Chinese Spy Balloon Flying Over the U.S.

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So can someone tell me what they think a basically uncontrollable balloon can gather that can’t be gathered by a white van around (fill-in-the-blank national asset) or a properly equipped Cessna flying over/near the same asset, either/both by legal drivers/pilots from China, in our very open country?

Sure. The balloon may have possibly been carrying signal gathering equipment relaying information before its demise. I have no idea what it was carrying. Maybe fried rice, but it is certainly possible. I expect that the military had a pretty good idea.
 
So, what are your qualifications that provide you with so much knowledge on the subject?
Zilch - which is why I haven’t claimed any knowledge and haven’t dabbled in nonsensical conspiracy theories.

But my 24 years as an Air Force officer taught me a whole lot - including that there are things outside my expertise that are outside my expertise.

Hey - I’m open to recalibrating my knowledge. But not just based on tin-hat conspiracy theories
 
So can someone tell me what they think a basically uncontrollable balloon can gather that can’t be gathered by a white van around (fill-in-the-blank national asset) or a properly equipped Cessna flying over/near the same asset, either/both by legal drivers/pilots from China, in our very open country?

White van or cessna probably doesn't have room for big antennas, nor a lot of staying power. Ain't gonna trigger air defense system either.

Don't be so sure the balloons are not maneuverable. Changing altitudes puts them in different windstreams, so they have some ability to choose their direction of flight. Ever notice how the balloons in Albuquerque have a "land closest to the takeoff point" contest? How? By varying altitude. Same thing with spot landing contests for balloons.

You don't need to be nearly that precise with a balloon at 60K'.
 
I still marvel at how people can speak with such confidence about things they don’t seem to know about. I personally have no idea what was going on here but I do know we have the best military and the best intel in the world (if not us, who else?).
What are the chances China and Russia giving the US a run for their money?
 
News reports saying balloon was shot down by an AIM-9 sidewinder missile.

Question for POA members with knowledge of such things; would a balloon present an adequate IR source for a sidewinder to lock on and guide to?

Separately, would a balloon possess a large enough mass for the missile’s proximity fuse/TDD to detect and detonate the warhead?

Would have been more fun if it had been shot down by an amateur rocketry club.
 
Would have been more fun if it had been shot down by an amateur rocketry club.

I would have liked to see us send our own balloon up there and pop their balloon with a pin.
 
If we accepted the premise that is was a harmless weather balloon why shoot down once is basically off our coast and heading out to sea.

Proving we can is a pretty lousy show of force. Govt caving to the saber rattlers??

If we actually thought it was a threat it would have been shot down before it hit the west coast.

the whole timeline is just plain weird.

Obviously we want to recover the tech... Whatever remains IS valuable.
 
The list of possibilities is endless. There are signals that are important to national security that you never dreamed of.

When trained for maintenance and repair of the Nike Hercules missile I had to gain a Top Secret NIC NAC clearance due to a portion of the signals relayed to the missile. Had the enemy known the signal they could have rendered the system useless. There are numerous signals for various military systems that must be guarded.
Well, I didn't receive any military training save that necessary to run Uncle Sam's missile warning satellites. But after that, I spent 20+ years "in the black," designing space systems to support various national needs. Let's try to reverse engineer what the Chinese were up to.

First, as myself and others have wondered, and NO ONE SEEMS TO BE ABLE TO ANSWER...why a balloon? Why a balloon of limited life, flying OVERTLY, vs. a satellite that lasts for years and runs over the target area a couple of times a day (or stays continually in view, in GEO)? What can the balloon provide that a satellite can't?

While we're at it, what does the balloon platform give you that rented house crammed with electronic gear, or a van, or a used Cessna 206 can't provide?

Sure, there are signals important to national security that we never dream of. But which ones are of the nature that a ordinary ground or aircraft-based collector can't receive them?

One mission comes to mind, that requires long loitering in a very precise location (both lat and long, AND altitude). But balloons can't do that. They can go up and down, and parlay wind currents to shoot for a given spot. But they won't stay there long, and their ability to control is really kind of poor. But they *could* surf around, passing through these key locations at semi-random. But the time will be short! They can't loiter, with winds blowing 15-50 knots, and that's where the money is.

And, again, you're operating OVERTLY. All we have to do is shut down the appropriate systems if the balloon starts venturing too close to the key points.

Can think of a couple other missions, but they too step rather close to my past life. A balloon would work for those, but there's not much advantage to it.

