Sunday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Sunday, February 12, 2023
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31 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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Of the latest “objects” shot down over Alaska and Canada, notice the media calls them “unidentified objects.” Since they were in the air, shouldn’t they be “unidentified flying objects”?
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@Kathy: Iâm really curious about what these are. The original balloon carried a sensor array the size of three busses. Judging by the pictures and scaling by the instrument pod, the ballon must be as big as a medium sized church. After all it was visible to the naked eye from 11 miles away. In contrast the authorities keep describing this new one as the size of a car and arenât mentioning a balloon at all.
@MarkedMan: I just saw this comment:
So that would imply that it was a balloon and the instrument pod was the thing that was the size of a car. Dang! I was hoping for some radical Chinese or Russian sci-fi stuff!
@MarkedMan:
There are two things that can float high for extended periods of time: balloons and airships.
There are some experimental, unmanned solar-powered airplanes that can stay up for days or weeks. But these are huge. You need a lot of wing surface to stay aloft at low speeds for days. Much bigger than a car.
@Kathy: It was reported this was at 40,000 feet. If it was low speed, doesnât that imply lighter than air? Of course, Iâm just presuming it was low speed, based on the comment quoted above.
[edited] I just read the linked article. 65,000 feet! Of course, it would be a stretch to describe that as the size of a car given that it has the wingspan of a 737.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I laughed out loud at “flame-grilled.”
“Superior negotiating skills,” my ass.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-jared-kushner-may-have-leveraged-white-house-to-get-saudi-money?ref=home
@MarkedMan:
Stall speed, the speed at which an airplane stops providing enough lift to stay airborne, vary according to lots of variables. Things like airspeed, angle of attack, air density, wind speed and direction, etc.
However, in general two variables, weight and wing surface area, outweigh many others assuming level flight. So, a light aircraft with a large wing can stay airborne at very low speeds, comparable to the speed of a balloon drifting under certain conditions.
@CSK:
Make that:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-jared-kushner-may-have-leveraged-presidency-to-get-saudi-money?ref=home
@OzarkHillbilly: My husband is a Brit, and that is totally in line with his sense of humo(u)r. I mean, this is a population for whom Monty Python’s “Always look on the bright side of life” is the most popular song at funerals.
@Jen:
About half my DNA is English, and I thought it was hysterical.
Another point: If I were grieving, I’m not sure I’d even notice the sign.
@Kathy: et al. WAPO has a “What toKnow” article this morning on the
balloonsunidentified objects floating with the wind. Turns out that except for the bare fact we shot down a third yesterday, they don’t know anything we didn’t know a few days ago. The government seems to know, or be willing to say, almost nothing. And what little they do say is being reported by the press with their usual technical expertise and attention to detail.– Busses. What feature of the thing is the size of a bus or three?
– They’re sometimes referred to as “airships”. The distinction between a balloon and an airship is the power to propel it through the air. Is there any sign of such? Note that balloons can display limited course changes by changing altitude to find more favorable wind. Hot air balloon meets often feature a contest of navigating to a specified destination, perforcely downwind. This does not an airship make. Also, too, the first balloon had a visible solar array and would have needed some power for attitude control to point the array. This also would not make it an airship.
– We’re told we’re using AIM9 (Sidewinder) missiles. These are, IIRC, radar or heat guided. I recall reading of issues with heat seeking on small, piston engine driven, drones, much less balloons. The payload would likely provide enough radar reflection, but the missile over SC appeared to penetrate the balloon. I wonder if AIM9s have either an optical tracking capability or an “iron sights” ballistic mode. And did the warheads explode or did the missile just pass through the envelope? There did appear to be smoke when the balloon burst over SC.
– Stall speed. Decades ago I read of a guy who flew a glider to something like 30,000 feet in the ridge lift, the wind deflecting upward, over Pike’s Peak. A T-38 out of the AF Academy reported him as a stationary UFO. Compared to the stall speed of an F-22 at 60,000 ft I expect it would be hard for a pilot to see the difference between 50 mph and 0. But I’ve seen nothing that really says these things were powered. If it’s in a jet stream it could have a ground speed up to maybe 200 mph without power.
