What Debris From North Korea's Rocket Launch Shows 223
Lasrick writes "David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists analyzes the debris from North Korea's December 11th Unha-3 launch. From the article: 'According to press reports, traces on the inner walls of the tank show that the first-stage oxidizer is a form of nitric acid called "red-fuming nitric acid," which is the standard oxidizer used in Scud-type missiles. There had been some speculation that this stage might instead use a more advanced fuel with nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) as the oxidizer. Since the Nodong engines believed to power the first stage are scaled-up Scud engines, the use of RNFA is not a surprise. There have also been claims that the stage uses a more advanced fuel called UDMH, but it appears instead to be the kerosene-based fuel used in Scuds. In his recent RAND study, Markus Schiller noted that a test Iraq performed using UDMH in a Scud engine gave poor performance, and that burning UDMH gives a transparent flame. The North Korean video of the launch instead shows an orange flame characteristic of Scud fuels (Figure 3 is an image from 12:44 into the video). These findings confirm that the stage is still Scud-level technology.'"
why wouldn't it be? (Score:3)
North Korea (Score:2)
I wonder how much longer this festering little hell hole will last.
Re:North Korea (Score:5, Insightful)
They now have an ICBM. Now they just need to miniaturize their nukes to fit on it. Next they will need submarines with nuclear missiles to protect them against a first strike. Then the only thing that will take them down will be internal strife. Considering that they are a batshit crazy country, China will prop them up as long as possible. So actually this hellhole might last pretty far into the future.
The secret to North Korea's longevity is that nobody wants to go in an clean up their mess. This is ten times more important when they have a reasonable delivery system for their nuclear weapons.
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I'm pretty sure America would consider going in if China weren't actively protecting them.
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The sad thing is, SK would have already wiped them out if America wasn't protecting NK by maintaining a huge military presence in SK.
Re:North Korea (Score:5, Interesting)
No fucking way. The DPRK has artillerie that can hit Seoul. Nor do the leaders of South Korea really relish the thought of paying the huge costs of unification and bringing the North up to the standards of the South. Look at the fall of the DDR and the cost to Germany during unification. This would be worse, far worse.
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It is stored in caves and wheeled out when needed. It is about the only thing they can keep running.
They have kept them stored there for ages, who knows if they work but they are there.
Even if they did not costs of reunification are so high no one wants to touch it.
Re:North Korea (Score:4, Insightful)
North Korea is known to have built up a significant level of hardened and hidden shelters for their equipment. I assure you, their equipment is obsolete and would not stand up to any sort of real slugging match with the South, let alone the US, but they do have the capability to seriously damage Seoul with conventional artillery.
Don't think for a second that just because you don't see deployed artillery batteries on hill tops it means they aren't there. It doesn't take long for even towed artillery to move into preplanned firing positions from their shelters. NK has a significant number of tube artillery in place that is low tech, but easy to maintain and very cheap to operate and store. Short of finishing their ICBM dreams, they don't have a prayer of touching the US, but SK is definitely a different matter.
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Nope, China is the one supporting N. Korea, they don't want half of N. Korea fleeing to N. China. South Korea knows a bunch of born fuck ups when they see them, they want no part of N. Korea. The U.S. is merely a trip wire to prevent the batshit crazies up North from coming down South...after destroying it first with artillery and guided missiles. They then send their 1 million man starving army South so they get some proper meals before they shit in that nest as well.
Re:North Korea (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not all that certain that China will unconditionally prop them up. They already have quite a problem on their hands with NK that they are no longer ideologically interested, and that China's real interests in international trade and so on are just hurt by any overt support of NK.
What China is interested in is that their border region with NK doesn't get flooded with refugees if NK suddenly implodes. So I'd say that China might be our best bet at encouraging internal changes inside NK.
