Originally Posted by
Andrewgr2
Perhaps it is a stray weather balloon- but the PRC would say that, wouldn’t they? If it is actually spying then it might be more beneficial for the US to intercept its transmissions and decode what it is reporting than it would be to bring it down - if indeed they have the technology to bring down something flying at perhaps 80,000 feet. If they do have the technology they might not want to demonstrate it.
of course US has the technology to bring it down, but using expensive rockets(SM-3 costs north of $10M) that go to the edge of space would be an overkill for a balloon
Last edited by AreOut; 3rd Feb 2023 at 21:03.