comment: >
  
  It landed in 47 feet of water, and a lot of those parts wouldn't likely sink immediately.
context: 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. >
  
  Sure, blame the price tag, but that’s just cover while nobody asks what happened to China. >
  
  Aw we hurt Pooh's feelings he can't see our honey stockpiles anymore >
  
  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 >
  
  Well, if they were worried it was some kind of threat, they would have sent some heavy electronics plane to fly by it and scan with an interferometer, maybe microwaves to map the interior. Likely, the military already investigated it, and they either found electronics or didn't. I guess they could always bounce signals off of it if they wanted to use it as a more passive system.
  But really, it seems like all of this would be high risk, low reward kind of thing. Most likely it's just a bigger than usual weather balloon that drifted off course. >
  
  This 100%
  A weather ballon is spycraft from 50 years ago. They could have Chinese tourist easily gather any other information in the ground China wants that it can't get from a satellite. >
  
  And what does China propose as an appropriate reaction beyond letting it linger for a week and shooting it down over the water as it is apparently out of control? >
  
  If it was over the water, then that means it has completely drifted over the states, right?
  Any information it could have theoretically collected if it was a spy balloon is complete. We could have just let it keep drifting since the United States apparently failed miserably to stop a balloon that can be seen with the naked eye on the ground. >
  
  What are you arguing here? That the most advanced and well funded military on the planet was unable to deal with a balloon?
  Please take your tinfoil hat off for a moment and consider that perhaps the US military took steps that we civilians couldn't see, and that they waited til it was over the water so it didn't cause any damage or kill someone by landing on them. >
  
  Not to mention it's probably be easier to recover and study the wreckage when you don't have to comb through miles of grassland for it >
  
  You think it's easier to recover electronic equipment from the bottom of the ocean than from a dry grassy plain?