7 ms·
Can someone explain why this is not being shot down immediately?
by mrsmee89 4y ago
Can 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".
- mshake2 4y ago>"US gov shoots down Chinese little girl science project" "Cool balloon Mei, want to bring it to the White House?"
- davikr 4y agoAnd then they it turns out they just bought the balloon from like Alibaba and painted it or something?
- vuln 4y agoI believe they are referencing Former President Barak Obama's tweet. >Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great. https://twitter.com/POTUS44/status/644193755814342656 https://twitter.com/POTUS44/status/644193755814342656 https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/16/440890750/obama-invites-texas-teen-to-white-house-after-bomb-hoax-incident https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/09/16/440890750...
- cjbgkagh 4y agoIt’s quite likely that was an extension of the joke, the repurposing of a comercial off the shelf item that already does the job the young inventor set out to do.
- idontwantthis 4y agoI just looked up the conclusion of that. So awful. His whole family ended up moving to Qatar because of harassment.
- mshake2 4y agoMoving to Qatar is a very common response to harassment and a failed lawsuit against local government for $15M
- lwhi 4y agoA nice idea, but the size of three double decker buses??
- paxys 4y agoOther news sources have a lot more detail about this. 1. There's a high risk of debris falling on people on the ground. 2. Any sensitive information collected would have been sent home already, so shooting it now isn't going to do much good. So Pentagon leadership recommended not taking "kinetic action". What's interesting is that they have been tracking it for several days over the US mainland. You'd think the strongest military in the world could do something other than...just watch.
- advpetc 4y agoI don't understand it here. If it's detrimental to national security shouldn't it be dealt with immediate action? I think it's a propaganda with a lot of self conflicted information.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- NegativeK 4y agoThere's definitely strength in saying "Your balloon is not a concern to us."
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y agoSadly, it could also come off as "we won't do anything about it"
- pengaru 4y agoThere's more strength in demonstrating "Hey, do you want this silly balloon back?" after retrieving it without incident at negligible effort/cost. Which is not at all what is occurring. Having flight tracks of multiple refueling tankers demonstrates far more resources have already been expended on this "not a concern to us" than was spent on deploying it...
- sinerath 4y agoThey could put Carrot Top and Andy Dick on it and send it back?
- throwbadubadu 4y agoNot only shoot down, but then also shoot back please immediately. You guys never stop to amaze me.
- rasz 4y agoOfficial explanation is BS (danger to people in sparse rural Montana) so Im guessing they dont want to create a precedent for any of their own "projects" flying around the globe.
- everybodyknows 4y agoRight, escalation risk. Next step being a satellite shootdown.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- georgeg23 4y agoTons of US balloons are going over China every day. They don't shoot ours down.
- nxm 4y agoYou don’t get much more info than from a modern satellite
- lastofthemojito 4y agoSource?
- georgeg23 4y agoNWS weather balloons alone are about 100 balloons over China: https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/radiosondes https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/radiosondes Tons more in amateur radio etc., see APRS
- AlbertCory 4y agodo you have some evidence for that?
- gsatic 4y agoThey are waiting for it to fly over Roswell.
- mrsmee89 4y agoThis is interesting. https://twitter.com/faytuks/status/1621289387504836610?s=46&t=E7-iUUDWksUXVZHsRxm58A https://twitter.com/faytuks/status/1621289387504836610?s=46&...
- ynab4 4y agoBiden isn't capable of standing up to China.
- mastax 4y agoExcept for semiconductors and tariffs?
- acdha 4y agoAlso military expansion in the region (e.g. the Philippines base) and direct aid to Taiwan. The problem for hawks is what everyone sober is already aware of: there aren’t many ways to contain a nuclear power with a large advanced economy next to its borders which don’t quickly end up in a pretty dark scenario.
- amw 4y agoNot that China needs to be contained anyway. The only worldwide threat to national security is the country with 800 military bases worldwide and a hundreds-of-years-long history of invading someone every few years.
- acdha 4y agoYou’re overstating the case somewhat but there’s definitely merit to that point. I think it’s a trap though to assume there can only be one aggressor in the situation: China isn’t a global military power but it has been quite aggressive around its borders and the current actions against the Uighurs, Tibetans, etc. are on a scale reminiscent of 19th century American campaigns against the native inhabitants. If you live around the South China Sea you’re quite understandably going to be worried to an extent that someone in Africa is not.
- amw 4y agoMost of those "actions" are reported to us by our government, whose ability to report objective fact has not been demonstrated. To take Xinjiang, in particular: do a deep dive into the reporting and see where it comes from. You'll discover that it all boils down to a report by one guy, a fellow of the Victims of Communism org named Adrian Zenz. His report has been responded to in various places, and whether you take the responses at face value or not, they bring up good points worth investigation that call Zenz into very serious doubt.
- wayeq 4y agoMaybe they don't want the incident to balloon out of control.
- anon223345 4y agoA) it’s highly visible, probably on purpose B) China has probably cut a deal to “count nuke sites” which is informally allowed in request during times of high nuclear tension C) They most likely told us before hand it was going over D) this is almost positively a big ol nothing burger, and some back channel deal with China to get them not to support Russia
- mrsmee89 4y agoCan you explain a bit more? Why would this cause china not to support Russia? Why is counting nuke sites useful? Who’s allowed to request?
- 7952 4y agoI wonder how easy it would actually be to shoot down. Are rockets actually designed to track something like this? And do they have planes that can fly that high and shoot something so slow. Also, the negative effects of a failed attempt to shoot down could be worse than the threat of the balloon. Both in terms of embarrassment and spent ordinance getting dropped.