Dang! Another balloon!
Can be effective?Biological weapon deployment can be effective with this kind of aircraft.
Don't really need Chinas help. If you have the time ? Look into USAMRIID under newsroom/media. Scroll to 2018 read the article on fruit bats & Marburg virus. You may also find the study from George Mason University interesting. Ft Detrick likes playing with you know STUFF. That involves monkeys, anthrax, etc, etc. And take a look at the State Park quarter for 2020. Guess what is on that ? Fruit bats. Kind of in your face. Call me a conspiracy nut. Just because I can read between the lines. lolCan be effective?
Or WAS effective?
Cut it out with that reasoning crap. Conjecture and conspiracy are the theme here.Right there would be a reason not to shoot it down where the prevailing winds could scatter the goods all across the mainland...let it pass the east coast, then drop it.
Again, once the balloon was discovered the military did not want to shoot it down without being able to retrieve the equipment it was carrying which is why they wanted to shoot it down over water and it had to be a really big body of water because it would be spread over 7 miles. They also wanted to study it while it was drifting across the US. It was not a security threat. It did not have to be shot down immediately.The problem I have they could have shot it down entering our territory inside of leaving it which implies they had no clue it flew 2,000 miles across Alaska until someone looked up in Montana and said "its a bird! No its a plane! No its a freaking balloon!" But I guess this was already taken.
Colossal intelligence failure we cannot track balloons which has been admitted. This is not an administration issue as much as failure of the military intelligence which is admitting we cannot easily track them. Prez says shoot it down Wed when in Montana, that order should have been before it entered over Alaska.
If they are able to salvage the balloon then won't they know for certain whether or not it had a payload? You don't think that we should try and learn anything about the technology being used on the balloon or anything about China's surveillance balloon program? As far as the ineptitude of our detection capability, perhaps there is something to learn from the salvaged balloon.Detecting first then shooting it down BEFORE over populated areas is correct decision. Once it was in Montana, they were afraid to shoot it down. Nobody knew then or even possibly now what the balloon mission was or even if it was carrying a payload. We will prob never know that for certain anyway which is appropriate for security. They had no choice due to ineptitude of our detection capability. Letting it fly across our country without knowing anything is absurd.