Re:North Korea (Score:4, Informative)
China wasn't really that interested in saving Kim Il Sung's hiney back in the '50's. China got involved in the Korean war because 1) they felt they needed a buffer zone between a US-sponsored South Korea and their borders, and, perhaps more to the point, 2) Mao Zedong didn't just hold grudges. He cherished them, and he was still nine kinds of annoyed at the US for backing Chiang Kai-shek during the Chinese Civil War. Yeah, Koreans fought during the Chinese Civil War, but Mao was never one to be grateful enough for someone to do something against his interest in thanks.
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Yeah, name one country upset enough at China to hurt it economically over their support of N. Korea? And any change in N. Korea means the regime there must go bye-bye...and that would open the flood gates where most of the N. Koreans decide they'd like to live in China.
China is stuck. They have to support that little sawed off runt and his generals and their army.
No one will help the N. Korean people because no one cares enough to risk a hot war to lance that boil. It's easier watching them starve and die f
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My claim here is that the calculus is such that as NK just doesn't matter ideologically anymore to China, so they have no motivation to "support" it in any meaningful way, regional stability concerns aside. International diplomacy is often a matter of trading concerns, so if I were China I would just hope the NK crazies went away and I didn't have to "take their side" when I have much more important issues to defend (trade, Taiwan...)
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They don't need to miniaturize nukes. A conventional warhead on an ICBM will do quite a bit of damage. Manufacture them in sufficient quantities and it's practically the same as a nuke. Sure, cities might not be wiped off the face of the map in one strike, but the damage will be significant.
Their ultimate goal is not the U.S. but U.S. interests: South Korea and Japan. And if they hit Japan, nobody in Asia is going to be terribly vocal about the fact. The U.S. is making a lot of noise only because of this. T
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"Old soldiers never die. They simply fade away..."
Kerosene works well... (Score:4, Insightful)
It got us to the moon several times. Dont discount the "primitive" kerosene as a rocket fuel.
Re:Kerosene works well... (Score:5, Informative)
Well technically H2/LOX got us to the moon, the RP1/LOX got us out of the atmosphere... And incidentally, using LOX is a lot less primitive than using RFNA.
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Well, if you REALLY want to be correct, hydrazine and N2O4 got us onto the moon (and back off of it again), as well as enabling us to enter (and leave) lunar orbit....
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It must be mocked (Score:2)
Forget Iran, forget Syria. North Korea is a Damn Serious threat that will be very difficult to solve.
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It got us to the moon several times. Dont discount the "primitive" kerosene as a rocket fuel.
And don't discount it in the first stage just because UDMH is "better" as a fuel. Perhaps it is, for some values of "better", but it is also highly toxic, lethal even in small concentrations, and manipulating the amounts you need for a first stage is nobody's idea of "fun". Not to mention the exhausts containing unburned traces of it around the ramp after launch and potential defects during launch.
Laugh at the technology (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Laugh at the technology (Score:5, Interesting)
It matters: because only with the right technology you can actually launch a bomb across the ocean. Getting to orbit pretty much implies you can do it of course, the getting there part at least, analysing the technology further will let you know how well the thing was made (gives ideas on reliability and controllability), how much was imported and how much was their own work, etc. Being able to build such a rocket all by themselves means a greater threat than if everything is imported - imports can be blocked.
Also it gives an idea on how advanced their technology really is, which in turn gives an idea on their overall capabilities. If they build advanced rockets, they likely build advanced versions of other weapons too. The article mentioned they used a light-weight titanium alloy for the tank, instead of steel - showing they have access to that alloy.
The fuels used are also interesting. They use RFNA for oxidiser which can be stored at room temperature, making it not only easier to use as fuel in a rocket, it also makes it suitable as fuel for a missile which has to sit ready to launch for a long period of time. This may mean they are developing dual-use technology, it may also mean that they don't have the technology to use the more effient cryogenic fuels and have to simplify the design.
Analysing their technology can also indicate how well they can control their rockets - important for both space launches and dropping bombs on target. It seems they manage control pretty well considering they actually got an object in orbit, which is quite a feat. The obvious next step would of course be an object that stays in orbit.
