligence".   

Roger

[phalanx]

Chinks. Only piss me off. 

[JeffG]

This is just distraction to avoid any news about Biden and his secret papers.

[ironglow]

Popping it could release the latest China bio lab virus.

   They don't need a balloon to do that..they can just call on Dr Fauci.

[ironglow]

Thanks, Democrat Eric Swalwell.    ....And he ran for president...

[ironglow]

Don't forget, the Biden admin, already had one summit meeting with the CCP, in Anchorage Alaska in 2021.
  The CCP oligharchs spent that time lecturing the Biden bunch...and the bBiden bunch sat still and listened..

[mcbammer]

  Todays  Satellite 's    can count the dimples on a golf ball from space .  Why use a balloon for spying . The balloon is used  for another purpose I think .

[Dee]

  Todays  Satellite 's    can count the dimples on a golf ball from space .  Why use a balloon for spying . The balloon is used  for another purpose I think .

According to retired military personnel the United States military still uses "surveillance balloons", as they provide greater detail, where a satellite is moving in its orbit.

[phalanx]

I wish it would try to fly over WSMR. Or Area 51 lol. They could call all  the scrap a weather ballon.

[scattershot]

Doesn’t matter what it is, it’s in US airspace and doesn’t belong here. Biden’s in bed with the Chinese, and that’s why it wasn’t shot down 12 miles out over the Pacific, or in Alaska, or Montana. Besides, it’s a good distraction from Biden’s security breaches, and Hunter’s laptop.

[ironglow]

What balloon?

[TrumpWon]

[ironglow]

     F
During a interview, former defense secretary Mark Esper, says he would have shot down such a spy
   hardware.  He also shot down the false report that  a Chinese spy balloon had ever crossed over US territory.

  https://www.foxnews.com/media/former-defense-secretary-says-us-should-capture-shoot-down-chinese-spy-balloon-we-have-push-back

  NY Post has published a report where Biden admits that a hockey game ruffled more feathers at his house, than any old Chinese spy balloon.
  https://nypost.com/2023/02/03/biden-ignores-china-spy-balloon-claims-wife-cheered-on-philly-sports-brawl/
 

[ironglow]

  Pentagon sends out a brigadier general out to answer press questions concerning the CCP spy balloon.  He was so informative..either he learned from Jeanne-Pierre or Jeanne-Pierre learned from him.

   Wrapping up that half hour..he had said zilch !  Listen to him provide many non-answers...

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADAejpPs-y8

  Seems like they could have found a PFC in the Pentagon somewhere, who could furnish more info than that general.

[Dixie-Dude]

I think it was a trial run to see what we would do.  They could spread a virus or use them for a small EMP bomb to knock out power to certain sections of the country.  They could also do the same thing with a satellite.  A nuclear bomb over Kansas designed to put out a lot of electromagnetic waves could knock the power out to the whole country.  Balloons are cheaper than satellites so the could send a huge amount of ballons at one time over the US.  It flew above the jet stream in the thinner air so they could control the direction it was flying.  Lots of potential things. 

[ironglow]

They can be detonated at almost any altitude..lower would just require more devices to cover the desired land area.

  Meanwhile, let's put the lie to Joe...  He claims that he could not shoot down the balloon, for fear of hurting somebody on the ground. Suppose it were a fleet of bombers, then what would Joe do?

  In any case, he had plenty of chances to shoot down the balloon before it even flew over Montana.

   Here is the route the Chinese spy balloon took to get to the lower 48.  notice how it crossed the Aleutians, the proceeded to cross Alaska.. It came close or over the ANWR reserve, where 3 families live in an area the size of South Carolina.
  Then there is the vast unoccupied forests, where virtually nobody lives...and the Yukon, a vast almost unoccupied area..

  I guess Joe was worried about shooting the balloon down and possibly disturbing a moose or musk ox..

  BTW, thatv thing must have flown virtually over Eielson Air Base, where there is a fleet of F15 Strike Eagles, with some young pilots just looking for some action.

[ironglow]

Seems like the Biden Regime and/or Pentagon did not want the balloon downed over land, lest curious civilians and news people arrived on scene to rummage thru and photograph debris asking questions.
 Couldn't have that happen.
So they waited to slightly offshore to have a 200 million dollar plane flying at $175,000/hour firing a half million dollar missile to down a $500 dollar balloon carrying some solar panels and radiosondes.
Brilliant Joe!
.

  Sounds pretty good, except we don't know exactly what it was carrying.

  But of course, I believe the CCP accomplished it's primary mission with that balloon.  They already made our president, our military and our readiness look third rate.
   For sure, they raised doubts concerning the our ability to protect our far east allies, such as Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan.

[gene_225]

You had doubts?

[Ranger99]

They launch weather balloons from a
NASA facility not too far from the outpost.
Some are carrying a payload of instruments
about as big as a small construction site
office trailer. The balloons for that are something
like 300 feet in diameter. I don't think they
travel to other continents though.
JMHO-  I imagine that the controversial
balloon was launched from a ship in the
Pacific as opposed to from the chinese
mainland

[Bob Riebe]

  Todays  Satellite 's    can count the dimples on a golf ball from space .  Why use a balloon for spying . The balloon is used  for another purpose I think .

