I’m not sure how to feel about this Chinese flying object. Is it a distraction? If it’s a spying apparatus, why do we allow it to continue its spying? Are there classified documents on board?
It is likely a strategic recon mission, its most important purpose to see how the US reacts. Shoot it down? Ignore it? Jam it?
It certainly is a 'spy apparatus' though it is hard to see how useful it could be, up at 90 km where the 'air' if you can still call it that (density at that altitude is around 0.001% of that at sea level) cannot support much of a payload. So it probably has a few cameras and radios, who knows. I don't personally believe, with all the other capabilities China has, that the main purpose is spying. The CCP and PLA just want to see what Biden will do about it. (Answer: not much.)
Right, how we respond, if we do, will become a lesson to the Chinese. What method will we use to take it out? Will we try to salvage it rather than destroy it? How do we send a message to the Chinese, is this going to be tolerated again? So much to learn!!
At 90 km (290,000 feet) it is up too high to go after it with aircraft. It might be able to be shot down with a missile, the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) Missile System should be capable of such an intercept (flight ceiling 150 km).
The best approach for the USA is probably to monitor it, maybe jam it, see what it is up to, and otherwise leave it alone. Trying to shoot it down presents risks for those on the ground under the point of intercept -- whatever goes up, eventually comes down. Shoot something as large as a THAAD missile (900 kg, 2000 lbs) up at it, and all that debris, plus whatever is left of the balloon and its payload, will come crashing down in a fairly large debris field, and some of the pieces are likely to be large enough to cause significant damage if they hit anything significant. You would take that risk if the incoming craft was a nuclear warhead, but not a balloon flying harmlessly overhead.
Yes. The world can be a dangerous place. More dangerous without strong leadership from someone, historically (since WW2) the USA. Right now, the world sees us as weak; regardless of actual capabilities, without the will to use them if necessary, the US fails in that leadership role.
What about the possibility (knowing the size of this balloon and its payload) it could have any sort of EMP weapon, with the risks of shooting it ?
Any possibility to shoot such a balloon, even at very high altitude, with a directed energy weapon from the ground (or these which were tested from big planes) ?
EMP is caused by a nuclear explosion above the ionosphere. The radius of damaging effects is basically the line of sight from the explosion to the earth's surface; so to inflict the most damage you have to be up pretty high. Several hundred miles in general, for a weapon intended to inflict maximum damage. The Starfish Prime blast that took out street lights in Hawaii 850 miles from the explosion, was at 250 miles altitude, 400 km.
Most weather balloons operate in the low stratosphere, around 100,000 feet (20 miles, 30 km) which is on the low side for an EMP attack. Might it cause damage? Yes, but over a smaller area, in all likelihood. (Nobody has tried it.)
If this balloon is at 90 km (recent reports are saying it is actually much lower now, this is an active news item) and it had an appropriate nuke on board, it could damage things a few hundred miles away. If it is at 50,000 feet as one pilot report claimed, it would not be high enough to generate an EMP, from what I understand.
For the Chinese, who have lots of resources, or even the North Koreans, I would be more worried about a sea-can with a pop-up missile, on a barge on the Mississippi River, that can lift a nuke a few hundred miles straight up. Building such a rocket is easy these days for state actors, the harder part is the nuke itself. More countries can put a rocket on a barge than build a nuke. A Scud missile would probably suffice, and lots of countries have and can make that sort of rocket. Fewer countries can build nukes.
A nuke also could be placed in a low earth orbit, say 400 miles or 650 km, and float around until its master detonated it. A bit harder to do than the pop-up in a sea-can, but within the capability of maybe a dozen countries, pretty much the same ones that know how to build a nuke.
I think it could be an excellent stabilized platform for final precision laser guiding for any type of weapon, but especially cruise or hypersonic missiles.
These latter seem to lack final precision when arriving on target...
That lack of terminal precision is implementation-dependent. There is no fundamental reason why hypersonic vehicles cannot have the same accuracy as lower-speed platforms. As of now there are only a few such systems deployed (that I've heard of) and some of them, particularly that Chinese test a couple years back, don't have good accuracy.
However as a point of reference, the US AGM-88 'HARM' hypersonic anti-radiation missile, is quite effective at taking out enemy SAM radar sites. It has a relatively small blast-frag warhead, and is controlled by a passive radar-seeker on its nose, and it does a good job of 'flying right down the throat' of the enemy radar. At mach 3.
With the space assets available to the White Hats, it's impossible to believe that this thing wasn't seen, tracked, monitored, and perhaps fully analyzed by the time it reached US airspace. It certainly wasn't traveling at speeds which would have generated much alarm. The fact that it wasn't intercepted and destroyed over the Bering Sea, where nobody would have been the wiser, tells me that it poses no danger. Better to let it "do its thing" and gather further intel as it does so.