No matter what, analysing the debris can tell you a lot. And that's why they're fishing up those debris parts now.
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well yea, a nuke coming at you after being launched from a trebuchet is much less dangerous then one coming at you from an ICBM.
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well yea, launching a nuke at you from a trebuchet is much more dangerous (to me) then launching one at you from an ICBM.
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Anyone crazy enough to unleash nukes at this stage in the game is going to get nuked to oblivion, whether it's blowback from their hand-thrown nuke or launched from half of everyone else.
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You are missing the point. A deliverable nuclear weapon is a very saleable thing. Somebody will pay big bucks to own one. That psychopath neighbor of yours, for instance.
Scud class missile technology is all over the Middle East (for instance). An IRBM based on Scud engines (and more importantly fuel and support equipment) with a low megaton range nuclear warhead that has some reasonable probability of exploding that is for sale, few questions asked, would allow NK to punch well above it's weight in the
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If it can get to orbit it can easily cross an ocean.
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Yeah, but can you drop it somewhere that counts?
Lift capacity is one thing, but guidance systems are what make ballistic missiles worth even talking about.
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If they had a multi MT warhead that would be far less important. Close enough is close enough.
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Guidance is a lot easier now that there is this thing called GPS
Asia-Pacific Strategy (Score:2)
The Administration recently announced that America would focus their projection of power to the Asian-Pacific region. My guess is that the claims of a long range NK missile are either the allowance of idiotic intelligence assessments to further propaganda goals, or the outright fabrication of assessments for the same purpose.
China will squash NK like a gnat if they threaten regional stability in any real sense, but the if the United States allows that to happen, it will be a blow to perceived US power in th
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China will squash NK like a gnat if they threaten regional stability...
No, China will use NK to destabilize the region in order to "re-stabilize" it in a configuration more to China's liking. Unfortunately for the world, there is no such stable configuration.
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Sort of like how the U.S. has spent the last 10 years "reconfiguring" Southeast Asia by arming various nasty people and is now busy deploying troops and carrier fleets around the pacific?
Such as? I have not been following what is going on in Southeast Asia very closely, but my over all impression has been that the political configuration of the region as it existed in the 80s and 90s suited U.S. interests in the region. Which makes me skeptical of claims that the U.S. is attempting to destabilize the region, but feel free to enlighten me (I am well aware that some political figures in the U.S. act in ways that are not in what I perceive to be the best interests of the U.S., for that matter
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The false assumption that the US should have control the Asian-Pacific region is just as correct as the one that Russia, China or Japan should have control over the N-American region.
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That sounds a lot more reasonable compared to the "there has to be an open ended excuse for a strike or an invasion to avoid that possibility" I responded to :)
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Who claimed the NK didn't launch the weapon? You don't understand what a false flag operation is. I'd advise you to read about the Gulf of Tonkin affair, but you'd probably walk away wondering why we fought Vietnam over little toy trucks.
The typical West! They must insinuate...always! (Score:2)
The sub-text being that it's not that great a technology. They underestimate the fact that the rocket/missile can still inflict damage if the North Koreans decided to.
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Not to mention carelessly adding to the space-junk in the atmosphere.
Which has the pesky habit of falling down.
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Coordination of space on a global stage is a fantastic idea, except that you have countries like North Korea that don't give a damn what the rest of the world wants, and does what they're going to do anyway.
See: countless UN Security Council resolutions telling North Korea to knock it off with the ballistic missile tests and nuclear bombs already.
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Except that the only part of the US they can reach with current missiles is a portion of Alaska. The only two other likely targets are South Korea and Japan, all of which are entirely within range.
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I'd bet a considerable sum that any freighters (suspiciously modified or otherwise) stopping in North Korea are monitored, and they don't have any SLBM submarines. The closest thing their navy's got are some ancient (designed in the late '40s) ex-USSR Whiskey-class submarines that might be able to handle cruise missiles, which are very different beasts from that bastardized Scud the DPRK launched.
where the analysis comes from (Score:5, Informative)
.