Cameras on a balloon will still give far, far, far sharper images than a satellite.

[Bob Riebe]

It doesn't get much better than counting dimples on golf ball or identifying faces from a satellite 200 km in space. Balloons are just cheaper.

That is unproven talk, and having studied photography, I learned  the best mullion dollar sharpest lens in the world, is useless without light (on the object that defines shadows, ) that allows it to convey the image.

There are and have been for many  decades, lens that are so sharp, that no lens chart existed that they could not read the tiniest dots in full detail, i.e. take the picture blow it up and you can count the dots,  and even at that no lens can see through clouds or other forms of atmosphere interference.

[Bob Riebe]

Counting dimples on a golf ball is pretty good for surveillance work.
And yes, there are lenses and image collection devises that can see thru dark, smoke,  fog,, clouds, etc. using various wavelength on the electromagnetic spectrum, such as various IR, UV radar images.
I remember viewing images of New Guinea which is often thickly cloud covered.  In black and white photos in the visible spectrum all we saw was the tops of thick clouds. The same photos in a radar wavelength cut thru clouds like they didn't exist revealing trees, rocks, streams, etc. We often took these as tandem pairs so we could view in 3-D and take measurements of features based on reference scale. I also remember seeing a photo of a license plate taken 90miles out which was clear as a bell, but I don't remember what EM wavelength it was taken.

Ninety miles is not the same as a satellite not in low earth orbit, taking pictures through layers of atmophere is not the same as taking photographs from an aircraft flying  thousands of feet in the sky.
Radar wavelength images are  not the same as detailed photographs using the full color-spectrum.

 Film cameras and lenses have existed for decades that can take detailed, extreme detailed photographs as far as the earths curvature allowed,  earth bound, only how dry and clean the air was was the limiting factor.

[Dee]

Counting dimples on a golf ball is pretty good for surveillance work.
And yes, there are lenses and image collection devises that can see thru dark, smoke,  fog,, clouds, etc. using various wavelength on the electromagnetic spectrum, such as various IR, UV radar images.
I remember viewing images of New Guinea which is often thickly cloud covered.  In black and white photos in the visible spectrum all we saw was the tops of thick clouds. The same photos in a radar wavelength cut thru clouds like they didn't exist revealing trees, rocks, streams, etc. We often took these as tandem pairs so we could view in 3-D and take measurements of features based on reference scale. I also remember seeing a photo of a license plate taken 90miles out which was clear as a bell, but I don't remember what EM wavelength it was taken.

Ninety miles is not the same as a satellite not in low earth orbit, taking pictures through layers of atmophere is not the same as taking photographs from an aircraft flying  thousands of feet in the sky.
Radar wavelength images are  not the same as detailed photographs using the full color-spectrum.

 Film cameras and lenses have existed for decades that can take detailed, extreme detailed photographs as far as the earths curvature allowed,  earth bound, only how dry and clean the air was was the limiting factor.

Your "FACTS" are right Bob. Here ya go.

https://jrresolutions.com/aerial-vs-satellite-images-whats-the-difference/

[ironglow]

   First off, to claim the same work and sampling can be done at a hundred miles as can be done at 65 thousand feet, seems a bit disingenuous.
   It appears at least to me, that some folks are missing the primary mission of that balloon. 
   
     In Asian culture, "face"..whether saving face or losing face, is very important... crucially important.

   At this time, China is trying to impress all the countries anywhere near the south China sea. If they can so impress those countries that the US has seriously "lost face", it could shift the balance of power dramatically, and may well have.

  No question, as a result of Joe's mental decline..our country has "lost face" in a major way. Is it enough to shift
  the balance of power?  ...Time will tell..

     A couple short primers on "face";

  https://yoyochinese.com/blog/Losing-Face-Chinese-Culture

  https://www.tripsavvy.com/saving-face-and-losing-face-1458303

[Dixie-Dude]

A satellite has to travel about 17,000 MPH to stay in orbit.  A balloon doesn't have to do this.  A balloon can travel slower and take more photos in a given time.  In order to stay in orbit but stationary over an area the satellite has to be around 22,000 miles up, which requires a telescoped satellite.  Balloons are much cheaper.

This particular Chinese balloon was 200' tall.  A very large balloon.  Looks like they are easy to shoot down.  Now maybe China will stop. 

[Bob Riebe]

Surely you're not suggesting the Chinese or whomever owned the balloon were taking aerial film photos in visible light spectrum on film at 66,000 feet at minus 10⁰ F with plan to recover films and develope later....!!!
If the balloon was collecting and transmitting images it was all digital.

LOL, that would be diabolical but it would be a 6x7 digital camera as it would have far , far, far more images, not as detailed as film though,  that could be gotten on a 30 or 100ft film roll of images, BUT, it is theoretically possible.

Float it across the U.S. and then collect via snag aircraft from an aircraft carrier in the Caribbean.