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Chinese surveillance balloon spotted over U.S., Pentagon says
- UltraViolence 4y agoIsn't Montana sparsely populated? If the Air Force can't shoot it down there good luck trying to do so over New England.
- rkagerer 4y agoI remember in Civ when I sent my Spearman across the border to spy on the enemy's tanks and aircraft.
- jcadam 4y agoEveryone knows fortified Spearmen guarding a mountain pass are impervious to everything but nukes.
- justsomehnguy 4y agoI'm still salty about loosing Jet Fighters to Musketeers in Civ I.
- hknmtt 4y agohow can it by a spy balloon when the balloon material is white and reflective AF?
- scaramanga 4y agoThere are no secret surveillance balloons. This must be an alien craft. It's covered in strange markings... :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mogul https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mogul
- griffoa 4y ago[dead]
- nix23 4y agoThey spied on the croissants prices...
- rpigab 4y agoThat's no moon...
- fIREpOK 4y agoDropping the next virus?
- credit_guy 4y agoHow do they know it's Chinese? Does it say in large letters "Made in China" ?
- advpetc 4y agoFirst time seeing this news thought it was a joke but turns out it's not. A few questions: 1. is it possible for a balloon to fly over pacific to U.S? 2. why we notice it after it has been at mid US? I think we could identify it starting from the west coast? 3. what makes it to be a Chinese balloon? I mean it could be from other country, right? I tried to search answer but not finding useful information so far
- jonplackett 4y agoWhen it’s spotted over the pentagon, or over a military base - how deliberate can that be? By that I mean how much control do you have over a balloon’s trajectory when launched from the other side of the world?
- magwa101 4y ago[dead]
- jprd 4y agohttps://archive.is/EoPXu https://archive.is/EoPXu
- codazoda 4y agoThe original is particularly bad for me. Goes strait to a pay form and hijacks my back button. I couldn’t figure out how to get out of it and had to close the site and reopen HN. I wish these sites were banned here and I need to finally get an extension or something to ban myself from clicking them.
- anenefan 4y agoAdd the site to your deny list. Click link, see unavailable, smile.
- anamexis 4y agoI was with you until "smile"
- anenefan 4y agoYeah it can be annoying depending on if the glass is half full or half empty YMMV. Myself I know such sites won't waste my bandwidth loading a script that won't really run if it doesn't get what it wants, I won't sit there for twenty or thirty seconds while some background thing pretends to do something, they (the site) won't get to scape the IP, not any stats that I was interested in whatever it was, nor get to reach for the cookie jar ... they don't win. There's usually more agreeable sites but not always. Despite that, it really puts a smile on my face.
- nirvgorilla 4y agoYou can right click your back button in your browser and a list will appear of recent history. This is what I do when stupid, horny websites just refresh the current, stupid website rather than actually going back to where I was.
- 4y ago
- bigmattystyles 4y agoWhat can be done with a balloon that a satellite cannot?
- HL33tibCe7 4y agoProvocation
- jrexilius 4y agoVerify operations when space becomes a denied environment due to debris field... (edit to add: i.e. field test planned comms and sensors platforms for use in future conflict scenarios)
- CyanLite4 4y agoProbably some sensors to see what we’re doing with our nuke bases in Montana.
- ajross 4y agoOr an airplane, or a drone flown out of a parking lot nearby, or frankly even a google maps photo. I agree, the threat here seems sorta vague and silly. Aerial reconnaissance over industrialized democracies is a pretty wide open threat model. If we have stuff sitting out in the back yards we should throw a tarp on it or something.
- c_o_n_v_e_x 4y agonot be obscured by clouds
- willis936 4y agoClouds are much lower altitude than this balloon.
- c_o_n_v_e_x 4y agoYes, this high altitude balloon is above the clouds. I was answering what can be done with a balloon.
- sillysaurusx 4y agoIt's fascinating getting a glimpse into modern tensions. It turns out that there was a guy that shot down like 8 MiG's back in the 40's, but they had to suppress all knowledge of it so that it didn't escalate anything between US and Russia. Makes you wonder how often stuff like this happens and we just never hear about it. https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/20/asia/korean-war-fighter-pilot-soviet-shootdown-intl-hnk-ml/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/20/asia/korean-war-fighter-pilot...
