[sammalloy]

> There's a high risk of debris falling on people on the ground.

That excuse seems really odd to me. Montana is the third-least densely populated state with 6.86 people per square mile of land.

[cronix]

It also has a lot of active nuclear ICBM silos.

https://www.malmstrom.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Ar...

[COGlory]

You can go drive past them, even stop to use the porta-potty. (ok, maybe not recommended) I've antelope hunted over there a lot. (East of Harlowtown) and it is as empty as it gets in the contiguous US.

They could probably shoot it down without making much debris. And even if it made debris, at most it would hit a cow. The reality is it's not collecting anything of value.

[anon223345]

Yes, they are probably just counting silos under an informal agreement…

These have taken place numerous times

[fbdab103]

Are the silos even a secret anymore? With ubiquitous satellite coverage, I assume that anything even possibly a launch site is extensively monitored. To say nothing of traditional mechanisms of gathering intelligence.

[ofrzeta]

There is an exhaustive list on Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/341st_Missile_Wing_LGM-30_Minu...

[maxerickson]

The risk of letting it sit up there is ~0.

It's like a fly sitting on the windshield of your car parked in the driveway or something. It's there, it might be annoying if you think about it, but it isn't actually doing any meaningful harm.

[bentobean]

If so, then why did China go to the trouble in the first place?

[maxerickson]

I dunno, why did they? I think if you are concerned about it and I'm not, you are probably the one that needs to explain.

Maybe they are planning to drop an insignificant number of small munitions on random locations in the US or something.

[amw]

I haven't yet seen a compelling reason to think it is either Chinese or an espionage craft anyway,other than news reporting "the Pentagon sure thinks so"

[amw]

Update since i posted: chinese foreign ministry has confirmed, says it's for scientific purposes

[TurkishPoptart]

"Letting it sit", the "it" being what they're calling a "surveillance" balloon, seems absurd. If we have an ongoing MITM attack, we need to stop the attack, not simply observe it like idiots.