We don t really know what the americans, if anything, were able to jam or block as it flew along. but what sorts of things might the payload reveal once the americans get it off the ocean floor? well, that largely depends on just what the shape of the payload is. i mean, it s fallen from 60,000 feet, as you saw in the shoot-down video. the payload, the instrumentation package, and the solar paneled separated from the balloon itself, which was ruptured by the sidewinder shot. so it would have been falling at a terminal velocity, about 225 feet per second. so it would have hit the water fairly hard. we don t know just what shape the payload would be in. but assuming some of it is intact, it would give the u.s. and its allies some understanding of what sort of signals intelligence and electronic intelligence-gathering capabilities the chinese would have for that particular type of