- wvoch235 4y agoThis was my first thought as well. I'm kind of surprised the media is making such a big deal out of this. I would assume, considering how cheap it is to make a stratospheric balloon, it is either fairly common and the US has an equivalent program or its completely inferior to satellites. The technology is pretty mature, Google ran a whole fleet of them with Project Loon back in 2011. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loon_LLC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loon_LLC
- nygardkillsquad 4y agoWasn't one theory about Roswell that it was some kind of test balloon with crash test dummies? Something about testing for radiation in the upper atmosphere back before everyone and their brother knew how to make a gun style nuclear device? (Nowadays any idiot with some uranium could make a suitcase nuke, LMAO)
- uoaei 4y ago> The technology is pretty mature Luckily with balloons, if you're just going for "somewhere over there" and you have reliable currents at steady elevations then you don't need to worry much about that. So yes the hardware and telemetry is mature. Accurate navigation of such balloons however was never viable, which is why Alphabet shut down Loon two years ago. Navigation is achieved by inflating and deflating the balloon to rise or lower to catch favorable winds. But the navigational planning algorithms were never good enough.
- jameshart 4y ago
- roseway4 4y agoThe WSJ has more detail: https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-spy-balloon-seen-over-u-s-this-weekofficials-11675376397 https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-spy-balloon-seen-over-u... According to a Pentagon source, the balloon offers "limited additive value" over satellites. More interesting excerpts: >The incident, which occurred in the last two days, marked the latest aggressive Chinese intelligence gathering maneuvers in recent years. U.S. defense officials said the balloon loitered over the U.S. longer than in previous similar incidents, which made this “different.” <snip> > Mr. Biden was presented with options and proposed that the high-altitude balloon be shot down after it was spotted and reported by civilians in a commercial airliner, U.S. officials said. The Pentagon feared civilian casualties, and opted not to shoot down the balloon, U.S. officials said. <snip> > The balloon “was traveling at an altitude well above the commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground,” Gen. Ryder added. <snip> > The balloon was observed flying over Montana after flying over Canada and the Aleutian Islands, one U.S. official said. It was large enough for its debris to cause damage, and while the U.S. considered shooting it down over a sparsely populated area of Montana, the U.S. opted to not shoot it down. It also flew over sensitive sites, a senior defense official told reporters Thursday.
- floxy 4y agoAny attempts to capture it? Is it flying too high for fixed wing aircraft?
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoGun pod on a U2.
- HL33tibCe7 4y agohttps://twitter.com/upwardnewshq/status/1621290179519545346?s=46&t=LETzU6W2sZja5mQ9ujXs_g https://twitter.com/upwardnewshq/status/1621290179519545346?...
- throwthere 4y agohttps://www.flightradar24.com/2f0ea6cf https://www.flightradar24.com/2f0ea6cf. The balloon isn't on there, and the (presumed) fighter jets that are escorting it aren't either but you can see the fuel tankers.
- Ccecil 4y agoI just went outside and watched the formation fly over. 4:35pst @ Coeur d'alene, ID. How crazy...the future we live in.
- mastax 4y agoInteresting, I see a fair number of French-named cities around Wisconsin but I didn't expect them as far west as Idaho.
- irrational 4y agoMaybe from French trappers?
- someemptyspace 4y agoReminder that the capital of Idaho, Boise, is (apochraphally) named for the trees (les bois) that surround the Boise river. French made it quite a ways west, and definitely made it as far as Idaho.
- milsorgen 4y agoThe story goes Owyhee County is named after Hawaii. It's a county southwest of the Boise Area and home to the most beautiful wilderness I have ever seen. There is nothing like hiking mile after mile out there under the hot summer sun never seeing another living soul... But I digress. The story goes some Hawaiian goat herders entered the area to try their luck and were never to be seen again and hence the name. Owyhee = Hawaii How true it is I do it know but it's what I've always been told. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owyhee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owyhee
- 4y ago
- justinzollars 4y agoUSAF circling with several aircraft: https://twitter.com/UpwardNewsHQ/status/1621290179519545346 https://twitter.com/UpwardNewsHQ/status/1621290179519545346
- Havoc 4y agoThree tankers? Exactly how many jets did they send to need that many refuelers
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- 123pie123 4y agowhat about all the cheap web cams that stream live back to china? are they being looked into?