By the way, I check out the US Debt Clock occasionally and something very interesting has appeared (https://www.usdebtclock.org). The US dollar to gold, silver, and oil ratio, compared to 1913 when the unconstitutional Federal Reserve System was created, is now at zero. Make of that what you will, but it certainly gives me renewed hope that the QFS is soon to be a reality.
Agreed 100%. They knew it was there, they might know just what it's doing -- but they're not saying a lot.
Re. the USD/gold etc. ratios on debtclock., mouseover the frames and it will tell you that it is based on the yearly increase in the USD M2 money supply, which according to the St Louis Fed that tracks it, has decreased in the last year. Make of that what you will... in any event it is a numbers game -- reminds me of a George Carlin quip that's been repeated quite a bit here lately: "It's a big club, and you ain't in it."
Thanks for the additional info. I'm no economist, but the fact that M2 (which includes M1) is in an historic decline seems to me to be proof positive that we're in a severe recession, at the very least. Fun times ahead... Glad I've got enough Au and Ag to weather any financial storm that eventuates. When the criminal manipulation in the paper markets is eliminated, we're going to see the metals rise to their proper valuations and ratios. I can barely wait for that to happen...
Agreed... though if I were you, I wouldn't be advertising anything about your portfolio. Here or anywhere. "Loose lips sink ships"... just my 2c worth.
This CCP spy balloon is a prelude to something bad coming soon. When Biden's "woke" generals and Austin tell their C&C to pound sand defying an order to "shoot it down" then you know this country is in deep trouble.
Chinese piñata filled with fortune cookies? Fortunate or unfortunate? In all cases given Biden and Millie are good friends with them it actually might be filled with disease. TROJAN CHINESE HORSE? 🎈💬
"Chinese is a language that is rich in culture and history, and as such, there are many words and key terms that are difficult or impossible to translate into other languages." #GlobalLanguage #Philology #ChineseTerms #untranslatables 📖👇🏻
How is it that our air defense systems did not spot this and do something about it before it made its way over to Montana. Based on the flight path, it was over Alaska and unseen there.
They saw it and most probably wanted it to scare Americans. Another tactic. We don’t even know if it is from China. Our govt lies by design about everything ...I don’t believe ANYTHING they say.
Pretty sure they (NORAD, USAF, Canadian forces) knew about it, but didn't say anything. MIL plays their cards close to their chests. Its airspeed would have given it away as a balloon, its altitude severely limited its payload, so it was not likely considered a significant threat requiring a civilian response. So they did not talk about it, until it came over populated US territory.
More curiously: what exactly is it, and why did they send it our way? Like US MIL, CCP MIL doesn't say a lot. AFAIK nobody has claimed it though the winds aloft indicate it most likely came from Central China.
Shooting it down would be seen as a provocation, and there is significant ambiguity over whether foreign nations have the right to fly high-altitude balloons over each others' territory. It is generally agreed that satellites at 100 km or higher are allowed (US, Russia, China and many others have been doing this now for decades), so how about a balloon at 90 km? Much higher than aircraft can fly; the world's highest flying operational aircraft was the SR-71 at 85,000 ft (26 km) though it apparently could actually fly higher -- but not to 90 km.
You might call this flight a 'trial balloon' -- CCP wants to see what US will do about it.
Hmm.... Interesting. Time will tell, but Montana is an interesting place to encroach. The Biden administration likely doesn't even know where Montana is. You are correct that our military knew exactly where it was, and the inaction (lace of forceable response) likely tells us much.
Montana... home to Malmstrom AFB, one of three US Minuteman nuclear-tipped ICBM bases. Was that what they wanted to look at? Possible but it's actually pretty difficult to accurately control the ground track of a balloon. Winds aloft are variable, and while it is possible to 'steer' by moving up and down a bit where the winds might be going in a bit different direction, I think the whole purpose was just to do it, and see what happens. Any 'interesting' intel grabbed along the way a fortuitous circumstance. But that is just a guess, nobody really knows.
The most likely responses to something like this would be diplomatic, at least in normal times. Which we are most assuredly not in today.
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I’m not sure how to feel about this Chinese flying object. Is it a distraction? If it’s a spying apparatus, why do we allow it to continue its spying? Are there classified documents on board?
It is likely a strategic recon mission, its most important purpose to see how the US reacts. Shoot it down? Ignore it? Jam it?
It certainly is a 'spy apparatus' though it is hard to see how useful it could be, up at 90 km where the 'air' if you can still call it that (density at that altitude is around 0.001% of that at sea level) cannot support much of a payload. So it probably has a few cameras and radios, who knows. I don't personally believe, with all the other capabilities China has, that the main purpose is spying. The CCP and PLA just want to see what Biden will do about it. (Answer: not much.)