Finally, let's try to configure the Chinese balloon payload. Ironically, it's going to be very similar to a spacecraft. It has solar arrays, it has "propulsion" tanks (hydrogen or helium to top off the balloon).

Biggest problem is having batteries to let it run all night. It'd need LOTS of batteries. LEO Satellites are in the dark ~45 minutes at a time; this time of year, the Chinese balloon is in the darkness 14 hours day. Even geosynchronous satellites have to handle only 75 minutes or so out of 24 (worst case).

It needs an antenna and a comm system to upload its take to satellites, either Low Earth Orbit ones or regular commsats in geostationary orbit.

To use that, the payload needs an attitude determination system. It needs to know its attitude and orientation to point its comm antenna. Also needs it to point the solar array, but there are lower-cost workarounds for it.

It'll need somewhat of a thermal control system...not much air slipping past. Radiators, probably on the back of the solar arrays like the Space Station.

So...how much is left for the mission payload? Antenna (assuming the mission is ELINT), processor, recorder. With a balloon as the main lifting body, probably not a lot.

Consider the alternative: The balloon's mission is weather data collection, just like the Chinese claim. But they get all furtive about it, and make people THINK something nasty is going on. It's whole purpose is to get certain people riled up.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Well, I didn't receive any military training save that necessary to run Uncle Sam's missile warning satellites. But after that, I spent 20+ years "in the black," designing space systems to support various national needs. Let's try to reverse engineer what the Chinese were up to.

First, as myself and others have wondered, and NO ONE SEEMS TO BE ABLE TO ANSWER...why a balloon? Why a balloon of limited life, flying OVERTLY, vs. a satellite that lasts for years and runs over the target area a couple of times a day (or stays continually in view, in GEO)? What can the balloon provide that a satellite can't?

While we're at it, what does the balloon platform give you that rented house crammed with electronic gear, or a van, or a used Cessna 206 can't provide?

Sure, there are signals important to national security that we never dream of. But which ones are of the nature that a ordinary ground or aircraft-based collector can't receive them?

One mission comes to mind, that requires long loitering in a very precise location (both lat and long, AND altitude). But balloons can't do that. They can go up and down, and parlay wind currents to shoot for a given spot. But they won't stay there long, and their ability to control is really kind of poor. But they *could* surf around, passing through these key locations at semi-random. But the time will be short! They can't loiter, with winds blowing 15-50 knots, and that's where the money is.

And, again, you're operating OVERTLY. All we have to do is shut down the appropriate systems if the balloon starts venturing too close to the key points.

Can think of a couple other missions, but they too step rather close to my past life. A balloon would work for those, but there's not much advantage to it.

Finally, let's try to configure the Chinese balloon payload. Ironically, it's going to be very similar to a spacecraft. It has solar arrays, it has "propulsion" tanks (hydrogen or helium to top off the balloon).

Biggest problem is having batteries to let it run all night. It'd need LOTS of batteries. LEO Satellites are in the dark ~45 minutes at a time; this time of year, the Chinese balloon is in the darkness 14 hours day. Even geosynchronous satellites have to handle only 75 minutes or so out of 24 (worst case).

It needs an antenna and a comm system to upload its take to satellites, either Low Earth Orbit ones or regular commsats in geostationary orbit.

To use that, the payload needs an attitude determination system. It needs to know its attitude and orientation to point its comm antenna. Also needs it to point the solar array, but there are lower-cost workarounds for it.

It'll need somewhat of a thermal control system...not much air slipping past. Radiators, probably on the back of the solar arrays like the Space Station.

So...how much is left for the mission payload? Antenna (assuming the mission is ELINT), processor, recorder. With a balloon as the main lifting body, probably not a lot.

Consider the alternative: The balloon's mission is weather data collection, just like the Chinese claim. But they get all furtive about it, and make people THINK something nasty is going on. It's whole purpose is to get certain people riled up.

Ron Wanttaja

Huh.

I have no background in sigint, KH collection and dissection, politics, posturing, astrophysics or weapon system design lethality. I was a customer of those at best. I was a lowly bubble sucking, non leg, ground pounding, crayon eating green monster sent to places when people got fed up.

The idea that we would allow *any* CHINESE airborne asset to loiter over our citizens, let alone hmm and ha as to whether we should or shouldn’t bring it down boggles the mind.