- themodelplumber 4y agoIs this a thing? Where?
- empyrrhicist 4y agoAmazon
- Havoc 4y agoI'm guessing its a reference to shodan.io
- wingworks 4y agohttp://www.insecam.org/en/bycountry/US/ http://www.insecam.org/en/bycountry/US/
- techmememe 4y ago[flagged]
- netsharc 4y agoNot exactly what OP is talking about, but Hikvision CCTVs are cheap so everyone buys them: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-banned-chinese-cameras-20190710-story.html https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-banned-chinese-camera...
- NegativeK 4y agohttps://www.techradar.com/news/anker-admits-eufy-camera-security-issues https://www.techradar.com/news/anker-admits-eufy-camera-secu...
- erdos4d 4y agoYeah, there are sites where these are being looked into. I'm not sure its the same thing you mean, but you can bet there are plenty of eager guys out there making sure these cams aren't going to waste.
- spiritplumber 4y agoLegally, if I bring it down, can I keep it? What if I call the CIA and tell them "Hey, I spent $5K bringing it down, but I'll gladly sell you it for $10K"?
- walrus01 4y agoIf you can get something to above 65k feet and conduct some sort of kinetic action against a small moving target for only 5k dollars I'm sure lots of us defense contractor UAV manufacturers would like to hire you or license your technology.
- sudosysgen 4y agoYou might be able to bring it down with a powerful enough laser, so a cheap weather balloon and a 50w laser plus a raspberry pi with adequate connectivity, four propellers for course correction, and some servos ought to do the trick for under 1000$.
- walrus01 4y agoI am no expert on the upper atmosphere but I think the wind speeds at those altitudes vastly outstrip the ability of anything with batteries and electric motors to adjust its course. The only way to change directions is to rise or fall into a differently moving stream of air current. This is how the Google project loon things were supposed to navigate?
- sudosysgen 4y agoPresumably both balloons are affected by the same air currents, right? So as long as you lift it up from the right spot it should be able to get within a few kilometers of the target, no?
- TheOtherHobbes 4y agoDoubtful. It's more like trying to steer a ship. There are currents, but also a lot of noise/turbulence.
- mrsmee89 4y agoCan someone explain why this is not being shot down immediately?
- robdar 4y agoOne reason is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Open_Skies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Open_Skies Military intelligence gathering is so common that countries basically agree to not start a shooting war for overflying each others country gathering military intelligence. If every military intelligence balloon, satellite, aircraft, drone, etc, was considered an act of war and destroyed, the world as we know it would have ended a long, long, long time ago, and none of us would be here having this conversation.
- amelius 4y agoWhat if it was filled with some nasty biological agent?
- themodelplumber 4y agoFor one, this converts it to a gravity weapon, which could hurt people or damage property. There is also a risk of somehow triggering an unanticipated outcome due to e.g. unknown materials or chemicals on board.
- 323 4y agoMaybe they want to capture it intact (most likely). Maybe they are doing signals intelligence on it. Maybe it's a (fake) Chinese school project, and the world wide media will be like tomorrow "US gov shoots down Chinese little girl science project".
- Havoc 4y agoCurious how they know that it is chinese?
- 323 4y agoMaybe it has a big China flag on it?
- pokepim 4y ago[dead]
- boomboomsubban 4y agoOr how they know it's a surveillance balloon as opposed to some kind of weather balloon. I guess you could say a weather balloon is still conducting a kind of surveillance.
- ezconnect 4y agoThey mentioned it was already common Chinese practice, it just that this one loitered longer and for days compared to other Chinese balloons.
- evan_ 4y agoProbably because our spy balloons have been watching it since it lifted off
- fIREpOK 4y agothey didn't drop it from a commercial flight?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- TheRealPomax 4y agoHeaven forbid someone flies outdated spy technology over another superpower. checks decade oh wait no I'm thinking of the US flying U-2's. Carry on. edit: wow, lots of folks apparently unfamiliar with the 1960's U-2 incident eh? Time to brush up on military aviation history.