The four parts found were:
1 -- oxidizer tank (made of an aluminum-magnesium alloy)
with a cool picture (fig 4) of the inside of the tank showing hoops and stringers supporting the wall
2 -- two bottles that make the "turbo pumps" to maintain pressure in the oxidizer tank as the fuel flow continues during launch
3 -- another part of the fuel tank (with the number "3" painted on the outside which is visible on the launch video)
4 -- what appears to be a support ring from the first stage body
There's also a comment at the end about using "room temperature fuels" such as RFNA (red fuming nitric acid) allowing the use of a simplified design as compared to using cryogenic fuels which require a more complex design. Someone wrote in pointing out that RFNA is also used in the Russian Kosmos 3M [wikipedia.org] space launch vehicle which is also derived from a ballistic missile. In fact, even the fins and the profile of the Kosmos looks like the fins on and the profile of the North Korean launch rocket. Pretty cool analysis, and I like that the author puts really links to the sources of the pictures he has in the article.
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NK, open up your space/missile programme (Score:4, Funny)
Just imagine all of the PR points you could win just by letting us space nerds in on what you're doing. We'll work most of it out anyway, but take us through all the technical gore. What you are doing seems like the closest thing to launching a fully fledged rocket from your backyard using nothing but spare parts lying around, so we can definitely relate with you here.
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And there it gets tricky. The problem is that under international sanctions NK is not allowed to develop missile technology (and the key difference between a rocket and a missile boils down to the payload).
It indeed would be interesting to see how far they really are, but I do suspect that they have not much really to brag about as in developed by themselves. They took existing designs, scaled them up (I wouldn't be surprised if that is with outside help), made some improvements, and tried them out. Some fa
I always enjoy the unsaid parts of the story (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, nobody mentions that the Gemini missions used storable propellants not unlike what the North Koreans are using. Now, it's true that Gemini was launched with Titan rockets, and Titans were originally designed as ICBMs, but they were used for civilian purposes as well.
The more interesting part is that we recovered the missile parts. According to everything I read, the exact timing of the launch was somewhat of a surprise (maybe this isn't true) but nevertheless we managed to track the debris and fish it out of the ocean immediately. This tells the North Koreans that not only do they have no secrets, they never will have any.
To me, the North Korean rocket looks a lot more like a satellite launcher than an ICBM. The first nuclear weapons that North Korea will deploy will be very heavy, and this rocket (as tapered as it is, and with such a small, low-powered third stage) just will not carry it. ICBMs are also designed to burn quickly, as they are vulnerable as long as they are in the atmosphere and burning. This rocket burns for many minutes, as satellite launchers do.
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Unfortunately, nuclear weapons are just heavy satellites that have an orbit that intersects with the Earth at a pre-determined point. If they are developing lift capacity, it's only a matter of time until they can strap whatever crude nuke they have on the front of it, and lob it somewhere.
Yes, they need better guidance systems, better lift, better everything. But getting something to orbital altitude is the first step, which the US and the USSR proved in the late 50s with Mercury / Redstone and Sputnik.
Suicide Satellites (Score:2)
Not exactly nuclear winter, but having to cleanup the entire upper atmosphere before re-establishing satellite communication would put a hell of a crimp in the Western world for at least a decade.
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The recovery isn't too much of a problem. Even if the launch was 100% secret, as soon as the bird pops off the ground, she'll appear on the SK radar screens and they'll track it along with whoever else is watching the region.
Spooling a destroyer or two to recover the wreckage from where it landed shouldn't take more than a day or two once you know where it went down.
RNFA != RFNA (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not just "chemistry" it's freakin' rocket fuel chemistry and acronyms matter lest ye blow up!
Red Fuming Nitric Acid
RFNA is some nasty stuff. Worse liquid propellant oxider ever? Chlorine TriFloride (ClF3). Eats and/or combusts with everything and anything , including service & test engineers.
Idiocy? (Score:4, Insightful)
"These findings confirm that the stage is still Scud-level technology."
