Why would China send such obvious spying tool?
Where did Americans get the idea that the Chinese government is incapable of telling the truth? They said the 200foot balloon with a “three-bussize” solar panel array was built and launched to study weather. What’s wrong with that?
Why would they send a visible, drifting-in-the-wind balloon to take pictures of the lids of Montana missile silos when they already have high-performance satellites doing the same thing? I have spent time in China, working with engineers, and I can assure you, they are not that stupid.
By the way, to my knowledge, it would be an engineering impossibility for a balloon to carry enough equipment and fuel to propel it to a specific spot in Montana from China. It will merely drift to wherever the upper atmosphere wind flows.
Suppose it is true that these balloons carry cameras to study cloud and wind formation and that the operators failed to signal it to vent some helium and descend before leaving Chinese air space. Would it not drift in the airflow around the world until enough helium leaked out to let it fall, gently, to the surface?
Why did our military experts detonate a $400,000 missile to rip up the balloon when they could have vented some helium with a few 50-caliber or 20-millimeter bullets and it would have descended, undamaged, to the ground?
When I write this, the balloon payload is still underwater but probably on the way up and off to the FBI laboratory. If they should discover that it actually is only capable of studying weather, will they release that finding and embarrass every politician, expert and news analyst in the country?
— Glenn Selch, Erie it could re-open. Is it any wonder, we citizens DO NOT want any more underpass construction — both because of the disruption and wasted tax dollars? We had years of misery when the underpass under Baseline — from CU to Base-mar was built. Is it even used? My observation is not much.
We need to vote in a transportation department and city council of senior long-time citizens, and maybe we can save Boulder from going down the tubes.
— Madelyn Wynne, Boulder