Terminal velocity

concours · Feb 4, 2023

How fast will a 3 school bus long, 9000 lb. object fall through the air? Aluminum chassis, solar panels.

robs ss · Feb 4, 2023

A bit of context please.
Have you joined Al Queda?

hmm - maybe 400km/hr (ish)

concours · Feb 4, 2023

robs ss said:
A bit of context please.
Have you joined Al Queda?

hmm - maybe 400km/hr (ish)

Nope.
Quite the contrary.

BritTwit · Feb 4, 2023

If it hits the water, but no one is around, does it make a sound?

concours · Feb 4, 2023

BritTwit said:
If it hits the water, but no one is around, does it make a sound?

You tell me...

mean gene · Feb 4, 2023

Our goverment at it's finest! Let this 'Balloon" drift accross our country spy on the missile silos in the mid west and then allow it to go over our space center at Outer Banks!

If it was only a weather balloon from CHINA! With all our military equipment, couldn't we just grab it and retreive it. They didn't shoot it down because there could be casualities on the ground!

concours · Feb 4, 2023

A test.

I always say: "test don't guess"

concours · Feb 4, 2023

mean gene said:
Our goverment at it's finest! Let this 'Balloon" drift accross our country spy on the missile silos in the mid west and then allow it to go over our space center at Outer Banks!

If it was only a weather balloon from CHINA! With all our military equipment, couldn't we just grab it and retreive it. They didn't shoot it down because there could be casualities on the ground!

Think of all it COULD be.

A test to feel out their ability to disrupt our power grid...
Our communications....
Little quick blips... to test

NPeteN · Feb 4, 2023

That thing had been hacked, tracked, disabled and corrupted before it even crossed into Alaska.
Convenient and harmless piece of floating anti-china propaganda by the time it hit the states.

texasSlick · Feb 4, 2023

Reminds me of the balloons launched by the Japanese in WWII. They were rather ineffective, but did manage to start some forest fires. For the most part, they were a practicality test. Same with these Chinese balloons...... you know there will be more .....

Slick

KiwiShane · Feb 4, 2023

110 miles an hour

KiwiShane · Feb 4, 2023

NPeteN said:
That thing had been hacked, tracked, disabled and corrupted before it even crossed into Alaska.
Convenient and harmless piece of floating anti-china propaganda by the time it hit the states.

I call it a distraction for many..other wise it would have beeen brought down in AK without a word...

texasSlick · Feb 4, 2023

Terminal velocity depends on aerodynamics...... large frontal area = less velocity.
A spent bullet, after being fired straight up, falls about 300 ft/sec, or about 200 mph. A human in free fall has a terminal velocity of about 120 mph.

Slick

texasSlick · Feb 4, 2023

KiwiShane said:
I call it a distraction for many..other wise it would have beeen brought down in AK without a word...

Not if those who have the power to order it brought down are cozy with the Chinese!

KiwiShane · Feb 4, 2023

texasSlick said:
Not if those who have the power to order it brought down are cozy with the Chinese!

We all know their cosy ...its the 1% of their population i have issue with...

KiwiShane · Feb 4, 2023

concours said:
Think of all it COULD be.

A test to feel out their ability to disrupt our power grid...
Our communications....
Little quick blips... to test

I'm pretty sure they have that mastered already..(disrupt hack)

texasSlick · Feb 5, 2023

concours said:
Think of all it COULD be.

A test to feel out their ability to disrupt our power grid...
Our communications....
Little quick blips... to test

You left out ...... a test of our resolve ..... if we are hesitant to shoot down their balloon, what would be our reaction to an invasion of Taiwan?

Slick

concours · Feb 5, 2023

texasSlick said:
You left out ...... a test of our resolve ..... if we are hesitant to shoot down their balloon, what would be our reaction to an invasion of Taiwan?

Slick

I intentionally left that out.

That is one of the obvious reasons, and may very well be the intent.
But clearly, our defense system was fully lit up by it's presence. And they got to study it.
For an extended period.

concours · Feb 5, 2023

KiwiShane said:
I'm pretty sure they have that mastered already..(disrupt hack)

Understood, but ongoing development of counter measures can impact that capability.
On both sides.

concours · Feb 5, 2023

Just brainstorming here.

Other possible (maybe multi-faceted) mission reasons

Terminal velocity

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