Says who, a so-called "scientist" from the nation that just put the space shuttle into the scrapyard (where it belongs) - and has NOTHING to even do the same job as that old piece of junk?
As compared to what, the anti-gravity drive used by the latest US spaceships? Last time I checked EVERYONE still uses good old rockets. Oh sure - they now (occasionally) have a camera looking backwards for nice launch videos. And possibly they use fuel Y instead of fuel X - excuse me guys, you celebrate marginal, tiny advances as being far ahead of the stone-age North Koreans?
As far as getting into space, we ALL are at "stone-age" (1960s) level (i.e. rockets, huge flames, HUGE noise, lots of explosives). But today, progress is measured in micrometers, not in miles, so sure, let's celebrate how much more advanced we (the West) is compared to the most backward nation on earth.
I forgot... (Score:2)
I forgot to add that if they manage to have the potential to get a nuclear war head to the US (territory) it does not freaking matter if they use a ballista, a rocket or beam it across space. Same outcome. I've no idea what all this "analysis" telling us how bad and backwards everything North Korean is (which I don't doubt at all) is supposed to tell the (western) public? It sounds sooooo stupid.
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I doubt the "public" cares at all. for tech nerds it matters though.
though it would be interesting if these design approaches have some effect on maximum possible payload and navigation.
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There have also been questions about what material was used to build the body of the first stage. The body of the Scud, and likely the Nodong, is made of steel, but reports say that the tank recovered is made from a lightweight aluminum-magnesium alloy, which is typically used for aircraft. This saves a significant amount of weight, which is important to allow its relatively low-thrust engines to get the launcher up to speed.
Still amateur hour in NK (Score:2)
NK's deterrent is still only conventional, their nuclear capability is a joke.
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You're not kidding about anything you posted.
There is declassified YouTube video of a Minuteman-III test launch from Vandenberg AFB in California to hit a 55-gallon drum on an island in the South Pacific, and the launch crew is rated by how many feet they miss it by with the tungsten slug that is standing in for a warhead. I'd link it, but the proxy here blocks YouTube.
If you have a sub-100 Kt nuke and want it to be effective, you need to actually put it where you want it to be with guidance systems. Aimi
Advanced Missiles (Score:3)
Re:whats the big deal (Score:5, Interesting)
All the ballistic missiles and rockets are German V2 scaled ups by your logic.
N.K is now the 11th launch capable country ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite [wikipedia.org] ) and they deserve the credit. No analysis and humiliation could change the fact that a small country which has been under severe embargoes has succeeded in its technical (possibly military) ambitions.
I was not expecting them to be able to put such a heavy satellite in 500km orbit. Iran has only been able to put a sub 50km satellite in a lower orbit.
Re:whats the big deal (Score:5, Informative)
This would be a better link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_first_orbital_launches_by_country [wikipedia.org]
Re:whats the big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
ROFLMAO! (Score:3)
Don't even try to compare the US to North Korea. Nothing is perfect, but NK is as close to hell as you will ever find on Earth at any point in history (maybe slightly exceeded by Khmer Rouge era Cambodia).
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The logic is the same - "how can you say xyz country is great when their people are suffering from abc". But yes, different scales - so shouldn't it be more embarrassing for the U.S. that it has 50 million+ people regularly going without health care? Half of it's children going on food stamps at least one point in their lives?
Re:ROFLMAO! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, there's a huge difference in quality between NK and US which makes any such comparison ludicrous and false. NK is an absolute totalitarian state in which the very CONCEPTS of individual dignity, human rights, and personal autonomy are not acknowledged at all and are never exercised by individuals. Even the most trivial deviations from rigidly defined acceptable behavior is met with arbitrary and disproportionate force from an elite class of people who answer to no-one and have absolute power. Millions starve to death routinely, there is no economic progress of any kind, and whatever wealth exists is completely controlled by a tiny elite.
