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North Korea Missile Launch Fails
An anonymous reader writes "Remember the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launch by the North Koreans last night? You know, the one that went over Japan and supposedly put a 'communications satellite' into orbit. Well, according to the US Northern Command and NORAD it has been a complete and utter failure, with the second stage and payload 'falling in the Pacific.'"
Fail.
This might be a great opportunity to see exactly how far advanced their missile/rocket program is, assuming we've got salvage vessels in place to pick up the pieces.
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
You'd think even North Korea could get a missile launch right. I mean, it's not rocke...err, oh yeah, nevermind.
The US government and the popular media have been spouting this nonsense that it was a "failure."
BS.
I guarantee you the NK engineers learned from this "failure." Tests aren't failures as long as you learn from them. Since we don't know whether or what NK learned from this, calling the test a "failure" is pure speculation.
Not to be confused with ICBM's. :-)
Let me guess, they couldn't figure out how to get the Photoshop crack to work.
You have to overwrite the .dll file!
How is this a failure? They launched an ICBM that cleared Japan before hitting the water, thus proving they now have the capability to deliver a nuclear strike against Japan.
If this was a test to see what the effective range was of the missile, then they absolutely determined that and there was no failure. While I dislike the way North Korea interacts with the rest of the world, I find the highly suggestive wording of the write-up to be misleading and inaccurate.
I think we all knew the 'satellite' story was BS, so we can't evaluate the launch in terms of whether they put something in orbit or not. That part is irrelevant.
How do you know that's true if you're not reading the official North Kolea Blog?
according to the US Northern Command and NORAD
Not to get all tinfoil-hat on everyone, but has anyone closer to a neutral third party got any information?
I don't doubt the NORAD report, but it might be nice to have a source without a vested interest make a report as well.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
> if you ignore north korea, it will do progressively more and more dangerous things, all
> calculated to garner attention again. and then it will screw up, and then it can finally
> be taken down like the rabid dog it is
At the cost of how many hundred thousand South Korean (and possibly Japanese) lives?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Are you talking about North Korea, or the USA?
I live in Seoul, you insensitive clod!
I am serious.
And since you are an insensitive clod and most likely an American, consider this. Tens of thousands of American soldiers and civilians live in or near Seoul. Right now. That means they are within artillery range of North Korea. (No, I'm not kidding.)
Feel better?
It's so easy to make bold assertions when you don't know or care about the consequences...
Particularly cause they DO plan to launch a few more.
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13432014&source=features_box_main
Makes one wonder if they perchance don't have another one ready to be launched from the new launch site?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Far from a failure. North Korean Scientists put their satellite in an extremely low geosynchronous orbit!
A bit wetter than they thought it would be though.
Even if we get the launch, space is not something we have a lot of first hand experience with. Getting things to work in space is hard. The world is getting more experience now that we have an international space station, and more countries are getting experience operating in space. This can only help everyone long term as innovative solutions are developed.
One may fall to jingoistic and chauvinistic temptation when it comes to this, especially since we have been trained to fear those that are different from us, but I doubt that is useful here. From what I read, the trajectory was orbital, not intercontinental. As we have seen, there are much easier ways to deliver mass destruction than these vehicles. It could be that N. Korea wants to be in the space game, and have such things as communication satellites of their own.
And it would be good that the US does not get too cocky. We are stuck in LEO. To get back to the moon is going to require a learning curve after a generation of inactivity. At this point we may not want to fund it. People think we can magically make it Mars without any baby steps. If there is anything to fear it is that N. Korea is doing science while we are arguing over evolution.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Nope, many of you probably don't. Around the time the Russians put up Sputnik, the American space program was centered around Project Vanguard. It was going to put our first satellite into orbit. And our first satellite was going to be way better than Sputnik.
Only the rockets kept crashing. It became a source of national embarrassment and the subject of jokes.
See this image, for examp.e.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
An alternate hypothesis.
/.
First off, we know that NK does NOT have nuclear weapons. So please be quiet about them nuking everything.
Secondly, it would make no sense at all for NK to shoot anything. They are isolated, NK might make poor decisions but they won't choose to get every cubic meter of NK bombed.
We also know Kim is full of himself. If he lived 5000years ago we would have people building him giant pyramids as monuments to his greatness. At the moment, the greatest achievement a country can make is space travel. Sure the US did it first so what? Right now china, japan and india have space programs and hope to stick a man on the moon. Space Race Asian Edition. Many countries think NK is a crazy backwards land that can't do anything since they are under a horrible tyrannical rule. If anyone felt that way about you wouldn't you want to prove them wrong? Show them how awesome and advanced you are by making it into space.
