>

Also if the US shot it down immediately, it would be a side story that lasts a day tops. The US can milk this story internationally for days and make it the headline for other countries to be aware of the antics that China pulls. US let it traverse and linger over military sites as a way of further evidence that this was no ordinary balloon.
Maybe we should send a super sophisticated "weather" balloon over China and see what they do with it. >

Make it shaped like Winnie the Pooh >

I support this idea with my tax dollars. >

The 9.2 trillion dollar balloon was inflated by Raytheon. >

I wonder how they'd feel about America letting one of those ballons float over to China? Probably not too thrilled. >

Are satellites not a thing anymore?  What are we all excited about? >

In one of the many posts about this someone was commenting that because of the lower altitude they would be able to “scan” deeper into the crust. The theory makes sense but idk if it checks out. >

I’m confident enough in our military (the seeming one competent government institution) that if there was any real additional risk allowing it to continue as opposed to taking the balloon our days ago, then they would have taken it out days ago.
Really not sure where this story arc is going though tbh. Recent news they may have sent three during the last administration?  Maybe they allowed it to go just to see how China would react? There was some rationale to not taking it out before, curious as to what that is >

If they just took it out right away, the Chinese would get to see our standard response time, tactics, and monitor our comms while we do it. By delaying we got to feed them false information, observe their technological capabilities, potentially identify who they were communicating with, and more. 
Even as it was, the Chinese no doubt got some info on the F22 and the sidewinder.