Fun!
Pico Balloon Launch.
Was that a Chinese drone, lurking about to spy on out technology?
SIGINT satellites have been around for decades.
More valuable data was collected during the F-22 missile shoot than any amount of time spent over Montana.
Ummm….no. That first (actual Chinese) balloon was a lot of things. But it wasn’t a “oil and gas survey balloon”. However, as consolation let me offer this: If they do a movie about the above-mentioned Battle of Los Angeles, you get my vote to play the Secretary of War.
But really good ones are still relatively hard to make. And all of them are reasonably easy to thwart if you know their orbits and keep tabs on when they are ‘looking’ where. That’s when a pass from a cheap, disposable and (hopefully) unexpected-to-the-target collection asset can be really handy.
The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade, NIBBB.ORG, is not confirming that their balloon, Pico Balloon K9YO, was involved in the shoot down. Esoterically, their website is down. Hmm, Richard G., what say you?
I love the ‘E ticket ride’ reference. How old does one have to be to know what that means?
Actually they did…mostly. John Belushi in 1941. A spoof of the 1942 actual event.
“And all of them are reasonably easy to thwart if you know their orbits and keep tabs on when they are ‘looking’”
And those same EMCON conditions are just as easy to implement when a balloon is overhead.
Those EMCON (and other measures) were taken as the Chinese balloon flew over. So, little or no new data was collected.
However, the F-22 missile shoot was a gold mine of data. It’s not very often that an adversary gives you front row seats to a missile-ex. And to have your SIGINT collection device the target:priceless.
You get the award for top conspiracy theorist, and have lost any credibility you may have.
Hahaha!
Do they get to paint a balloon kill on the side of the plane? Also, how many balloon kills does one need to claim ace status?
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Wacko stories can be attributed to, among other things, selective inattention and confirmation bias.
The Sun comes up every day, that must be the cause of my problem!
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The new ARSR4 sees everything. It sees so much, a great deal has to be mapped out.
Depends what is hanging below the student launched balloon. Some of the payloads look to be pretty large. Striking the balloon at 500 mph wouldn’t be the issue… the payload maybe an issue.
I guess you missed the news… it has been admitted they tracked it from the moment it left Chinas airspace.