- vuln 4y agoThe U2 is an amazing piece of technology. The amount of times it's been gutted and retrofitted is crazy. 67 years and counting; sure don't make them like they use to. Even the global hawk can't match its capability 1:1.
- pengaru 4y ago> The U2 is an amazing piece of technology. The amount of times it's been gutted and retrofitted is crazy. 67 years and counting; sure don't make them like they use to. Even the global hawk can't match its capability 1:1. If the U2 is amazing, which superlative is appropriate for the SR-71?
- GauntletWizard 4y agoUnbelievable. Supernatural. Godlike. But unfortunately not cost effective.
- vuln 4y agoLeaky.
- anon7725 4y agoJust till it reaches altitude
- yogthos 4y agoI remember seeing that thing in a museum in Moscow back when I was a kid :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident
- schappim 4y agoABC has a good writeup on this without the paywall / advertising: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-03/china-spy-balloon-seen-over-us/101926096 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-03/china-spy-balloon-see...
- mLuby 4y agoCan they Fulton skyhook it down?
- ironyman 4y agoFT article provides further insight: https://archive.ph/iT2zX https://archive.ph/iT2zX - The official added the surveillance balloon “does not create significant” opportunities for China to gather intelligence beyond other methods such as low orbit satellites. - The US has observed similar activity over the past several years, including during the administration of Donald Trump. Unlike previous years the balloon “is appearing to hang out for a longer period of time this time around”, the defence official said.
- waltbosz 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb Japanese balloon bombs from WWII
- 1letterunixname 4y agoThe only CONUS civilian deaths of WWII.
- netman21 4y agoVideo of the balloon https://twitter.com/rawsalerts/status/1621294430081761280 https://twitter.com/rawsalerts/status/1621294430081761280
- aaron695 4y ago[dead]
- hermannj314 4y agoGenerally, when something like this becomes news, someone is trying to shift the Overton window. Who wants this to be news and to what end are they manipulating collective perception? I am so cynical so I respond the opposite way. Good for China, I applaud them for keeping tabs on a nation that routinely use drones in foreign skies to murder civilians.
- unity1001 4y ago> a nation that routinely use drones in foreign skies to murder civilians That? The US flies aircraft across the borders of all targeted nations daily and violates their airspace. But the Anglosaxon media always only talks about how others are doing it, deceiving people to think that only 'others' do such things. Textbook example of lying by omission explained by Chomsky.
- stjohnswarts 4y agoDo you salute them for the way they treat Tibet and Uyghurs?
- MomoXenosaga 4y agoAmericans don't have much historical sense but I do. They used to fly spy planes right into USSR airspace- until Gary Powers got shot down. Typical hypocrisy.
- blinding-streak 4y agoChina is not exactly pure as the driven snow. Glass houses.
- andsoitis 4y agoAre you saying you trust that China is keeping tabs on the US? In what way do you think they are and what is your mental model for deciding who to trust?
- elzbardico 4y agoI am not OP, but I must express my belief that the world was a more harmonious and simpler place for the average person when the United States was not a dominant global power. The fear of communism, in fact, was probably one of the driving forces behind the creation of a thriving middle class in the US. It is probably not a coincidence that since the fall of the Soviet Union, income and wealth disparities have only continued to escalate in the United States, painting a stark picture of the consequences of unchecked hegemonic power.
- alsodumb 4y agoA lot of people don't realize that a relatively simple balloon can be designed to take off from anywhere in the world, reach any other point in the world, and hover for multiple days sending back data with very little deviation. All the balloon needs is a way to change its altitude, that's it, it doesn't need any actuators to move in horizontal direction. Google's project Loon (https://x.company/projects/loon/ https://x.company/projects/loon/) did this and I thought it was pretty darn cool. The way it works is this: different layers of stratosphere have different wind directions. If you can accurately predict the wind directions in different layers, you can in theory move in horizontal direction just by changing your altitude. Loon had pretty good models and simulated the wind directions well. Their balloon used to take off from Nevada and reach Kenya (I believe) and hover there for multiple days to provide comms. They use a cool reinforcement learning based controller in their loop: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2939-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2939-8 I remember some Chinese researchers writing papers on this topic back then and them saying they'd have good results if they had access to data from Loon: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep45976 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep45976 I don't think Loon ever shared any data publicly (I was wrong, they did apparently open source a ton of data) but Loon did get shut down (like a lot of other Alphabet's moonshots) and I remember some of their tech and patents were sold to SoftBank and others. I was surprised US did not try to stop this in the interest of national security.