NK is a bit nutty and isolated from the world. Clearly they must be assholes. But lets look at both sides. The korean war 'ended' poorly sure. Remember the end of WW1 where the global community basically fucked Germany in the ass after winning? Which lead to the bitchiness allowing/causing WW2. A mistake we did not repeat after WW2. So we decide to not trade with NK. Even put up trade barriers/embargoes internationally. Many thousands of people starve in North Korea while the world at large says, give up tyranny and we'll help you eat. (how well does that work?). North Korea is stuck on an island with enemies to the south. Enemies that are much better funded and better armed. They are also probably jealous of the fact and maybe a little pissed that their neighbors are doing so well. They need a bargaining chip. NK starts developing nuclear technology in the early 90s. Out of fear the US promises to provide electricity and normalized trade in exchange NK would disassemble their nuclear plants and join the NNPT. Korea agrees! They take apart their factories. The US changes to the republican party. They do not provide electricity, they do not normalize trade, they spit in NKs face. Bush calls NK part of the axis of evil and lists them as elligable for preemptive nuclear strikes. How the fuck the north koreans are the badguys in this one is beyond me. They were willing to normalize international relations given the chance and it was thrown in their face. So of course they will begin work on nuclear weapons again, they need a bargaining chip.
Clearly NK does not have a good human rights record. Clearly it is terrible that people are starving. But the US policy of Good vs Evil is NOT helpful. Isolating a country, not letting them trade with you, threatening them, hating them does not help. I don't understand the idea that we can fix the problem by giving them an ultimatum they cannot possibly accept then never talking. It is like the 'hard on crime' laws that never seem to help either. Maybe if we offered a hand to NK that we dont use to stab them with they'll be a bit more trusting. Maybe with more money and education, a link to the rest of the world they can join us. A country cannot be evil it isn't a demon or even a person. If we keep going as we have how can you EVER expect countries like North Korea and Cuba to rejoin the rest of us, or maybe the truth is you don't really care.
(man this went longer than I intended, sorry
Perfect. From the link you provided:
Unha-2, which was launched at the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground in Hwadae County, North Hamgyong Province at 11:20 on April 5, Juche 98 (2009), accurately put Kwangmyongsong-2 into its orbit at 11:29:02, nine minutes and two seconds after its launch.
The satellite is going round the earth along its elliptic orbit at the angle of inclination of 40.6 degrees at 490 km perigee and 1 426 km apogee. Its cycle is 104 minutes and 12 seconds.
Mounted on the satellite are necessary measuring devices and communications apparatuses.
The satellite is going round on its routine orbit.
It is sending to the earth the melodies of the immortal revolutionary paeans "Song of General Kim Il Sung" and "Song of General Kim Jong Il" and measured information at 470 MHz. By the use of the satellite the relay communications is now underway by UHF frequency band.
With that kind of info, there should be dozens of observatories that should be able to spot it. Or HAM radio guys to find the signal it's broadcasting.
Anyone been looking for it yet?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Yeah but what cayenne8 is saying is that Saddam acted like he had weapons he was hiding, and because Saddam used stalling tactics on Blix's crew time and time again, giving the illusion (if not for real)that he was cleaning up areas and moving weapons before the UN could get there to inspect. IIRC, Saddam flatly denied access to many areas in some cases (even if he rescinded later) which still bought him time. How could Blix have known if there were weapons there or not with all that going on? Forensic testing? Is that 100% foolproof? So the UN report's credibility was questioned - whether it was right or wrong, there was too much uncertainty. When cops do a drug raid on a house they don't announce their intent 2 days prior - they'd never find anything either.
I guess the big question is, how many UN inspections did they manage to pull off without prior notice being given (or tipped) to the Iraqi government, and without the ever present Iraqi "minders"? We still don't know if any weapons were smuggled to Syria, but that's still a possibility too. We may never know.
There was good reason for suspicion; Saddam had bio weapons scant years earlier, so there was definitely a precedent there - it was not just a fairy tale made up out of thin air. The guy had made and used bio weapons before, that much was solid fact. Considering Saddam's behavior and actions during the inspections, even if just a bluff, he was sending the wrong signals.
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