The USA has a lot of empty space within its borders. Or mountains. Shoot it down when it gets over the Rockies, it'll hit a mountain peak nobody is on.

Obviously, if it lands in a city that would be bad, but surely it is possible to know how long it'll take to drop, what speed it's going at and estimate how heavy it is (they've already shot one down, so they have an idea), and calculate the right place to shred the balloon.

Then ban sales of helium to China. It's not like one more item on the list is going to spark WWIII.

What would be the point of shooting it down? It isn't like there wasn't any Chinese spy satellite flying over the US already, so I doubt this balloon collects more information, if it does any. This is not a [1]Fu-Go ballon bomb

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu-Go_balloon_bomb

If they shot it down, they might end up proving themselves wrong as to its origin.

Perhaps they're trying to avoid that situation.

they could board it (Arrgh!) and swap the cargo for their own, then tow it further east. In due course... ;)

Large balloons/airships are surprisingly difficult to shoot down. In WW1 it was discovered that exhausting a fighter aircraft's ammunition perforating the things simply doesn't cause enough leakage to deflate them before they complete their missions and return home. It was a different story once the fighters started carrying incendiary ammunition, but remember this was still when hydrogen was used to provide lift.

In summary, it would probably be necessary to use missiles, and that starts to become difficult to justify if the missiles cost multiples of the balloons.

(Unguided rockets might be a better option, but I don't think the fighters that go to those altitudes carry them as standard.)

Sounds like a job for the SPB!

Not only the ballon, the bullets used can cause some damage when they reach the ground, (and they can travel quite far)

This is symptomatic of the yawning "balloon gap" that has opened up since Biden took office. I'll bet they are using US helium, or even green hydrogen made with stolen western tech.

Hydrogen? Helium? I wouldn't rule out some devilment with a synthetic element 1-and-a-half knowing those cunning Chinese. We should be told...

[Retreats to her prepped bunker in ........ Montana.]

So I'm no meteorologist, but aren't air currents a somewhat unpredictable method of flying about? It sounds to me like sheer luck that it ended up over Hanna Montanna. And I'm guessing it wasn't launched from the front lawn of the White House, so what is the Strategic Air Command buying them if stuff like this can just drift over?

Well... Sort of. Looking at different maps of geopotential height you can see that there are different air flows at different altitudes, which does give you some limited control over where it will head. You can even use trajectory maps to map out where are balloon will end up before you launch it, and then determine the launch date. So some planning is possible. I'm pretty sure the USAF know about these tools, it's just basic meteorology.

Thing is, the Chinese have spy satellites in LEO, and these are more predictable for gathering intel - or at least I would think so. A balloon is way cheaper, though. Plus there's Google maps photos online...

Yup they're a bit vague & maybe that's the real purpose of the balloon;

It is possible that the owners don't want to be bluffed by potentially tampered information, so might check out the currents for themselves and get their own data to compare with officially published info.

After all if wargaming wanted to model chemical or radiation spread pathways across the US, then they'd need proper info on the latest trends.

It need not be visual surveillance. The thing might be sniffing RF, particularly lower frequency localised RF that doesn't get though the ionosphere. Or several other things .

In fact likely a test platform working as part of BeiDou-3 rollout.

Hast du etwas Zeit für mich?

For a high altitude balloon, using the jet stream and high altitude air currents makes it fairly predictable. High altitude winds and weather is fairly predictable and stable. Low altitude weather (clouds, winds, precipitation, etc) is far more chaotic and fast changing.

Impudent, to do as the US does.

The DoD should consider the dangers of rednecks trying to shoot it down themselves.

Should have worn a helmet icon? --->

It wouldn't even be termed pre-emptive as if I were the head of a country I'd consider it an act of war if you flew something over in my airspace without my explicit permission - so just nuclear bomb them already! Or sanction them! Or put all Chinese in safety and security camps or ....

This really does feel like the US warmongering - in the same way they hyped up Iraq having WMDs - "Well China has been provoking us for absolutely forever, so it's only right we put this impudent foreigners in their place" - alternatively they're trying to talk a narrative into existance.