– The Chinese are saying at least the SC object was a weather balloon. Are there not protocols for clearing overflights by research devices? If the Alaska object was down to commercial aircraft altitude is there not an obligation to report it? If they’re innocent, wouldn’t they carry radar reflectors to reduce any hazard to navigation?
– How thick is the ice where the Alaska object went down? How are recovery efforts going? And is there any recovery effort in the Yukon?
– And where’d the one over Columbia go?
I’ve got way more questions than the press are answering.
In a tight labor market, some states look to another type of worker: Children
Thanks to those of you who responded to my post yesterday about a tough work situation I’m in with a colleague I’m close to who is in a troubled marriage. After reading those replies I think the best course of action, which I agree with, is to just be a listening board and not get too involved in their personal marriage for all the potentially fraught reasons noted. There’s really no “good” option. So, thanks again, appreciate it.
@Stormy Dragon: The Iowa proposal would also expand hours teenagers can work during the school year, and would shield businesses from civil liability if a youth worker is sickened, injured or killed on the job.
Well, we know where the priorities are for the legislature – business profits.
In Maryland the utilities had a tough time getting electrical line workers. Little kids would probably be good at that, they could get in tight spaces. How about putting them to work for the landscaping companies? When the woodchipping machine breaks down, their little hands could fix the jams.
@Stormy Dragon: They would rather sacrifice their own kids than let in more brown people.
Unsurprising given our collective approaches to guns and COVID.
@CSK: opening up the second link made my computer white out the article for some reason. I guess I’ll never know how one “leverages” something that wouldn’t seem to be able to be monetized or turned into capital.
@CSK: Is there anything to the Kushner/Trump/MBS story a reasonable person wouldnât have surmised a year ago? Seems to me the only unknown here is why the Saudiâs keep bribing them after theyâre out of power. Do they think he might win in 2024? Is he holding something over their heads? Perhaps something documented in the classified papers he kept? Or is he valuable for laundering money? Why?
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
That’s strange. I just tried it and it worked fine for me.
@gVOR08:
I think the Saudis believe he might win in 2024, and that they find him useful for laundering money. I don’t know if he’s holding something over their heads. With Trump, it’s often the other way around. Why, for instance, is he so eager to cater to Putin–and defend him? Because Putin has something on Trump?
This is getting silly. ABC News has tweeted that we shot down a fourth “object” over Lake Huron. Fifth if you count the one that overflew Columbia. Any way you approach Lake Huron, you have to have passed over a lot of Canada or the U.S.
@gVOR08:
The searchers all say the balloon would have been able to surveil Whitefish Bay if it’d put fifteen more miles behind it.
@gVOR08:
“Airship” is as simple as the Goodyear blimp or the Hindenburg.
There were many analogies between aviation and sea travel in the early days of the former, as well as more direct relationships like flying boats (convenient for air travel in coastal areas that lacked airports).
@gVOR08:
They probably view it as an investment in US real estate, not a bad bet but one to be carefully monitored. However they may feel some need not to just cut him off in order to keep him quiet, his penchant for childish vindictiveness is more than well known. Cut him off and only Allah knows what he might say….particularly about that batch of Saudi royals that got detained and tortured after Jared was given access to classified briefings about Saudi discontents.
re. the 99 balloons, don’t know how truthy this is, but speculation on Brit defence tech twitteris that they are smaller versions with small payloads designed for stealth, and they are getting picked up because they’ve adjusted the detection threshold software on the ADGE systems.
@Stormy Dragon: I sang that, in my head. đ đ
@Jen: It’s gonna play at mine…. I hope.
Elon Musk is sitting next to Rupert Murdoch at the Super Bowl which really doesn’t surprise me at all.
I laughed at that.
Chiefs beat Eagles, 38-35.
@CSK:..Chiefs beat Eagles, 38-35…
And Mahomes finished the game in a wheelchair.