Now, we can complain about inequality, hunger, a political system which favors an elite, etc. However you are not subjected to anything like the sort of state power and restrictions on your freedom that you would be in NK. Nor are people routinely punished or killed in horrible ways without any recourse, etc. Is half the population of the US grossly malnurished? No. Is there no right at all to private property or even basic privacy? No. You cannot say there is any meaningful equivalence between NK and the US, thus my original comment stands.
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It's almost pointless to respond to people who have so little experience of reality as to consider North Korea is comparable at all to the US or any Western Democracy.
The fact of the matter is that in North Korea, you would not be having this conversation, because you wouldn't have an Internet, but if you did happen to have Internet access, you'd be arrested and sent to a prison camp a short time after expressing that.
The fact that countries still have unemployed and starving people is nothing new, but ther
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Just so that you understand, most people in NK would risk death to come to the US, in fact many of them do so every day just to go to China... It is not even just ludicrous to compare the US and NK, it is actively insulting to the people in NK who endure such horrible privations and violations of their basic rights.
Yes, there are some imperfections in the US, but currently we are the most fortunate and well-treated population of human beings in the history of mankind overall. It would be a good idea to keep
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Sorry, but this is just offensive bullshit. The people of NK would almost to a person kill or risk death to have a chance to live in the US. You wouldn't last a week living under the conditions they endure. While the US is of course not perfect and I'm no apologist for our shortcomings for you to even imagine you can compare the two countries on some quantitative scale in this way is as I just said ludicrous and offensive.
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I've more than heard of them, but that's a whole other story. NK is pretty bad, and it goes on and on decade after decade with no sign of letting up. As for "religious undertones" whatever. First you are probably grossly in error in whatever assumptions you are making about my system of beliefs, and even if you aren't it is irrelevant to the discussion so why bring it up?
I believe my own eyes and the direct reports I've gotten from people that were in these various places about what is worse than what. The
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Our people tend to have life expectancies in the very late 70s, and have the ability to leave the country whensoever we want. Check out the situation in N Korea, you might find that its slightly different.
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Only if you tend to be upper middle class to wealthy. Lifespans are actually shrinking [nytimes.com] for the poor.
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Iran is putting 50km objects in orbit?
Better prep those mass driver shelters.
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Of course their first steps are primitive, and their rockets too. But rocket
engine is only a part of a space launch. Lots and lots of items of the space
launch checklist are done for NK, and they will make non-perfect items
better in future. It is great for them and great for lots of other countries
as they have shown to everybody what is attainable with resolve and normal
amounts of money. All of that under embargo of any kind imagineable.
Prices of space launch are most probably inflated beyond recognition bec
Re:whats the big deal (Score:5, Interesting)
To be honest, if the resources of the US were treated in the same way that NK treats it's own people, we'd probably be setting up a colony on Mars right now.
Most of the reason we are not on Mars right now is that people compare the costs of doing that with maintaining standard of living. In NK, there is no health care debate. Everyone there gets free health care, to a maximum of a band aid and a Kim Jong Un lollipop when they have cancer. In essence, you'd almost be better off living on the streets in the US than to be an NK peasant most days.
However, yes, their prestige project of rocket science is moving along, and it will eventually progress. That's what happens when a country focuses itself, even imperfectly, on a narrow set of goals, and treats everything else at a bare minimum level. That focus is part arrogance of their elite class, and partly a need for Kim Jong Un to shore up his power base by keeping his military happy with him.
You could do the same thing in the US too. I assure you, if you did only the minimum you needed to hold down your job, and instead lived in cheap rat infested tenements and ate ramen noodles for your one daily meal, despite the fact that you make more than enough to live in a nice home, you could have a decent nest egg built up. People in the US used to go live in houses they build out of sod so that they could get their hands on some land and make something of themselves. That doesn't mean that I am suggesting that we all sell our houses and go live in shacks to afford good health care, for instance, but a lot of people don't realize that we do actually have a lot of resources at our disposal even if they are limited. It is what we do with those limited resources which makes the difference.
North Korea has chosen its space program over its people, and the space program is progressing because of it.
