Video of the balloon <a href="https://twitter.com/rawsalerts/status/1621294430081761280" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/rawsalerts/status/1621294430081761280</a>
A lot of people don't realize that a relatively simple balloon can be designed to take off from anywhere in the world, reach any other point in the world, and hover for multiple days sending back data with very little deviation. All the balloon needs is a way to change its altitude, that's it, it doesn't need any actuators to move in horizontal direction.<p>Google's project Loon (<a href="https://x.company/projects/loon/" rel="nofollow">https://x.company/projects/loon/</a>) did this and I thought it was pretty darn cool. The way it works is this: different layers of stratosphere have different wind directions. If you can accurately predict the wind directions in different layers, you can in theory move in horizontal direction just by changing your altitude. Loon had pretty good models and simulated the wind directions well. Their balloon used to take off from Nevada and reach Kenya (I believe) and hover there for multiple days to provide comms. They use a cool reinforcement learning based controller in their loop: <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2939-8" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2939-8</a><p>I remember some Chinese researchers writing papers on this topic back then and them saying they'd have good results if they had access to data from Loon: <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep45976" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/articles/srep45976</a> I don't think Loon ever shared any data publicly (I was wrong, they did apparently open source a ton of data) but Loon did get shut down (like a lot of other Alphabet's moonshots) and I remember some of their tech and patents were sold to SoftBank and others. I was surprised US did not try to stop this in the interest of national security.
Is it weird for me (a Chinese) to reply this?<p>I don't really think the three-buses-wide balloon is a good idea for spying since everybody (including the radar) can see it coming, but I imagine this will be quite effective for search and rescue support, battlefield surveillance and all the other short-term missions that could put such disposable flying electronics better good use.<p>If I remembered it correctly, China Mobile has tested a drone-based base station which can provide cell service over a short period of time, and they were using the system during a earthquake rescue with some success. Maybe using balloon is an better idea.<p>PS. Funny thing. I was planing to build and release a water probe since I live very close to the Yangtze river. Thought I can probably measure the water speed with the probe by letting it send back it's GPS position, plus some pretty pictures via cell/SMS. I haven't started the project though, due to many hurdles. One of them is to figure out what trouble I can get myself into after the probe encountered something it shouldn't have (because I have no control over it after release). I don't really want to have a chat with CIA, or even worse, the water police (yup, and they got jet boats).
Generally, when something like this becomes news, someone is trying to shift the Overton window.<p>Who wants this to be news and to what end are they manipulating collective perception?<p>I am so cynical so I respond the opposite way. Good for China, I applaud them for keeping tabs on a nation that routinely use drones in foreign skies to murder civilians.
<a href="https://www.flightradar24.com/2f0ea6cf" rel="nofollow">https://www.flightradar24.com/2f0ea6cf</a>.<p>The balloon isn't on there, and the (presumed) fighter jets that are escorting it aren't either but you can see the fuel tankers.
Can someone explain to me how is this any different from spy satellite? Yet nobody would think about shooting down spy satellite, yet you see in this thread people discussing shooting down a baloon, what's the difference between them? Does baloon provide better data than satellite? Isn't it just cheaper version of satellite with ability to provide same data?<p>edit: from CNN article:<p>"“Balloon payloads can now weigh less and so the balloons can be smaller, cheaper and easier to launch” than satellites, Layton said."<p>TLDR they are cheaper<p>"“An advantage of balloons is that they can be steered using onboard computers to take advantage of winds and they can go up and down to a limited degree. This means they can loiter to a limited extent.<p>“A satellite can’t loiter and so many are needed to criss-cross an area of interest to maintain surveillance,” he said."<p>TLDR they can loiter in place compared to satellite
Also interesting, although I believe the USA withdrew and china was never party:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Open_Skies" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Open_Skies</a>
US military was working on air balloons to use against China, and thought it "rise above competition": <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/05/u-s-militarys-newest-weapon-against-china-and-russia-hot-air-00043860" rel="nofollow">https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/05/u-s-militarys-newes...</a>
The WSJ has more detail: <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-spy-balloon-seen-over-u-s-this-weekofficials-11675376397" rel="nofollow">https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-spy-balloon-seen-over-u...</a><p>According to a Pentagon source, the balloon offers "limited additive value" over satellites.<p>More interesting excerpts:<p>>The incident, which occurred in the last two days, marked the latest aggressive Chinese intelligence gathering maneuvers in recent years. U.S. defense officials said the balloon loitered over the U.S. longer than in previous similar incidents, which made this “different.”<p><snip><p>> Mr. Biden was presented with options and proposed that the high-altitude balloon be shot down after it was spotted and reported by civilians in a commercial airliner, U.S. officials said. The Pentagon feared civilian casualties, and opted not to shoot down the balloon, U.S. officials said.<p><snip><p>> The balloon “was traveling at an altitude well above the commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground,” Gen. Ryder added.<p><snip><p>> The balloon was observed flying over Montana after flying over Canada and the Aleutian Islands, one U.S. official said. It was large enough for its debris to cause damage, and while the U.S. considered shooting it down over a sparsely populated area of Montana, the U.S. opted to not shoot it down. It also flew over sensitive sites, a senior defense official told reporters Thursday.