Our intellectual property has been pilfered for years- you’d have to be living under a rock not to know that. The Chinese demand to own 51% ownership of any company doing business in China - why don’t we demand the same? Regardless of your political stripe, how can anyone be ok with the intentional threatening of the United States financially, politically, or militarily.

DJI has been selling drones in America and plenty of people have become concerned about the data the drones feed back to the ROC. TikTok seems harmless and yet information is collected broadly.

Questioning the reasoning behind why a balloon is naive or intellectually dishonest. If China wants to monitor weather, why not monitor it 7000 miles closer to Beijing? In what universe is that excusable?

But let’s keep listening to intellectual and educated arguments as to how innocent and harmless Chinese unicorns and ponies are when they continue taking actions against the US.

Really. As pilots we should know better.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
The idea that we would allow *any* CHINESE airborne asset to loiter over our citizens, let alone hmm and ha as to whether we should or shouldn’t bring it down boggles the mind.
Like Russian, Chinese, and COMMERCIAL imagery satellites? Like Russian and Chinese ELINT, SIGINT, COMINT and other INT satellites? These assets are loitering over our citizens 24 hours a day. Should we destroy these as well? We have demonstrated the capability. How does the Karman line make them inviolate?

Sure, shoot 'em down if they come by below the Line. I've got no objection. But let's NOT endanger our own citizens with commie debris OR US missiles and bullets falling from 60,000 feet.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Huh.

I have no background in sigint, KH collection and dissection, politics, posturing, astrophysics or weapon system design lethality. I was a customer of those at best. I was a lowly bubble sucking, non leg, ground pounding, crayon eating green monster sent to places when people got fed up.

The idea that we would allow *any* CHINESE airborne asset to loiter over our citizens, let alone hmm and ha as to whether we should or shouldn’t bring it down boggles the mind.

Our intellectual property has been pilfered for years- you’d have to be living under a rock not to know that. The Chinese demand to own 51% ownership of any company doing business in China - why don’t we demand the same? Regardless of your political stripe, how can anyone be ok with the intentional threatening of the United States financially, politically, or militarily.

DJI has been selling drones in America and plenty of people have become concerned about the data the drones feed back to the ROC. TikTok seems harmless and yet information is collected broadly.

Questioning the reasoning behind why a balloon is naive or intellectually dishonest. If China wants to monitor weather, why not monitor it 7000 miles closer to Beijing? In what universe is that excusable?

But let’s keep listening to intellectual and educated arguments as to how innocent and harmless Chinese unicorns and ponies are when they continue taking actions against the US.

Really. As pilots we should know better.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The list of products that gather information with a "made in China" sticker on it is staggering. We've known Ring doorbell cameras were "accidentally" sending information back to China for years.

At this point we're complicit in data harvesting. We know they do it but we don't seem to care. Everyone wants the next cool cheap gadget Amazon is selling. Maybe I'm just lucky and have enough property and don't live in a neighborhood and the 2 neighbors I do have are far enough away I don't feel threatened. Or maybe it's the Giant moose you can see from the front window hanging on the wall that makes me feel like any rational individual would realize I probably don't need a doorbell camera...

In a national sense, China decided to eff around and find out.
 
Like Russian, Chinese, and COMMERCIAL imagery satellites? Like Russian and Chinese ELINT, SIGINT, COMINT and other INT satellites? These assets are loitering over our citizens 24 hours a day. Should we destroy these as well? We have demonstrated the capability. How does the Karman line make them inviolate?

Sure, shoot 'em down if they come by below the Line. I've got no objection. But let's NOT endanger our own citizens with commie debris OR US missiles and bullets falling from 60,000 feet.

Ron Wanttaja

IIRC, at one point this thing was down at 42K and the airliners were waving at it ...
 
Well, I didn't receive any military training save that necessary to run Uncle Sam's missile warning satellites. But after that, I spent 20+ years "in the black," designing space systems to support various national needs. Let's try to reverse engineer what the Chinese were up to.

First, as myself and others have wondered, and NO ONE SEEMS TO BE ABLE TO ANSWER...why a balloon? Why a balloon of limited life, flying OVERTLY, vs. a satellite that lasts for years and runs over the target area a couple of times a day (or stays continually in view, in GEO)? What can the balloon provide that a satellite can't?

While we're at it, what does the balloon platform give you that rented house crammed with electronic gear, or a van, or a used Cessna 206 can't provide?