Right, how we respond, if we do, will become a lesson to the Chinese. What method will we use to take it out? Will we try to salvage it rather than destroy it? How do we send a message to the Chinese, is this going to be tolerated again? So much to learn!!
At 90 km (290,000 feet) it is up too high to go after it with aircraft. It might be able to be shot down with a missile, the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) Missile System should be capable of such an intercept (flight ceiling 150 km).
The best approach for the USA is probably to monitor it, maybe jam it, see what it is up to, and otherwise leave it alone. Trying to shoot it down presents risks for those on the ground under the point of intercept -- whatever goes up, eventually comes down. Shoot something as large as a THAAD missile (900 kg, 2000 lbs) up at it, and all that debris, plus whatever is left of the balloon and its payload, will come crashing down in a fairly large debris field, and some of the pieces are likely to be large enough to cause significant damage if they hit anything significant. You would take that risk if the incoming craft was a nuclear warhead, but not a balloon flying harmlessly overhead.
REMINDER: Japanese Used Balloons to Disseminate Chemical and Biological Weapons in World War II
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/reminder-japanese-used-balloons-disseminate-chemical-biological-weapons-world-war-ii/
Yes. The world can be a dangerous place. More dangerous without strong leadership from someone, historically (since WW2) the USA. Right now, the world sees us as weak; regardless of actual capabilities, without the will to use them if necessary, the US fails in that leadership role.
Hi Wild Bill !
What about the possibility (knowing the size of this balloon and its payload) it could have any sort of EMP weapon, with the risks of shooting it ?
Any possibility to shoot such a balloon, even at very high altitude, with a directed energy weapon from the ground (or these which were tested from big planes) ?
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/washington-secrets/balloons-called-top-delivery-platform-for-nuclear-emp-attack
EMP is caused by a nuclear explosion above the ionosphere. The radius of damaging effects is basically the line of sight from the explosion to the earth's surface; so to inflict the most damage you have to be up pretty high. Several hundred miles in general, for a weapon intended to inflict maximum damage. The Starfish Prime blast that took out street lights in Hawaii 850 miles from the explosion, was at 250 miles altitude, 400 km.
https://www.thoughtco.com/starfish-prime-nuclear-test-4151202
Most weather balloons operate in the low stratosphere, around 100,000 feet (20 miles, 30 km) which is on the low side for an EMP attack. Might it cause damage? Yes, but over a smaller area, in all likelihood. (Nobody has tried it.)
If this balloon is at 90 km (recent reports are saying it is actually much lower now, this is an active news item) and it had an appropriate nuke on board, it could damage things a few hundred miles away. If it is at 50,000 feet as one pilot report claimed, it would not be high enough to generate an EMP, from what I understand.
For the Chinese, who have lots of resources, or even the North Koreans, I would be more worried about a sea-can with a pop-up missile, on a barge on the Mississippi River, that can lift a nuke a few hundred miles straight up. Building such a rocket is easy these days for state actors, the harder part is the nuke itself. More countries can put a rocket on a barge than build a nuke. A Scud missile would probably suffice, and lots of countries have and can make that sort of rocket. Fewer countries can build nukes.
A nuke also could be placed in a low earth orbit, say 400 miles or 650 km, and float around until its master detonated it. A bit harder to do than the pop-up in a sea-can, but within the capability of maybe a dozen countries, pretty much the same ones that know how to build a nuke.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2020/06/25/china-develops-first-strike-capability-with-electromagnetic-pulse/
I think it could be an excellent stabilized platform for final precision laser guiding for any type of weapon, but especially cruise or hypersonic missiles.
These latter seem to lack final precision when arriving on target...
That lack of terminal precision is implementation-dependent. There is no fundamental reason why hypersonic vehicles cannot have the same accuracy as lower-speed platforms. As of now there are only a few such systems deployed (that I've heard of) and some of them, particularly that Chinese test a couple years back, don't have good accuracy.
However as a point of reference, the US AGM-88 'HARM' hypersonic anti-radiation missile, is quite effective at taking out enemy SAM radar sites. It has a relatively small blast-frag warhead, and is controlled by a passive radar-seeker on its nose, and it does a good job of 'flying right down the throat' of the enemy radar. At mach 3.
With the space assets available to the White Hats, it's impossible to believe that this thing wasn't seen, tracked, monitored, and perhaps fully analyzed by the time it reached US airspace. It certainly wasn't traveling at speeds which would have generated much alarm. The fact that it wasn't intercepted and destroyed over the Bering Sea, where nobody would have been the wiser, tells me that it poses no danger. Better to let it "do its thing" and gather further intel as it does so.