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You mean a group of scientists and engineers whose funding has been diverted from resources that could have been used to feed people has succeeded in its ambitions. How many tons of food aid did they have to sell on the black market to achieve this? It's not a victory for North Korea, its a victory for the rulers. On slashdot, we're critical of even democratic countries in their degree of representation, and of the disparities between the will of the people and the will of the government, yet I often see th
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And as to being embargoed, they are not. USSR used to trade heavily with them, and Russia likely still does.
In addition, it has been shown that China is very active in trading with NK. Basically, NK has a similar relationship to China that USA, UK, and Canada have (though we are more equals, while China tells NK and others what to do).
Re:whats the big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
The Iranian and North Korean governments are a bunch of nutbags with or without the ability to rain down destruction on the rest of the planet. Not every space shot induces panic. Not every country is as stupid or as evil as the worst example you can find.
It's also important to note that the original space race was far from benign. Sputnik was a side venture of the Soviet ICBM program and the main American efforts were also military in nature.
The people that are the most hysterical probably have a properly grounded historical perspective.
Re:whats the big deal (Score:5, Funny)
RIght. It's not like it's rocket science or anything...
Re:whats the big deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone knew these were nothing more than scaled up Scuds, it's been reported on for months.
The big deal is that what everyone suspected (not knew) has now been confirmed by physical evidence.
Is this comment some kind of a joke? (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, you can tell a LOT from this particular data point.
That aside, what are you insinuating? That a group widely and routinely chastised as espousing a "liberal" and/or "leftist" agenda by conservatives, opposed the now-cancelled US Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program, and is opposed to nuclear weapons in general, is executing a propaganda campaign to make North Korea look more primitive than it really is when it comes to its rocket programs?
Are you serious?
After a veritable comedy of errors, North Korea finally has a successful launch, can't even get or keep the satellite launched from it into a stable orbit, and now an anti-nuclear advocacy group is really a secret US propaganda campaign to inappropriately embarrass the North Koreans, who are really more advanced in rocketry than all of their misadventures would indicate? The same North Koreans who just announced they have uncovered a unicorn lair [livescience.com]?
Really? I mean...really?
Please â" I would love to hear how this is "propaganda", and how the DPRK is really a capable member of the space and nuclear clubs. To what possible end? Even IF it were true, why/how would that be a good thing?
Or is this one of those topsy-turvy bizarro-world lines of reasoning where anything and everything that is in ANY way opposed to anything related to any US or Western interest is automatically true and pure, but anything that originates from the US or West, in any way, shape, or form is always "propaganda"?
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I would point out the irony in everything you've just said but I'm afraid that distance it would go over your head would just add to the crowding in LEO.
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.
I do agree with you that the article uses a lot of cond
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The problem is that "primitive design" is often read as "poor design" by non-technical people. Primitive designs may be pretty good in themselves, and work quite well, but have become obsoleted by more advanced designs. Now in how far the NK rocket design is obsolete I don't know, the article mentions at least the Russians use the same fuels to launch stuff into orbit.
And of course it's being played down. Many people don't want to see up to the fact that this country managed to put an object in orbit (didn'
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That said I'd much rather they'd put that much effort in actually feeding their own population.
They can't. They have no sources of energy required for food production on the kind of land they have, and thanks to US-instigated economic blockade, have no way to obtain them.
They are not stupid or crazy, just very poor, and the origin of their poverty is the same as in your nearest ghetto.
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BS.
They're poor because their government insists on keeping them that way. If we undid the economic blockade, the "party members" would be rich, and everyone else would still be poor.
NK could do any number of things to end the economic blockade, because no one cares about ruling that country, they've only ever worried about a possibly batshit crazy leader with nuclear weapons. The cold war is long over and communism is dead.
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BS.
They're poor because their government insists on keeping them that way. If we undid the economic blockade, the "party members" would be rich, and everyone else would still be poor.
