Well, clearly the thing to do is send one of our spy balloons over China and see how they shoot it down, and then do that!
Trained falcons. With nuclear “devices.” Problem solved, and you’re welcome.
Nuclear falcons, you say?
Same cow balloon. 
What’s to worry about? Perjury Traitor Greene wants her supporters to shoot the thing down. You’ll notice that she “cleverly” got in a dig at President Biden, using a very Tan the Conman-esque nickname. Oh, and she completely ignored the fact that the reason our current and legitimate, not to mention intelligent, president has not shot the thing down is to avoid injuring Americans
There are European, Canadian, and Asian global weather models that are as good as the US models. Usually they work together to predict long-term weather. Numerical weather prediction - Wikipedia
Maybe if they all stood on each others’ shoulders? (Hope they don’t see this, because someone might try it.)
I’m thinking that the “people being injured on the ground” thing is speculation that it contains something that is radioactive, or a biowarfare agent.
Those do remain possibilities (my bolding).
But even if those things are not relevant: the balloon does contain a LOT of hardware. You really don’t want to be hit by even a 4-inch chunk of metal if it has dropped from that height.
Not to mention the amount of debris from our own weapon–debris created on impact with the balloon.
And the field of debris, given that the impact would be at such a height, would be HUGE.
They did make it all the way to the scene of the crash.
It’s over red states. Fuck 'em!
Ah, a Ron White allusion. Good job!
Or it’s bloody big and if shot down there will be a lot of debris. I understand the thing is the size of three school buses.
Well, you see, if we really followed that whole “shall not be infringed” thing, the Montana Militia would have THAAD ABMs of their own…
Seriously, depending on how high that thing is it may be in range for a Patriot and would be well within the range of a THAAD or SM3 if it were in the right place, but then you have the aforementioned issues of terminal guidance and warhead appropriateness. A shrapnel warhead would mostly just poke holes in the whole apparatus which will make a regular missile break up but will only make a high altitude balloon slowly empty itself unless you really rip apart the top; a direct impact warhead would need to be able to hit the instrument platform head-on. And more immediately, you can’t just haul a Patriot or THAAD battery to a proper in-range location on a few hours’ notice, GMD ABMs are at fixed locations, and SM3s are based on ships. So the Midwest is left to rage at it and rain friendly fire on their own heads if they so feel like.
Pretty sure Edward would figure a way to take it down. She was sharp.
F15s can easily top 100K feet, in a ballistic trajectory. Strap a coupla good ol boys on the wings with M16s (and parkas) and they can shoot on the way up, and then again on the way down. Easy peasy.
It (was) Montana. Who cares.
There was one “crash” in the 3 years after it became independent. And that’s unrelated to whether the navigation is possible. Meh.
What’s this?
It’s not even over Montana any more.
Another Chinese spy balloon is transiting Latin America, Pentagon says
The video’s from over a couple of hours ago. In the comments, producers from major news networks are asking for permission to use it.
It’s a joke.
