So I'm kind of intrigued by this whole "eeeeeevil tricksy Chinese spy balloon" thing.
Apparently the Chinese are having a hoot with it, too:
I mean...I guess it seems deeply weird. The oldest "reconnaissance overflight" thing in the world seems to be "when you see the enemy hide under a bush".
How hard would it be to hide from this party favor?
The PRC obviously knows that the U.S., a hugely militarized nation bristling with surveillance gadgets would track this. Was it some sort of way of drawing aerial surveillance fire? Getting the U.S. to give away it's ability to track, umm...a big fat slow moving object?
And the PRC obviously has reconnaissance satellites, too - possibly not as sexy as the USAF/Spaceies have - and those are perfectly capable of looking down at the continental U.S.
Like I say...the whole thing just seems truly, deeply weird. I'd love to know what the fuck this goofy thing is and what it's supposed to do. Is it just stupid? Or, as my old drill sergeant used to say, if it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid.
And speaking of deeply weird and stupid, this is the Republican U.S. Senator from Ohio, J.D. Vance...
...apparently guarding his woodpile from a Chinese balloon that is floating at something like 9 or 10 kilometers of altitude with an AR-15 knockoff that has a maximum effective (horizontal!) range of about 400 meters.
Don't look at me. I sure as hell didn't vote for this nimrod.
Update 2/4/22: Andy (in the comments) suggests this gasbag was basically a SIGINT thing...which sounds as reasonable as anything else. Kinda hard to go completely radio silence for the whole time this birthday party favor floats by, but who knows?
Apparently this is a sort of thing; several more of these rascals over flew over the Trumpies' heads, too, but (I suspect) the biznay was kept on the downlow so Donnie didn't look like he was being cucked by his pal Xi.
Anyway...just kind of funny and kinda cool that here we are - flying faster and higher than anyone in the 18th Century could have imagined - but the Montgolfier Bros tech still works.
Update 2/16: Wins the Internet for today:
Imagery very likely isn't the primary purpose. A high-altitude balloon with limited steering ability would be much more ideal for SIGINT collection since it can be collected over a wide area and thus precise navigation isn't necessary. And while it's possible to collect SIGINT from space, the physics of the electromagnetic spectrum makes lower-altitude collection essential, which is why the US maintains and frequently flies a large number of different collection aircraft. And many of those flights are are just outside Chinese territorial airspace.
ReplyDeleteAnd we actually had a Cobra Ball aircraft up and collecting on the balloon for a couple of days...The choice of Cobra Ball is an interesting one that points in certain directions.
Anyway, China doesn't have the forward basing to support SIGINT aircraft collection off the US, so my guess is that the balloons are most likely filling that role.
As far as imagery goes, aircraft (and balloons) have several advantages over satellites - one of those is taking low-angle, off-nadir pictures. Looking at something from a steep look angle vs looking at it from overhead can be quite valuable. Such angles are more difficult with satellites - they are much higher up which inherently limits look-angles, and looking through much more atmosphere reduces resolution.
The Chinese could do much more intel collection with clandestine actions with sports aircraft and cars. It was very likely a research balloon. Another one is over Central America.
DeleteIt is OK to shoot down such an atmopsheric flying object, of course. That's sovereignty. The attention was exaggerated, though. It feels as if people with an anti-PRC agenda exploited this and lots of other people jumped on the bandwagon.