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A comment on U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance balloon. Parent comment

Re:U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance ... by angry_octet on Sunday February 05, 2023 @05:41AM (#34663725)
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.

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Re:U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance ... by Tor3 on Sunday February 05, 2023 @08:33AM (#34664756)
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.
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Re:U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance ... by emkemp on Sunday February 05, 2023 @03:50PM (#34669210)
Um, the Air Force still uses the U-2. As does NASA.

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

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Re:U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance ... by rjsw on Monday February 06, 2023 @07:34AM (#34676425)
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.
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Re:U.S. military shoots down suspected Chinese surveillance ... by angry_octet on Monday February 06, 2023 @08:20AM (#34676896)
Still can't see any risk. You won't find F-15s flying that high except if they need to shoot a balloon.
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