Sure, there are signals important to national security that we never dream of. But which ones are of the nature that a ordinary ground or aircraft-based collector can't receive them?

One mission comes to mind, that requires long loitering in a very precise location (both lat and long, AND altitude). But balloons can't do that. They can go up and down, and parlay wind currents to shoot for a given spot. But they won't stay there long, and their ability to control is really kind of poor. But they *could* surf around, passing through these key locations at semi-random. But the time will be short! They can't loiter, with winds blowing 15-50 knots, and that's where the money is.

And, again, you're operating OVERTLY. All we have to do is shut down the appropriate systems if the balloon starts venturing too close to the key points.

Can think of a couple other missions, but they too step rather close to my past life. A balloon would work for those, but there's not much advantage to it.

Finally, let's try to configure the Chinese balloon payload. Ironically, it's going to be very similar to a spacecraft. It has solar arrays, it has "propulsion" tanks (hydrogen or helium to top off the balloon).

Biggest problem is having batteries to let it run all night. It'd need LOTS of batteries. LEO Satellites are in the dark ~45 minutes at a time; this time of year, the Chinese balloon is in the darkness 14 hours day. Even geosynchronous satellites have to handle only 75 minutes or so out of 24 (worst case).

It needs an antenna and a comm system to upload its take to satellites, either Low Earth Orbit ones or regular commsats in geostationary orbit.

To use that, the payload needs an attitude determination system. It needs to know its attitude and orientation to point its comm antenna. Also needs it to point the solar array, but there are lower-cost workarounds for it.

It'll need somewhat of a thermal control system...not much air slipping past. Radiators, probably on the back of the solar arrays like the Space Station.

So...how much is left for the mission payload? Antenna (assuming the mission is ELINT), processor, recorder. With a balloon as the main lifting body, probably not a lot.

Consider the alternative: The balloon's mission is weather data collection, just like the Chinese claim. But they get all furtive about it, and make people THINK something nasty is going on. It's whole purpose is to get certain people riled up.

Ron Wanttaja
There's too many unknowns. You're assuming the Chinese are the only ones up to shenanigans. It's possible these things fly over all the time, and we only heard about this one due to a news outlet getting a clear picture of it and saying "WTF is this?". One layer deeper, perhaps the administration was looking to move the news cycle onto something other than inflation, classified documents, and whatever Hunter and "the big guy" have been up to. It's certainly been successful at that this week.

I also wonder if it's not just a psyop designed to sow dissension and anger in the US. We know that Russia and others are very active stoking arguments online with the goal of destabilizing our democracy, which seems to be working quite well. I also wouldn't be surprised if it's actually a spying operation to just see if we're watching. It feels like the Chinese are constantly probing for soft spots. Nor would I be surprised if it was actually a weather instrument as they claim. Could be they're trying to learn more about the wind patterns over the US for nefarious purposes. Or just some grad student's thesis. I don't know what to make of this news story, other than to laugh at it as no matter what the truth is, there's not a damn thing I can do about it.
 
Sure, shoot 'em down if they come by below the Line. I've got no objection. But let's NOT endanger our own citizens with commie debris OR US missiles and bullets falling from 60,000 feet.

Ron Wanttaja

But we knew about this days ago when it was over the Aleutian Islands. Seems like that would have been a good place to end this. Before it started.
 
Zilch - which is why I haven’t claimed any knowledge and haven’t dabbled in nonsensical conspiracy theories.

But my 24 years as an Air Force officer taught me a whole lot - including that there are things outside my expertise that are outside my expertise.

Hey - I’m open to recalibrating my knowledge. But not just based on tin-hat conspiracy theories

Yes, there are things out of your expertise, that’s for sure.

I am not into conspiracy theories either. I am talking about possibilities that are well within my experience and expertise. I am quite confident that the military knew whether or not it was monitoring signals and frequencies. As I said, for all I know the thing was carrying a load of rice. That said it would be foolish and irresponsible to assume that and just ignore it’s presence.
 
Yes, there are things out of your expertise, that’s for sure.

I am not into conspiracy theories either. I am talking about possibilities that are well within my experience and expertise. I am quite confident that the military knew whether or not it was monitoring signals and frequencies. As I said, for all I know the thing was carrying a load of rice. That said it would be foolish and irresponsible to assume that and just ignore it’s presence.
Who said our government ignored it? And if so, based on what FACTS? Sounds to me just the opposite: it wasn’t ignored by our government - just managed different than those with essentially no facts on this chat would have done, apparently
 
But we knew about this days ago when it was over the Aleutian Islands. Seems like that would have been a good place to end this. Before it started.

