i m michael smerconish in philadelphia. fighter jets have shot down an object in u.s. air space. on friday president biden gave the order to shoot down a high altitude object hovering ten m miles off the coast of alaska. last saturday fighter jets shot down a suspected chinese spy balloon in the atlantic ocean after flying across the entire country. j joining me now to discuss is retired air force lieutenant general, he was the first chief of intelligence, surveillance and he s a fighter pilot with more than 3,000 flying hours. he was the principle attack planner by operation desert storm commander of no-fly operations over iraq in the 90s. these days he s the dean of the mitchell institute for aerospace studies. general, thank you for coming back to the program. so what is norad s responsibility and the framework through which it determines a course of action? well, michael, it s good to see you again 37 it s been quite a week for the commander of north american air defen
chinese balloon that entered u.s. aur space two weeks ago. so that puts it at 40,000 feet. that make it is a possible collision hazard for commercial airliners. so that was the logic for shooting it down once it was identified as being unhabited. are there other civilian abouts beyond aircraft at that level? i m try ing to ask and not be s naive, but how much stuff is floating around at that height? not a lot. but 40,000 feet is particularly over alaska one might think, jeez, alaska is way out of way everything. airliners fly great circumstance is the routes. so when you have airline traffic going from the east coast of the united states say over to nurse in asia, japan, china, awl stral