The more mundane reason is “guns don’t work”, from one of the answers further down.

https://apnews.com/article/268893fddde785d029d5a51b136951eb

> Jet fighters trying to bring the balloon down fired more than 1,000 rounds into it Thursday, but it remained aloft. The air force hopes the now-leaking balloon will eventually come down.

Maybe there are some mundane reasons like that help justify it, but a lot of this seems like a bit of a show. I get the F-22 has a high ceiling for operations, but surely you could've shot a missile from a F-16 and accomplished the same thing.

Edit: As proof countries have downed high altitude balloons without F-22s and sidewinders in recent history.

Not guaranteed at all? The ceiling of an F-16 is lower. It's really not guaranteed that that would've worked. These missiles have limited range, and gaining altitude is costliest. It's entirely possible that a Sidewinder would not have worked from an F-16, requiring the use of a longer range, more expensive missile, and even that might not have worked as a balloon is a strange target and they picked this specific weapon system and platform because they believed it to have a high chance of success.

Why wouldn't you use your weapon system that has the highest probability of working on the first shot? The entire world was watching.

Yes the entire world is watching. That's what I mean by signaling.

And most of it is amazed how much sensation is made of this (:

Brazen invasion, I'll wonder if they (US or China) will release honest details, but I cannot imagine much real purpose there and for now only assume incapability/incompetence.

I mean I'm not trying to say what effect it had, but high altitude balloons have been downed by multiple countries without F-22s firing sidewinders. I think the choice of F-22 was deliberate because of the visibility. To send a signal.

the CHINESE are INVADING with their BALLOONS and PARTY POPPERS

To be fair, if you were having a balloon war, China would be #1.

I'm out of the loop on what china has done in response. Have they done anything other than complain?

(Genuine question, I know it's really easy to be interpreted as dismissive or confrontational and my intent is to be neither of those.)

Let's let loose the comment section - i.e. stopped censoring nationalists on their internet. This sort ensures that rhetoric is progressively more heated and there will be less space for them to back down. Also they put out additional threats today.

https://apnews.com/article/politics-united-states-government...

I believe the chief of a weather monitoring bureau was removed from his position.

It's awkward how often these civilian weather monitoring operations go awry, isn't it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident

Do you feel this incident from 63 years ago is relevant now?

For context it's closer to the first powered flight in 1903 than it is to the present day.

Yes? Both are ham-handed spy missions by a superpower on another, covered up as "weather missions" only after getting caught with their pants down.

Surely there is a vertical limit to US airspace??

There isn’t at least directly above the country. This normally applies to all countries as well.

At certain heights you are in space and space is international. Anything above 110km is normally considered space, anything below 60km is a country's air space, anything between is a grey area.

That's why the gean BND had it's Space theory to justify it's spying.

The chinese was way below that a ca. 19km

I’d say it’s best to think of that gray zone as more of a nobody really operates here zone.

"According to international law, states retain sovereignty over the airspace above their territory – subject to certain aviation laws such as the 1944 Convention on International Civil Aviation (the Chicago Convention). Article 1 of the Chicago Convention makes this clear by providing that every state has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory.

This exclusive sovereignty does not extend to space, because according to Article 2 of the Outer Space Treaty, outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.

But where does sovereignty over airspace stop, and outer space begin? The exact legal boundary of space is not defined in international law."

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-....

So No, but Yes eventually there is a limit ...

I think it's uncontroversial that FL600 (60K feet MSL) is not "space".

The US is a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty, which stipulates that signatories make no territorial claims to outer space. The definition of outer space is often taken to be the Kármán line at 100km. However, the Treaty doesn't use any particular definition. But it does specify that the Moon is part of outer space. So we can assume the US is no taller than 362600km.