Legally, if I bring it down, can I keep it? What if I call the CIA and tell them "Hey, I spent $5K bringing it down, but I'll gladly sell you it for $10K"?
Opinion that I find to be usefull on this:
The surveillance balloons are very, very difficult to destroy, the aircraft's radar cannot see them, they fly almost in space at altitudes up to 25 km, they are painted in the color of the sky, or even transparent like jellyfish. Reflective surface is less than any of stealth planes. For any sane results, you need a dedicated aircraft with a special weapons set for destroying this thing. Missiles with a thermal homing head and special anti-aerostatic incendiary tracer shells, with a special fuse that is triggered when the thin shell of the balloon touches. This fuse is also triggered by raindrops, so it's better not to shoot them in the rain. Rockets, on the other hand, capture the heated sunny side of the balloon with their clever thermal head. Secondly, as a rule, one hit is not enough(due to the cell structure of balloon). Balloon doesn't give a fuck about shell holes, it will slowly descend to where it needs to go for thousands of kilometers dropping ballast more often. And by the way, he can also bang on a lucky hit and take the plane with him.
The Pentagon doesn't wand competition over here. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_Stare" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorgon_Stare</a>
So after decades of so called reforms & IP theft, the best thing the CCP can do is to fly some ballon over the US when the US is building the B-21? Sounds like a stone age economy to me.<p>If that is the case, well, at least you know that the China threat stories by your favourite media outlets deserve a truck load of salt.
How many trillions in national defense and the way they handle this problem is with a press release?<p>Yeah that doesn't smell in the slightest.<p>And how exactly do they know it's Chinese?<p>What if it was like WW2 and the balloons were carrying bombs? What's the national defense plan for that?<p>We definitely have high altitude drones.
FT article provides further insight: <a href="https://archive.ph/iT2zX" rel="nofollow">https://archive.ph/iT2zX</a><p>- The official added the surveillance balloon “does not create significant” opportunities for China to gather intelligence beyond other methods such as low orbit satellites.<p>- The US has observed similar activity over the past several years, including during the administration of Donald Trump. Unlike previous years the balloon “is appearing to hang out for a longer period of time this time around”, the defence official said.
There are no secret surveillance balloons. This must be an alien craft. It's covered in strange markings... :)<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mogul" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mogul</a>
USAF circling with several aircraft: <a href="https://twitter.com/UpwardNewsHQ/status/1621290179519545346" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/UpwardNewsHQ/status/1621290179519545346</a>
I wonder if a balloon would violate airspace rules. Or just be a hazard for flights.<p>Realistically, there's spy satellites anyway, the ballon seems more of a power move. Precisely because it's visible
First time seeing this news thought it was a joke but turns out it's not. A few questions:
1. is it possible for a balloon to fly over pacific to U.S?
2. why we notice it after it has been at mid US? I think we could identify it starting from the west coast?
3. what makes it to be a Chinese balloon? I mean it could be from other country, right?<p>I tried to search answer but not finding useful information so far
ABC has a good writeup on this without the paywall / advertising: <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-03/china-spy-balloon-seen-over-us/101926096" rel="nofollow">https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-03/china-spy-balloon-see...</a>
When it’s spotted over the pentagon, or over a military base - how deliberate can that be? By that I mean how much control do you have over a balloon’s trajectory when launched from the other side of the world?
Heaven forbid someone flies outdated spy technology over another superpower. <i>checks decade</i> oh wait no I'm thinking of the US flying U-2's. Carry on.<p>edit: wow, lots of folks apparently unfamiliar with the 1960's U-2 incident eh? Time to brush up on military aviation history.
It's fascinating getting a glimpse into modern tensions. It turns out that there was a guy that shot down like 8 MiG's back in the 40's, but they had to suppress all knowledge of it so that it didn't escalate anything between US and Russia. Makes you wonder how often stuff like this happens and we just never hear about it. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/20/asia/korean-war-fighter-pilot-soviet-shootdown-intl-hnk-ml/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/20/asia/korean-war-fighter-pilot...</a>