- atoav 4y agoReminds me of this absolute stunning film about the japanese war balloons from WWII: https://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.13084 https://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.13084
- deepzn 4y agoThis is such an uncanny representation of an episode of Space Force it's hilarious.
- cma 4y agoDo unallied countries respect patents for military hardware?
- diebeforei485 4y agoWhat exactly are the laws here? I know Russia does overflights frequently.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- neonate 4y agoWSJ https://archive.is/PfCiQ https://archive.is/PfCiQ Wapo https://archive.ph/cJ5KC https://archive.ph/cJ5KC
- neom 4y agoAlso interesting, although I believe the USA withdrew and china was never party: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Open_Skies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Open_Skies
- anon223345 4y agoYou’re probably on the right track
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- throwaatgh 4y agoOur country warned about China few decades ago but USA was in denial. Terrible days are ahead for the west. Good luck guys
- 1sembiyan 4y agoWhich country is that?
- mensetmanusman 4y agoTaiwan
- itsconspiracy 4y ago[flagged]
- itsconspiracy 4y ago[flagged]
- ck2 4y agoHow many trillions in national defense and the way they handle this problem is with a press release? Yeah that doesn't smell in the slightest. And how exactly do they know it's Chinese? What if it was like WW2 and the balloons were carrying bombs? What's the national defense plan for that? We definitely have high altitude drones.
- erickf1 4y agoWhat would China do if a USA surveillance balloon appeared in their skies? Exactly. You watching Taiwan?
- paines 4y agoLittle reminder: Some 20 years ago a US surveillance stealth plane/bomber crashed in China. They didn't start any shit...
- sva_ 4y agohttps://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-apr-02-mn-45841-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-apr-02-mn-45841...
- Cardinal7167 4y agoThis definitely feels like a response to the situation unfolding in the Philippines to me, but I am just your casual armchair political power enjoyer.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- 11thEarlOfMar 4y agoHas the US lost all sense of sovereignty?
- chitowneats 4y agoThe U.S. has too big of a dick (please excuse my crude euphemism) to care about pissing contests. If the balloon was truly a threat you better believe we would've shot it down. What exactly did the Chinese learn from this? Feels like a misguided shit test. There will be a proportionate response.
- WiSaGaN 4y agoUS military was working on air balloons to use against China, and thought it "rise above competition": https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/05/u-s-militarys-newest-weapon-against-china-and-russia-hot-air-00043860 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/05/u-s-militarys-newes...
- patientplatypus 4y ago[dead]
- nirui 4y agoIs it weird for me (a Chinese) to reply this? I don't really think the three-buses-wide balloon is a good idea for spying since everybody (including the radar) can see it coming, but I imagine this will be quite effective for search and rescue support, battlefield surveillance and all the other short-term missions that could put such disposable flying electronics better good use. If I remembered it correctly, China Mobile has tested a drone-based base station which can provide cell service over a short period of time, and they were using the system during a earthquake rescue with some success. Maybe using balloon is an better idea. PS. Funny thing. I was planing to build and release a water probe since I live very close to the Yangtze river. Thought I can probably measure the water speed with the probe by letting it send back it's GPS position, plus some pretty pictures via cell/SMS. I haven't started the project though, due to many hurdles. One of them is to figure out what trouble I can get myself into after the probe encountered something it shouldn't have (because I have no control over it after release). I don't really want to have a chat with CIA, or even worse, the water police (yup, and they got jet boats).
- case0x00 4y agothats basically what https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loon_LLC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loon_LLC was mostly for I think. its a really good idea though, and pretty cool technology. I think it only makes sense for battlefield surveillance if its augmenting some small gap in existing ISR operations, combined with UAVs + satellites + whatever other aircraft. it definitely would not replace any of those aforementioned vehicles/technologies wholesale.
