They are flat yet round at the same time. Just like Mother Earth. 
In reality, it has been several years since I have eaten one.
This is how it starts. A UFO here, a UFO there. Next thing you know they will be hovering over all the world’s major cities. 
Just keep Gentry Lee away from it or we’ll have a real disaster.
How much info can you glean from something after it has been struck by a missile. I’m asking seriously.
Good question. Perhaps they set the missiles to fly through the middle of the balloons without exploding.
From the New York Times:
Whomever declined to let Trump, and his political appointees, know about this sort of thing was wise. Bad enough to see the milder overreaction from the Biden administration.
Of course, the politics of the thing are that they have to shoot them down. If not for that, it might be better to monitor them to see where they go next and if anyone retrieves them.
As to the “very real” danger to aviation, if I was a pilot, I’d probably agree. But I’d be mildly interested to see that risk quantified.
Almost all of the damage done will probably be from hitting the ground/water. They wouldn’t even need to use explosives on the missile, one of those fancy new sword missiles would work just fine.
Put a bullet hole in it, and it descends so slowly that it drifts who-knows-where before touching down. Blow up the balloon entirely, and the payload hits the ground or water at terminal velocity, seriously damaging it. It seems like there ought to be some happy medium, here, where we do enough damage to it that it goes down over the course of, say, an hour, quick enough to be able to control where it lands, but gentle enough to recover the payload.
Though, to be fair, the military hasn’t had much practice at shooting down balloons yet. They’re probably working on developing that just-right amount of damage.
^This^.
I wonder if hitting the 1st (South Carolina) balloon on the top, rather than on it’s bottom near the down-rigging would have been the best way to preserve evidence. Keeping the membrane intact might allow for some drag to slow the decent and help reduce damage to the payload.
Neither. This makes no real difference to his political fortunes; Canada is a minor player here. The election’s years away.
I think Sam Stone may be right in that one or more of these shootdowns are overreactions to weather balloons, which are very numerous and drift all over the place. The first one certainly was not; a weather balloon is usually a surprisingly modest thing, not something that carries a payload the size of a car.
If we are shooting down weather balloons, my confidence in NORAD and DoD will be shattered.
I mean, they have the best cameras in the world and do flybys before deciding to take the object down. Playing around with weather balloons would be a dereliction of duty and can get you fired/relieved.
Not if ordered to take it down.
I just found this article from November of 2022:
The decider in the chain of command would give the order. Followed by being responsibility for said order.
-All the way up to and including the Commander-in-Chief.
I’m guessing that they know it wouldn’t be a good look to be chasing weather balloons. Politically or militarily.
Not only is it not a dereliction of duty if following orders, but it is noble and worth at least a gigantic stuffed animal.
And a sticker on the side of your jet.