Balloons have some surveillance advantages over satellites, but also carry different risks
Balloons have some advantages over satellites when it comes to surveillance, but also carry different risks — as Beijing recently learned when theThe U.S. and China are now
Those winds make it relatively easy for China to launch balloons that would fly above the U.S., but much harder for the U.S. to fly balloons over China. High-altitude balloons, however, can gather high-resolution images and signals, and fly in a part of airspace that make them relatively difficult to track. Balloons are also able to stay over one area for a longer time than a satellite.The norms that govern spying in space and airspace, where high-altitude balloons fly, are different.
That means shooting down unknown foreign objects in a nation's airspace is tolerated today, whereas blowing up a spy satellite would likely be considered a huge escalation.The U.S. has historically used a relatively small number of expensive, technically advanced satellites that take incredibly detailed images of Earth.
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