NK could do any number of things to end the economic blockade, because no one cares about ruling that country, they've only ever worried about a possibly batshit crazy leader with nuclear weapons. The cold war is long over and communism is dead.
Do you have anything at all, other than words ot US propaganda workers, as the base for all those bold statements? Have you even seen any kind of Communist in your whole life, leave alone, a North Korean official? Studied economy of the region collecting information from actual sources? Did any comparisons between North Korean and Chinese leaders' actions over recent half a century of their history? And if not, please shut up and never talk about those things again.
Wow. Your deeply reasoned post sighting even a shred of real-world evidence has swayed me!
Do you similarly have any facts to back up your grandiose claims that this is "all the US's fault"? No? Then shut up and never talk about the issue again.
North Korea's problems are North Korea's to solve. Their people have invented a de facto capitalist society, and the only one suppressing it is their own government. The only reason they have sanctions is because their own government repeatedly acts to threaten surrou
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Buddy, what is your deal? I have been reading your posts here and you seem to be on a singlehanded mission to convince the world that North Korea launching a busted-up old rocket is somehow the United States' fault. Your Occam's razor is dull and you may want to buy some more at the grocery store.
It's OK if you want to hate Americans. Lots of people all around the world do, and there are plenty of valid reasons to dislike many of the activities of the US government.
But please don't do it at the expense of t
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So if I'll find hydrazine on anything launched by US, I should claim that they are probably using WWII-time German designs, and go on and on how stupid are Americans for using engines that require single-component, self-igniting fuel?
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No. No.
Glad to clear that up for you.
This thing is *also* not capable of hitting anything with reasonable precision, thus even if the answer to the previous two where "yes" it'd still not hit a barn without being lanuched inside it.
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Actually, the answers are "yes" and "yes". Just because their first attempt resulted in an object not reaching a stable orbit doesn't mean the design is *incapable* of it.
Also, you're inference of it being unable to hit a target "with reasonable precision" is kind of irrelevant. The Norks have nukes. You don't need pinpoint precision on a nuke unless you're trying to take out small, hardened targets like missile silos. Getting within 10-20 miles of your target is perfectly acceptable if you're lofting a
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You need reasonable precision so that you don't end up nuking some relatively empty bit of desert or tundra or simply dumping your nuke in the ocean.
It will be a very long time before they can field enough weapons that are reliable enough to actually do some damage before their own palaces are turned into glass.
All this does is raise the stakes and give better armed enemies the pretense to clean house for good.
Re:Time to Crush NoKo (Score:5, Insightful)
But I'm debating whether we want to let them develop first strike capability.
Yeah, I was just thinking, "Wouldn't another war be nice?" And this whole pre-emptive strike thing has been working out so well!
You are afraid that letting them develop longer will lead to them being more dangerous. Isn't it possible that letting them develop might lead to them being less dangerous? Maybe there will be a popular uprising? Maybe with increased wealth and education will come preasure from the populace to increase freedoms? Why should popular opinion in the US be the decider and enforcer of what North Korea does? Why not let North Korea's neighbors (South Korea, China, Japan, Russia along with many, many others that are much closer) take the lead? Have we learned nothing from the mistakes in Iraq? Why are you so eager for our country to squander what wealth we have by blowing up people half a world away?
As a programmer just the inefficiencies of war (spending billions of dollars buildings things to blow up people and infrastructure) makes me weap let alone the cost in human life. I also strong suspect that all of these wars are going to make things much more dangerous for America down the road.
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Isn't it possible that letting them develop might lead to them being less dangerous?
Right now, N Korea has no real potential to hurt the US. At best they can hit our remote bases in Korea and Japan.
And you're asking if giving them the capability to launch nukes into the US will make them less dangerous? That would take them from not being able to hurt America, to being able to hurt America. How exactly does that make them less dangerous?
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Yeah, the problem is there isn't increased wealth and education in North Korea. There is increased hunger and starvation while the ruling few place the national resources into a game of nuclear blackmail.
AC is right, it's RFNA not RNFA (Score:2)