- Salgat 4y agoThe leading theory US intelligence has put forward is that this was done by mistake, which explains why they haven't shot it down yet. They're trying to draw out this bizarre and embarrassing situation as much as possible while simultaneously showing that they don't feel threatened by it.
- abcd_f 4y agoAlso because of upcoming talks between the US and China on easing Taiwan tensions. These won't be off to a good start if they'd shoot down something Chinese now.
- what-no-tests 4y agoThe Pentagon doesn't wand competition over here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_Stare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_Stare
- tw1984 4y agoSo after decades of so called reforms & IP theft, the best thing the CCP can do is to fly some ballon over the US when the US is building the B-21? Sounds like a stone age economy to me. If that is the case, well, at least you know that the China threat stories by your favourite media outlets deserve a truck load of salt.
- hhr 4y agoOpinion that I find to be usefull on this: The surveillance balloons are very, very difficult to destroy, the aircraft's radar cannot see them, they fly almost in space at altitudes up to 25 km, they are painted in the color of the sky, or even transparent like jellyfish. Reflective surface is less than any of stealth planes. For any sane results, you need a dedicated aircraft with a special weapons set for destroying this thing. Missiles with a thermal homing head and special anti-aerostatic incendiary tracer shells, with a special fuse that is triggered when the thin shell of the balloon touches. This fuse is also triggered by raindrops, so it's better not to shoot them in the rain. Rockets, on the other hand, capture the heated sunny side of the balloon with their clever thermal head. Secondly, as a rule, one hit is not enough(due to the cell structure of balloon). Balloon doesn't give a fuck about shell holes, it will slowly descend to where it needs to go for thousands of kilometers dropping ballast more often. And by the way, he can also bang on a lucky hit and take the plane with him.
- jamisteven 4y agoNonsense, they have been tracking this thing since before it hit US airspace, through Alaska and Canada, they know exactly where it is and can take it out at any time they want.
- raspberry1337 4y ago[flagged]
- case0x00 4y agohttps://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3287204/senior-defense-official-holds-a-background-briefing-on-high-altitude-surveillan/ https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/... "And, I'm sorry, how long have we been tracking it. I'm not going to go into all the details because I don't want to reveal sensitive information. But I will say we have been tracking it for some time. And we have had custody of it the entire time it has been over U.S. airspace, entered the continental United States airspace a couple of days ago."
- seydor 4y agooff topic but some of the paragraphs sound like they ve been written by chatGPT
- petodo 4y agoCan someone explain to me how is this any different from spy satellite? Yet nobody would think about shooting down spy satellite, yet you see in this thread people discussing shooting down a baloon, what's the difference between them? Does baloon provide better data than satellite? Isn't it just cheaper version of satellite with ability to provide same data? edit: from CNN article: "“Balloon payloads can now weigh less and so the balloons can be smaller, cheaper and easier to launch” than satellites, Layton said." TLDR they are cheaper "“An advantage of balloons is that they can be steered using onboard computers to take advantage of winds and they can go up and down to a limited degree. This means they can loiter to a limited extent. “A satellite can’t loiter and so many are needed to criss-cross an area of interest to maintain surveillance,” he said." TLDR they can loiter in place compared to satellite
- zw123456 4y agoMain difference, a balloon can carry a payload that is capable of jamming rather than just surveilling radio signals. Something not being talked about.
- IAmGraydon 4y ago>Can someone explain to me how is this any different from spy satellite? A balloon can carry a weapon which could immediately have an impact if detonated at its current altitude (EMP, for example). A balloon can also descend to a lower altitude.
- case0x00 4y agothe ISR payload tends to be massively less as well, with a balloon compared to a satellite, since balloon payloads need to be really small. they are basically an obsolete technology since the development of reconnaissance satellites, UAVs, etc, so I really doubt this is collecting much valuable intelligence. also shooting down satellites is definitely a sketchy area (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon) because of in-space collisions etc.
- langsoul-com 4y agoI wonder if a balloon would violate airspace rules. Or just be a hazard for flights. Realistically, there's spy satellites anyway, the ballon seems more of a power move. Precisely because it's visible
- nothrowaways 4y agoI hope it didn't drop bad stuff, like a nuke.