By the way, I check out the US Debt Clock occasionally and something very interesting has appeared (https://www.usdebtclock.org). The US dollar to gold, silver, and oil ratio, compared to 1913 when the unconstitutional Federal Reserve System was created, is now at zero. Make of that what you will, but it certainly gives me renewed hope that the QFS is soon to be a reality.
Agreed 100%. They knew it was there, they might know just what it's doing -- but they're not saying a lot.
Re. the USD/gold etc. ratios on debtclock., mouseover the frames and it will tell you that it is based on the yearly increase in the USD M2 money supply, which according to the St Louis Fed that tracks it, has decreased in the last year. Make of that what you will... in any event it is a numbers game -- reminds me of a George Carlin quip that's been repeated quite a bit here lately: "It's a big club, and you ain't in it."
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL
Thanks for the additional info. I'm no economist, but the fact that M2 (which includes M1) is in an historic decline seems to me to be proof positive that we're in a severe recession, at the very least. Fun times ahead... Glad I've got enough Au and Ag to weather any financial storm that eventuates. When the criminal manipulation in the paper markets is eliminated, we're going to see the metals rise to their proper valuations and ratios. I can barely wait for that to happen...
Agreed... though if I were you, I wouldn't be advertising anything about your portfolio. Here or anywhere. "Loose lips sink ships"... just my 2c worth.
This CCP spy balloon is a prelude to something bad coming soon. When Biden's "woke" generals and Austin tell their C&C to pound sand defying an order to "shoot it down" then you know this country is in deep trouble.
Distraction.
Chinese piñata filled with fortune cookies? Fortunate or unfortunate? In all cases given Biden and Millie are good friends with them it actually might be filled with disease. TROJAN CHINESE HORSE? 🎈💬
Brandon's lawyers' latest: no, we DID NOT say it was Hunter's laptop. 😎
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/hunter-bidens-attorney-today-says-not-say-laptop-hunters/
"Oh! what a tangled web we weave When first we practise to deceive!" -- Sir Walter Scott
!
"Chinese is a language that is rich in culture and history, and as such, there are many words and key terms that are difficult or impossible to translate into other languages." #GlobalLanguage #Philology #ChineseTerms #untranslatables 📖👇🏻
https://tinyurl.com/5n97xuj7
Thanks, BB. Greatly appreciate these news summaries.
How is it that our air defense systems did not spot this and do something about it before it made its way over to Montana. Based on the flight path, it was over Alaska and unseen there.
They saw it and most probably wanted it to scare Americans. Another tactic. We don’t even know if it is from China. Our govt lies by design about everything ...I don’t believe ANYTHING they say.
Pretty sure they (NORAD, USAF, Canadian forces) knew about it, but didn't say anything. MIL plays their cards close to their chests. Its airspeed would have given it away as a balloon, its altitude severely limited its payload, so it was not likely considered a significant threat requiring a civilian response. So they did not talk about it, until it came over populated US territory.
More curiously: what exactly is it, and why did they send it our way? Like US MIL, CCP MIL doesn't say a lot. AFAIK nobody has claimed it though the winds aloft indicate it most likely came from Central China.
Shooting it down would be seen as a provocation, and there is significant ambiguity over whether foreign nations have the right to fly high-altitude balloons over each others' territory. It is generally agreed that satellites at 100 km or higher are allowed (US, Russia, China and many others have been doing this now for decades), so how about a balloon at 90 km? Much higher than aircraft can fly; the world's highest flying operational aircraft was the SR-71 at 85,000 ft (26 km) though it apparently could actually fly higher -- but not to 90 km.
You might call this flight a 'trial balloon' -- CCP wants to see what US will do about it.
Thanks for the response. It just seems odd that we didn’t shoot it down over Alaskan airspace
My response to Lisa Liberty above discusses why that was not likely the most prudent course.
Hmm.... Interesting. Time will tell, but Montana is an interesting place to encroach. The Biden administration likely doesn't even know where Montana is. You are correct that our military knew exactly where it was, and the inaction (lace of forceable response) likely tells us much.
Montana... home to Malmstrom AFB, one of three US Minuteman nuclear-tipped ICBM bases. Was that what they wanted to look at? Possible but it's actually pretty difficult to accurately control the ground track of a balloon. Winds aloft are variable, and while it is possible to 'steer' by moving up and down a bit where the winds might be going in a bit different direction, I think the whole purpose was just to do it, and see what happens. Any 'interesting' intel grabbed along the way a fortuitous circumstance. But that is just a guess, nobody really knows.
The most likely responses to something like this would be diplomatic, at least in normal times. Which we are most assuredly not in today.
I would like to donate regularly but I don't have a cc - - I would like to pay with DigiByte as it is safe, fast and well-nigh free to transact with.