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Comment by ShakataGaNai | Hacker News Reader

Amateur balloonists have been running these sorts of things for a really really long time without issue. Unfortunately due to China (Spying? Meteorology? we'll never know), now every time there is a balloon spotted there will be an issue.

While I'm not a fan of regulation, we should have some sort of optional transponder/beacon system that can be voluntarily registered. ADSB-like, which I know balloons can do...but true ADSB is expensive.

That way hobbits can continue doing their thing, the cost per balloon goes up by some minor amount, and we don't scramble jets and make national news constantly.

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The large balloon was definitely from China, China never denied that. The dispute was over its intention, which China maintains was meteorological research.

For example, here is a BBC article that takes a skeptical tone but correctly summarizes the statements made by the Chinese government. Under a more charitable interpretation, one could assume that the Chinese government remained silent for some time because they had to determine which research agency had launched it.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64633990

You're right, incorrect implication on my part. Fixed.

> The dispute was over its intention, which China maintains was meteorological research.

I seem to recall the US military were able to recover it after shooting it down. If that's the case, analysis of the remains should dispel any doubt about its purpose: sensors used in meteorological research are quite different from those used say for monitoring radio waves or taking photos of terrain.

Yes, and there has been pretty extensive reporting that based on analysis of the wreckage the balloon was determined to be an ELINT (electronic intelligence) collection platform with a real-time C2 connection using a commercial US ISP (I assume a cellular carrier). I think that's pretty much what anyone with some general knowledge of modern military intelligence would have guessed, it's just the obvious thing to use such a balloon for.

However, to my knowledge, this is all based on "sources within the intelligence community" and has not been formally acknowledged by any government official. So take it with a grain of salt, even on top of what you might usually apply to determinations by US intelligence.

even amateur balloonists are supposed to contact ATC so that NOTAMs can be issued. i launched one to about 90,000'. ATC asked me if we had any kind of radio beacons for them to follow, but we were way too small for that. we did have a GPS that we could get some altitude updates on, and ATC asked we update them at every 10,000' for as long as it could be tracked.

if someone is operating a balloon and NOT contacting ATC, they deserve to have there thing shot down. that's just highly irresponsible. it's a simple phone call, and then there's no confusion on if your balloon is a foreign spy platform or not

I'll bet the main problem here is that they flew over restricted airspace. Basically the entitled Western half of Utah is restricted for Dugway and the salt flats, which is unfortunate, because it's the area that would be easiest to recover your balloon from. I did a high-altitude balloon in Utah a few weeks ago and had no problems, but we stuck to Eastern Utah (https://twitter.com/mpatrickwalton/status/176000350831999008...).

possibly, but again, contacting ATC would have made this a non-issue. ignorance of the rules/regulation is not an excuse.

Don't the sufficiently small ones not require that?

What is sufficiently small, and at what altitude? Gases expand as atmospheric pressure lowers as the altitude increases. So whatever diameter your balloon is on the ground is the smallest it will be. The balloon I launched was close to 8’ on the ground when launched. It was closer to 40’ at 90000’ when it burst

They don't care about the balloon, merely the payload. Anything that would matter if something flew into it.

Which is directly related to the size of the balloon.

I'm confused. Why is china to blame for america's paranoia?

I know china's doing some shit, but that doesn't really excuse the paranoia being exhibited by balloons.

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