If you believe the Chinese officials, they had lost control of the balloon. Things that go up must famously go down, though that's not their department said Wernher Von Braun.

It's a bit strange how they are simultaneously upset that their balloon got shot down and claiming they had lost control of it.

The "upset" part is a defensive attack, they expect to avoid rebuffs of violating airspace by being very upset in the first place.

Well it gives a good excuse to shoot down US spy balloons or planes. The precedence has been set, and the snowball continue to roll downwards.

That precedence was set way back in the late 1950s when the Soviet Union started shooting at US U-2 spy planes, and especially in 1960 when they finally succeeded in shooting down the US U-2 spy plane with pilot Gary Powers.

This overflight was termed by the Soviets as an "Act of aggression". This Chinese incident is no less an act of aggression, and merely continues the precedent.

If the Chinese really wanted it considered otherwise because they had actually lost control of the device, they could have easily warned us of the problem and requested coordinated assistance in recovering their device (which would of course allow us to examine it). The PRC govt did no such thing.

And the critics complaining about not shooting it down sooner are ignoring two key things. First, the payload was 2-4 school-busses in length, and dropping such a thing from 12+ miles up in a random location even in sparsely populated areas is a ridiculous hazard. Second, we can be quite confident that the US military could neutralize any data collection or transmission during the transit, and the shoot-down over our waters eliminated the possibility of PRC recovering any stored data.

The only thing I find strange is that they didn't throw in something about hurting the feelings of the Chinese people[0] for good measure. They like to call this Wolf Warrior diplomacy; but it really comes across more as crying wolf diplomacy.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurting_the_feelings_of_the_...

The U-2 can fly at 70,000 typical missions are 60-65,000ft.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_U-2

Are the U-2s still flying in any numbers? The SR-71s? If they were, would a few balloons be a serious risk to their navigation?

Yes. Here is where you apply if you want to fly them.

https://www.beale.af.mil/Library/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article...

Concorde did [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde

An aircraft that last flew decades ago is not relevant here.

The comment you replied to says "no commercial aircraft flies at that altitude" and the concorde hasn't flown in decades.

Well.. November 2003, so only after that can you claim "decades", plural.. it's a while yes, but clearly shows that at least it's in the realm of commercial aircraft, and may happen again, in principle.

Edit: By the way, that comment said, and I quote, "Name one plane that flies at more than 60,000 feet, I'll wait."

No word "commercial" there. So, aside from the Concorde, there were/are several others, some already mentioned.

No Concordes any more I'm afraid. There are no military or civilian planes that fly that high -- unless the CIA dusts off a U-2. There is no navigation risk.

In contrast, every orbital launch has to deal with 10s of thousands of pieces of space debris.

Several military airplanes, including fighters, can and do fly that high and more. I never said anything about navigation risks - that was from other posters. Obviously space debris is a much higher daily risk, for satellites.

Um, the Air Force still uses the U-2. As does NASA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_U-2#Operators

The F-15 and Eurofighter Typhoon have published service ceilings of 65000ft, put them in a vertical climb and they will go a lot higher than that, the Streak Eagle reached 103000ft.

Still can't see any risk. You won't find F-15s flying that high except if they need to shoot a balloon.

U-2 (TR-1), SR-71, WB-57

Don't forget the beautiful XB-70

The original design is something out of Macross: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XB-70_Valkyrie#...

All that's missing is it shooting out its missiles in Itano Circus swarms.

Haha yesss! I remember that post from a couple days ago. Really cool. I don't watch anime myself but the Itano missile effect is pretty sweet to behold

No longer in active service.

The U-2 is very much in service. Apply here if you want to fly it.

https://www.beale.af.mil/Library/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article...

Possibly apocryphal SR-71 story ;-)

SR-71: "QQ requesting clearance to flight level 600"

ATC: "QQ, climb and maintain flight level 600... if you can get there."

SR-71: "Roger, descending to flight level 600"