Politics

[Dragan N.]

Balloon Launches are a common thing and we (the US) launch them all all the time and all over the world. Here is a link to the NASA website.

NASA - CSBF

Main home page of www.csbf.nasa.gov.

www.csbf.nasa.gov

I worked the US Ballon Launch Facility in Antarctica in 2019. We maintained the NASA area where the balloons are stored, prepared and launched. Balloons are really cool for collecting data.
When that data collecting is complete the digital instruments are dropped from the ballon, via remote control, to be picked up on the ground (hopefully). The ballon then travels away and rides the jet streams until it eventually deflates and falls back to earth.

I now work on the Alaska Radar Stations that provide NORAD with the data regarding everything flying in that part of the world.

The path of this balloon went right over the top of at least four of these Radar Stations in Alaska before it entered Canadian airspace where it crossed over several of the Canadian Radar Stations (which also communicate with NORAD) before entering the continental US air space again. There is no doubt that the US has been tracking it since long before it entered our airspace.

If someone brings it down they get to clean the mess. If there was ever any sensitive Chinese electric surveillance equipment onboard, the Chinese have already dropped it off (remotely) along time ago. Even the Chineses are not dumb enough to let us the US get its hands on surveillance equipment from a ballon that could just as easily be had from Satellites.

It would not surprise me at all if one, or several of our balloons have not made it over Chinese ( and many other countries) airspace over the years. Deflating derelict long durations balloons is probably not something that the US wants to get started.

With all that said, the US has competent and amazing group of people that protect our skis from threats every day regardless of politics or the regime in charge at the time. They make the decisions based on the facts and experience.

The political spin and "news" is all just that........Politics

Everything you say makes a lot of sense. And please correct me if i am wrong but from reading your post I understood that this is an old derelict balloon and that it's pretty normal for such balloons to fly wherever the jet stream takes them.

Given that this is a relatively common occurrence I am wondering why did this particular balloon cause such a big stink? I mean Blinken is not going to Beijing over this.Surely the politicians and/or their advisors must be aware that this is a fairly common occurrence. Why make an international scandal out of this? What is there to gain?

Now i am sorry if this is a really stupid question, but from a balloon's trajectory, flight characteristics etc... is it possible to tell if it is an old derelict balloon or a fully functioning one ?

 

[Mekaniks]

Everything you say makes a lot of sense. And please correct me if i am wrong but from reading your post I understood that this is an old derelict balloon and that it's pretty normal for such balloons to fly wherever the jet stream takes them.

Given that this is a relatively common occurrence I am wondering why did this particular balloon cause such a big stink? I mean Blinken is not going to Beijing over this.Surely the politicians and/or their advisors must be aware that this is a fairly common occurrence. Why make an international scandal out of this? What is there to gain?

Now i am sorry if this is a really stupid question, but from a balloon's trajectory, flight characteristics etc... is it possible to tell if it is an old derelict balloon or a fully functioning one ?

Because follow the jet stream, check it and verify.
Our military has a job that is keeping the US (all of us) safe regardless of politics or whatever the “news” is reporting.

This balloon crossed the Pacific Ocean, Bering Sea, Mainland Alaska, Canada.

Now it’s big deal when it reaches the Continental US. Ask yourself why…..

 

[Dragan N.]

Because follow the jet stream, check it and verify.
Our military has a job that is keeping the US (all of us) safe regardless of politics or whatever the “news” is reporting.

This balloon crossed the Pacific Ocean, Bering Sea, Mainland Alaska, Canada.

Now it’s big deal when it reaches the Continental US. Ask yourself why…..

What gain is there from making an international scandal out of this? Especially since its, as you say, a fairly routine occurence... This is what I don't understand why are politicians/ the administration doing this?

 

[Mekaniks]

What gain is there from making an international scandal out of this? Especially since its, as you say, a fairly routine occurence... This is what I don't understand why are politicians/ the administration doing this?

Have you noticed that there is currently a political fight in the US about military spending $ ????

 

[Mekaniks]

Democrats: We want to spend more money!

Republicans: We want to reduce spending!

Republicans: THERE IS A HUGE SPY BALLOON!!

Democrates: Ok. Need more defense money....

Couldn't make this shit up if I tried.....

 

[Mekaniks]

This is a quote that I made on another site.......

For fuks sake bother you have to have SOME confidence in our US defense personnel ......The decision not to deflate it was made many, many days ago by people who are trained, experienced, professionals , without regard for for politics or the regime at the time. Thats what they do.......

 

[Kevin Peacocke]

I'd agree with the above. However, I'd also tentatively suggest that the current state of affairs is getting us there quite nicely, although I'd bow to your superior knowledge and experience on that topic!

 

[Kevin Peacocke]

Putin and his era will pass, probably quite soon, and with it his delusions of imperial grandeur.
Look what has been achieved. Russia is a much smaller bear than anyone thought, including them. NATO did not take them out and has played precisely by the rules, Russia's excuse for defensive agression has been pretty much dispelled. MAD seems to be holding firm.
This war will fizzle out, the peace will probably give Russia a thin land bridge, which is probably far bigger a prize than they could have hoped for, and they are unlikely to do anything daft in future to jeopardise that.

 

[Kevin Peacocke]

The US has the ability to capture the balloon, slowly deflate it so that it safely is put on the ground where DOD can examine it, it's information collected & its technology.

Unless it has some kind of proximity fuse.

 

[SaintPanzer]

In this day and age, no one gets promoted past lieutenant colonel without owing the right people. Without being liberal enough to not fight the selling out of our country. It’s not just our president that’s owned by the Chinese.