Huawei security concerns (nothing found), China trying to build advanced AI/military systems (so chips for use in EV cars also banned for export - just cause CHY-NA might launch a car at you!) - and now of course a spy ballooon.

I'm surprised the US doesn't just say CHY-NA has WMD (they do - nuclear weapons) and get a SEAL team in there to take them all out - it'd be a fabulous success and they can put it all over the news like the lunar landings. Biden will be sure to get re-elected.

Pentagon: It's just a balloon, don't worry about it.

You: WARMONGERING! LIKE IRAQ!

I wouldn't say the Pentagon aren't worried about it - I'm sure they're monitoring it very carefully and have probably x-rayed it etc

It also gives the US an enormous propaganda coup - you are now already guilty and need to be proven innocent.

There was a recent case in the UK where a large number of Asian illegal immigrants died in the back of a container while illegally entering the country - the Chinese ambassador was summoned to help identify victims etc - lots of press about Chinese illegal immigrants etc - at which time it was found through further investigations that all the victims were Vietnamese ...

I'm not familiar with the particulars but I doubt there was an apology given, I'm pretty sure the British wouldn't even feel embarrassed at a mistake like that

As part of the trafficking / smuggling operation the victims were carrying some Chinese documentation. It's harder to claim asylum from Vietnam, because it is a benign country.

Next timpe use the sarcasm tag, many missed it.

It is actually very difficult to shoot a blimp down. It is not under pressure and will not pop like rubber balloon. One can make lots of holes in a blimp and it will just keep floating with the gas slowly deteriorating. It is best to just wait for it to come down by itself.

Unless they use hydrogen of course. Those are really easy to bring down.

Not so much - early British attempts at downing Zeppelins in WW1 were frustrated by the bullets going straight through the balloon skin and out the other side, with just modest loss of gas. The spectacular - oh the humanity! - explosions we recall were usually near the ground, where boring things like electro-static discharge (or just being in New Jersey) caused problems.

[I must for the sake of balance reflect that there are some lovely part of New Jersey. Cape May. Wildwood. The ice cream shop Duffers Challenge ]

To see where Richard Branson is?

As the CCP are involved, a better question would be: has anyone checked that there isn't a [1]small bear-of-Very-Little-Brain hanging underneath the balloon ?

[1] http://clipart-library.com/clipart/1078162.htm

with a little ingenuity it should be possible to fly another balloon directly below this one with a very big picture of the bear on top*.

The opportunity for trolling the operator is very tempting.

* or possibly something else :)

Eh Shepard's drawings are much nicer than the Disney cutesy ones.

A balloon makes for a great reconnaissance platform: it's slow moving and can have very non-aerodynamic antennas without them causing flight issues. However, it has a problem: if it's passively collecting data then the folk on the ground have predictable flight path options and can 'go quiet' when it's in range - or cover items from visible sight. If it's actively scanning then I'm sure NORAD will have a handle on its radar bands and will have deduced things like its likely resolution and so on - again, making it possible to mitigate what useful information it can collect.

Shooting it down is a tough call. If I were to send a balloon into someone's back yard, I'd wrap any sensitive equipment with a Pound or two of high explosive, primed to detonate either on command or automatically if the flight envelope varies outside what I consider 'expected'.

Even if it collects nothing more useful than the exact temps and wind speeds at 60+ thousand feet, it's served a very useful political role to someone: it's got the US public (and us lot!) talking about a potential threat and making people think national defence is sub-standard. I don't know if we should be embarrassed about it or shamed for not thinking of it first!

These people comin' over here, takin' our... bison.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0a/ab/26/0aab26bd2cdf64a9f4901940c00cc0f9.jpg ?

It's Chinese moles you need to worry about. Their fiendishness was documented over half a century ago:

[1]Battle Beneath The Earth

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061387/

sneaking behind, undetected, then... BANG!

Everyone dress up as Winnie-the-Pooh.

Too high to try out a microwave weapon and fry it's 'tronics?