The U.S. government is talking about shooting down a Chinese balloon that is reportedly high above the mainland U.S… “Suspected Chinese spy balloon drifting over U.S. has surveillance part as big as multiple school buses” (CBS):
The balloon was flying at an altitude of about 66,000 feet, according to a U.S. official. It can be maneuvered but it is also subject to the jet stream, which could eventually push it out of U.S. airspace, the official said.
The balloon is not going to run out of fuel, since it has solar panels. The official also said that the balloon steers by rudder and is corkscrewing around to slow its progress over land, but the jet stream continues to move it on a trajectory across the U.S. The Pentagon is still considering ways to “dispose” of it but has “grave concerns” about the damage it would cause if it fell to Earth.
It’s laterally above the U.S. so it is in our airspace so we can shoot it down if we want to? Let’s check “The Vertical Limit of State Sovereignty” (Journal of Air Law and Commerce, 2007):
Because there is no agreed delineation between a state’s territory and free outer space, the vertical limit of state sovereignty is unsettled and each state is left to define the limits of its vertical sovereignty. However, no state has explicitly done this.
U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles said “the question of the ownership of upper air is a disputable question…. What the legal position is, I wouldn’t feel in a position to answer because I do not believe that the legal position has even been codified ….”, Later in the same news conference, Secretary Dulles answered a question by saying, “Yes, I think that we feel [that the United States has the right to send balloons at a certain height anywhere around the globe], although .. .there is no clear international law on the subject.””
Conclusion
There is no international agreement on the vertical limit of state sovereignty.
State sovereignty should be limited to a low altitude–I recommend 12 nm [73,000′]
In other words, at 66,000′ it is an open question whether this balloon is in U.S. airspace. The limit of controlled airspace, in which it is possible to get a clearance from U.S. Air Traffic Control, is 60,000′ (the Davos crowd may be found at 51,000′ in their various late-model Gulfstreams).
From Twitter:
And from a Facebook aviation group:
FOR SALE: 2023 China Aviation Industry Corporation II non rigid ballistic helium ballon, like new and low time with only 380 hours TTAF, no damage history. Equipment includes GPS, NAV/COM, extra large gas storage, and weather equipment similar to XM. Military designed but only for civilian use, honestly. Has complete logs. The aircraft is still in use so flight times will change. No special type rating or endorsement needed. Fly wherever you want, whenever you want. Be advised that interest in this unique ballon is at an all time high, so act fast as this one won’t last!
Chinese commies can save a lot of money on satellites now that they’ve realized how wimpy we are being afraid to shoot down even an air balloon !
“Why not shoot it down? We have to do the risk-reward here,” a senior defense official said on Thursday. “So the first question is, does it pose a threat, a physical kinetic threat, to individuals in the United States in the US homeland? Our assessment is it does not. Does it pose a threat to civilian aviation? Our assessment is it does not. Does it pose a significantly enhanced threat on the intelligence side? Our best assessment right now is that it does not. So given that profile, we assess the risk of downing it, even if the probability is low in a sparsely populated area of the debris falling and hurting someone or damaging property, that it wasn’t worth it.”
I’m wondering if a drone could latch onto it and drag it down to land. I don’t know much about the relevant technology at all so I don’t know if thats viable, but a quick search for the highest altitude military drone suggests something might exist that flies high enough:
https://skykam.co.uk/how-high-can-a-drone-fly/
“The highest a drone has ever flown is 70,748 feetabove ground level (21,562 meters) by the Zephyr, a solar-powered fixed wing developed by Airbus Defense and Space.”
If it is indeed high enough to be in space though, it does seem like that would mean China still officially has jurisdiction over it and it wouldn’t be legal for the balloon to be retrieved that way, or to be destroyed. If it is indeed in space it seems it would be the US that essentially attacked China first if they destroyed or captured the balloon. Is there any media actually addressing these issues? (I haven’t seen any, but I hadn’t searched since I’m guessing the reason for the blog post is that there doesn’t seem to be, or at least not the mainstream major media).
First of all, what valuable intelligence does it collect? High altitude wind patterns over missile silos and, more importantly, exposes decision processes and inability to reach a decision in the administration.
But then, why is everyone so sure balloon is Chinese? Why it wasn’t shot down upon entering the airspace? Why it wasn’t shot down over mountains, where it’s relatively safe to do so? And, most importantly, is there actual capability to shot down something flying this high?
All great questions. I want to know as well
Are we leaving this alone because we fly balloons or something similar over them and don’t want to set a precedent? I’m assuming one of our truck-mounted laser weapons could effortlessly put a nice hole in it if we wanted to
The NYT reassures us that the balloon is not hypersonic!
ttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/04/us/politics/balloon-congress-surveillance-report.html
But the incidents potentially involving advanced technology described in the classified report are not believed to involve any sort of hypersonic propulsion, U.S. officials said, nor does the Chinese spy balloon now drifting over the United States.
Biden gets one foreign policy gift after the next. Could we see two years of minor “incidents” between the U.S. and China, after which Biden and Xi will suddenly make peace in 2024, get the joint Nobel peace prize and Biden will win the election?
Surprised there were no estimates of the mass or attempts to get higher resolution photos. The current generation is like a commodore 64 trying to compute a generated pretrained transformer. The scariest idea is a balloon from the won hung lo factory popping & such a large structure falling on something.