There is a large Chinese balloon floating over the US. It’s flown over multiple sensitive military installations. For now the government has decided to leave it be. The balloon has been spotted by thousands of people. Could one of those individuals shoot it down?
Can we shoot the spy balloon down with a gun?
The Chinese spy balloon is at 60,000 to 100,000 feet. Typical commercial flights can be as high as 42,000 feet. So can we even shoot it down?
No. Not at it’s current altitude. According to this data a hand gun will not come anywhere close to the height currently needed.
A 12 gauge will only reach a vertical height of 600 feet
A .22 LR improves on that to 3,900 feet.
A .30-60 will reach a vertical height of 10,100 feet, still well short of the needed 60,000 feet.
What can reach the balloon?
Amateur/Hobby rockets builders.
If you’re searching for a solution that can reach extremely high levels, outside of the government, the only thing that can come close is hobbyist rocket launchers.
At this level the word amateur isn’t very fitting. These people know what they’re doing. While small rockets only reach a height of a few hundred or thousand feet, extremely complicated rockets can reach 10s or even 100s of thousands of feet.
A record height for an “amateur” rocket was set in 2019 at 340,000 feet! It took 15 years of research and building by the student led undergraduate rocket lab at USC.
So outside of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or a really talented rocket club with a lucky shot, we’re probably gonna have to let this one play out. At least until it drifts down about 50,000 feet. (Just don’t blame us if the FBI shows up, also, it’s a really bad idea to shoot straight up in the air too.)
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