Sure.

But think about the air traffic below. The Aleutians are along the great-circle route from the west coast to Asia. Plan a route in Foreflight and see for yourself. If flattening a rancher in Montana would be bad, imagine a plane load of families.

And how fast can you clear that traffic? There wouldn’t be days, maybe an hour for the balloon to blow past that thin line of islands and its territorial airspace.
 
But we knew about this days ago when it was over the Aleutian Islands. Seems like that would have been a good place to end this. Before it started.
Sure. But where did it go “feet dry” on the mainland? If it was Canada, it’s their fault for not shooting it down over the water. After that, a shootdown always had a potential for collateral damage.

Ideally, it would have been dropped over the Aleutians. But I can see that the reaction time on this first event probably was slow. Hopefully will do better next time.

Ron Wanttaja
 
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Some images from the news.
Cool... looks like it hit the payload, not the balloon, but the last frame shows the payload dropping seemingly intact. Probably a close enough detonation to put shrapnel into the envelope.

Ron Wanttaja
 
My work in that world was over fifty years ago, but had the enemy learned what I was sworn to protect they could have defeated our particular air defense missile system. Although that one is no longer in operation, I am sure there are multitudes of signals equally as secure and critical.

I was a sub nuke in the navy. I won’t share details but plenty of people know those details. You people having their boxers in a bunch over intel “captured” by a meandering balloon have lost their marbles.

Like seriously. Calm down. There’s a reason it wasn’t shot down until it was safely out to the Atlantic. Mostly false intel being fed in my opinion.

The DOD wasn’t broadcasting signals of national importance to the balloon. Some of you seriously need to evaluate your life choices on how you broadcast your own intel to the world.
 
Like seriously. Calm down. There’s a reason it wasn’t shot down until it was safely out to the Atlantic. Mostly false intel being fed in my opinion.

You're doing it wrong. You cannot use reason in modern society. Your comments MUST have the objective of polarizing the topic. I think it is in the TOS somewhere...
 
You're doing it wrong. You cannot use reason in modern society. Your comments MUST have the objective of polarizing the topic. I think it is in the TOS somewhere...

lol. Thanks for the sensible chuckle. It’s why I have reservations about this site at times. Quite a few loony toons think they know stuff.
 
Cool... looks like it hit the payload, not the balloon, but the last frame shows the payload dropping seemingly intact.

Yes.

The horizontal gray streak to the right, in the first photo, is that aligned with the missile’s trajectory?

If so, it looks like the AIM missile hit something above the boom with solar panels, but below the envelope. Maybe where gas can be added, to control altitude.
 
Obviously a conspiracy between the Chinese and certain political elements in the U.S. who want to discredit the current administration and expose them as round earthers. Likely financed by the military industrial complex who would profit enormously from a "They are out to get us" administration who will throw virtually unlimited funds at meaningless projects. Again.
The reason for waiting until it was over the ocean to "shoot it down" was to make sure that no parts of the fake surveillance equipment fall into civilian hands.

"Missile Gap" then and now.
 
I was a sub nuke in the navy. I won’t share details but plenty of people know those details. You people having their boxers in a bunch over intel “captured” by a meandering balloon have lost their marbles.

Like seriously. Calm down. There’s a reason it wasn’t shot down until it was safely out to the Atlantic. Mostly false intel being fed in my opinion.

The DOD wasn’t broadcasting signals of national importance to the balloon. Some of you seriously need to evaluate your life choices on how you broadcast your own intel to the world.


Who says the Chinese were fishing for government info? Could they not have been spying on commercial businesses and interests?
 
The Aleutians are along the great-circle route from the west coast to Asia.
Round earth propaganda.

Orlando-Ferguson-flat-earth-map.jpg
 
There’s also the possibility this wasn’t a
“real” spy balloon. They maybe just wanted to see what we would do. Sure, maybe it was also capturing signals from whatever radar was being bounced off it, including the missile aiming system. But maybe the bigger point was simply to see how we would react. Remember the Sec of State was heading to China for a meeting that was only called off when the news went public.
 
Who says the Chinese were fishing for government info? Could they not have been spying on commercial businesses and interests?
Again, though: Why do it with a balloon, when they have spacecraft already performing the same missions?

Ron Wanttaja
 
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