Did you buy the story about the Chinese spy balloon?

Did you buy the story about the Chinese spy balloon?

China does not need to send weather balloons openly drifting across the United States in the hopes that one of them might accidentally wander across something worthy of a snapshot. It has very good spy satellites orbiting over us right now. Many of them. Those satellites are thought to be on par with the instruments used by the United States. So, if China wants to note the license plate on your car, or sneak a peek while you’re tanning on the deck, they don’t need no stinkin’ balloon to do so.

The whole idea that China would be collecting signifi-cant intelligence by balloon in 2023 is an insult to everyone involved. The idea that such a balloon can be steered, or even aimed, to pass over a particular site is an utter impossibility. The fact that these things are both being not just stated by supposed experts on national media, but being touted as a possible national security concern is … typical.

Here is some info for you. The National Weather Service notes, 1,800 weather balloons are released each day. Most of these are roughly 6 feet in diameter at the ground, increasing to around 20 feet as they reach altitudes over 80,000 feet.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 feet, they pop, and the instrument package dangling from the base of the balloon—which is used to collect information about the atmosphere at high altitude—descends to the ground beneath a parachute to be recovered.

In addition to these official weather balloons, both industry and amateurs launch hundreds, if not thousands, of additional balloons each day, with the intention of detecting high-altitude cosmic rays, testing hardware that will be used in a satellite, or just collecting some incredible photos.

But tracking the course of these balloons is a genuine challenge. There are dozens of sites into which both professionals and amateurs can plug information about the balloon, including ones from NOAA, but the actual path is highly sensitive to the weight of the instruments, the amount of helium or hydrogen used to inflate the balloon, temperature at the time of launch, and most of all, to high-altitude winds. Even over just a few hundred miles, a balloon can go off the expected course by … a few hundred miles.

The details of all the various layers of wind at altitude is one piece of data brought back by the balloon, but it’s very rarely something that can be captured accurately going in. And again, no one, but no one, could launch a balloon in central China and “aim” it to fly above a missile silo in Montana.

The average balloon sent aloft flies a few hundred miles before it reaches an altitude where the latex is strained to popping. Then the instruments descend under a parachute and are retrieved. They can also be lost, which happens with some frequency, as parachutes end up coming down dozens of miles away from the expected landing site in poorly accessible terrain.

But our government insists it is Chinese spy balloon… and we end up launching a $10 million missile to take down a $300 lost balloon doing nothing, no one should be surprised.