Big if true. And if true, I'd really like to know who I owe, so I can pay them back and get on with my life...

 

[Red Leg]

I can guarantee that the US will shoot this thing down. But not until China has gotten all of the information they intended to get from this thing. After that, we will shoot it down. Then watch our Chinese whore president, and our military brass, pound their chests while telling us how great they are.

In this day and age, no one gets promoted past lieutenant colonel without owing the right people. Without being liberal enough to not fight the selling out of our country. It’s not just our president that’s owned by the Chinese.

That second paragraph is one of the the more insulting things I have read here yet. Your experiences as a field grade officer must have been very different than mine.

Civilian authority makes decisions on issues like this. DOD, CIA, and NSA would give a capabilities assessment to the NSC (both ours and the balloon) who would then make a recommendation to the president. I would assume a factor in the decision was that China has intell satellites over flying the US constanty. I would also assume we are able to do a lot with regard to intercepting comms from the thing. That and high resolution imagery would tell us exactly what it was doing.

Unfortunately with this administration, there is always the suspicion that what we are watching is paralysis with regard to China. I would have strongly urged shooting it down (very easily done with a few rounds from a F-16). At least we would have been fairly certain no others would accidentally drift over our missile fields In the future.

 

[Kevin Peacocke]

This whole thing sounds loopy to the point of being bizarre. But surely the only thing that is certain is that this thing is surveiling the USA continuously. What possible positives could there be in allowing it to continue? Or perhaps old Brandon really is holding out on taking it down? If so, and against military advice, that would qualify as the scariest thing I have heard in my life. Is it plausible that he could do so? Yes, remember Afghanistan where he acted directly against his military advisers. Yes, remember the border, where he is acting against American interest and inviting instability for some external social ideal. Yes, in shutting down American oil production and simultaneously drawing from the strategic reserve.
So yes, it is quite plausible that this is another Brandon mess. But who am I to know? I hope somebody knows.

 

[CoElkHunter]

This whole thing sounds loopy to the point of being bizarre. But surely the only thing that is certain is that this thing is surveiling the USA continuously. What possible positives could there be in allowing it to continue? Or perhaps old Brandon really is holding out on taking it down? If so, and against military advice, that would qualify as the scariest thing I have heard in my life. Is it plausible that he could do so? Yes, remember Afghanistan where he acted directly against his military advisers. Yes, remember the border, where he is acting against American interest and inviting instability for some external social ideal. Yes, in shutting down American oil production and simultaneously drawing from the strategic reserve.
So yes, it is quite plausible that this is another Brandon mess. But who am I to know? I hope somebody knows.

Let’s ask Kamala?

 

[Mark A Ouellette]

Maybe the Chinese balloons are for gathering weather data that they are too cheap to dispose of. Maybe they are spy balloons.
Maybe they are for harassment of the USA?
Maybe they are testing the feasibility of their use as a delivery means for a biological weapon. If so, do you remember the balloon prank the three smart axx students pulled on Headmaster Trask in the movie Scent of a Woman?

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

Biden has missed a real opportunity here: Shoot down the Chinese spy balloon and that way Biden can claim he is making the US safe and reducing inflation at the same time.

 

[bowjijohn]

The positives might be that we are all talking about it

did the US really want to go to China?

Can this be spun in a way that embarrasses China?

Does this media concentration on a balloon allow other legislation and deals to slip past unnoticed?

Etc etc …

 

[Mark A Ouellette]

Our AH members who are General, Field, or Company Grade military officers certainly do not need me to defend them. This is however far from the first time I have witnessed this type of prejudice on AH.

Doing what is best for their Marines, Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, their unit, service, and country while making the best of changing political situations is not easy. Far from it! Career military be they officers or enlisted carry on for the good of their service and their people. We do it or did it due to devotion to something greater than ourselves. Military endure the changing politics of peacetime, being miserable in training and war, low pay for our skills, and occasionally loosing good men and for some, loosing good women from enemy fire, training accidents, and their own actions on liberty.

The more senior one becomes, the more "politics" they face. Implementing unpopular orders with the least damage to unit or service moral may be the hardest thing senior military members must do.

 

[John Wasmuth]

What better way to do a test run for deploying COVID-23………

 

[Red Leg]

I am changing my view on this thing a bit as more information comes out.

As I said before, it is not like China doesn't have surveillance satellites (multi-spectrum photo, radar, and communications) overflying the US constantly. Secondly, this thing can't be lifting very much. This is the clearest photo that I have found.

A great deal of lift is devoted to what is clearly a pretty large solar array. That would be necessary to power comms and whatever sensors are aboard over the duration of the flight. The things also apparently have up and down maneuverability to catch different winds, so those controls and ballast will take up additional weight. I am sure the smart guys at CIA and DIA have figured lift capacity to the last milligram, so they can determine what payload capacity is left. I have no idea, but I would suspect it is fairly inconsequential. As I noted above, we will have downloaded every signal it has sent, and even if we can't immediately break the coding, we will have a good idea of the type of signal.

I do not believe it is too much of a flight of fancy to conclude the assessment was that the things are relatively harmless. That means they were launched and flew our way in error (very unlikely) or primarily as a provocation. The question is whether we wished to be provoked.

And virus bombardment is pretty tricky. Even the most infectious COVID strain has to pass from person to person - not quickly dissipating in a pasture somewhere. Unless there is a midget, infected member of the PLA on board with a very small parachute, we are probably safe.

I would also assume, and I think it is a reasonable one, that the weight mavens also determined it could not be lifting a nuclear weapon capable of an EMP blast. Plus, the altitude necessary for such a strike is much higher than this thing is drifting.

 

[BSO Dave]