>1 out of 2 hit rate for half million dollar seeking missiles versus a balloon

A heat seeking missile hitting an object that would be only a few degrees above ambient air temperatures.

>What a joke

Who is laughing. The worlds second largest military and the US defined pacing threat thought their balloons were near undetectable and untouchable. Here the US pilots are taking pictures of these balloons from above.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/our-best-look-yet-at-the-chinese-spy-balloons-massive-payload

The US then had to look at and bring down some random sky trash just to be sure there were not other spy assets using the flight profile of abandoned balloons. It looked silly but again they showed capabilities that surprised some pretty seasoned observers.

The incident will be forgotten in a few weeks. China's "super secret" years long spying on various countries by balloons that were unreachable has now been retired.

http://www.hisutton.com/Chinese-Navy-High-Altitude-Spy-Balloons.html