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North Korea Shows Off Space Center and Launches Missile
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that nobody would describe North Korea's mission control as imposing. It is a small, unremarkable, two-story building, tiny compared to Nasa's Houston home in America or Russia's space command. But the North's secretive regime, now headed by the third of the Kim dynasty to rule here, Kim Jong-un, is opening up, for the first time in an attempt to allay fears it is about to test missile technology that could deliver a warhead as far as America. 'Sixteen technicians man the satellite command center. Dressed in white coats, like doctors, they sit behind computer screens,' writes Damian Grammaticas. 'On a big screen are live pictures from the launch pad, showing North Korea's rocket being fueled up. The satellite it will carry has already been loaded on board, we are told.' Pyongyang says the minibar refrigerator-sized satellite covered with solar panels and golden foil to protect its instruments will broadcast martial music praising North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung and is designed to monitor weather, natural disasters and agriculture patterns. As the five-day window for North Korea's rocket launch opens today, the United States has warned a launch would be a breach of UN Security Council resolutions that ban the North from testing missile technology. If North Korea goes ahead it could lead to UN sanctions, it has warned. 'That's why we have invited you, to clearly show that this is a satellite launch not a ballistic missile,' says Paek Chang-ho, head of the satellite control center. 'I hope you become supporters in showing the transparency of our satellite launch.'" After all that North Korea decided to launch a missile anyway. From the article: "The three-stage rocket, called the Unha-3, blasted off from the Soehae launch site near North Korea’s western corner with China, at about 7:39 a.m., the South Korea Defense Ministry said."
It shows you just how isolated they are. Any other country wanting to build a rocket to send a satellite into space could build on the 100+ years of research and development done by the rest of the world.
I'm sure whatever mistake they made here was made by some rocket scientist in the past and has already been corrected, but they don't have access to that. They had to start from nothing and repeat all the mistakes of the past.
I'm sure they get some help from the Russians and China, but they are all about trying to do things their own way, alone. Except feed themselves, apparently.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Of course they won't give up their nuclear weapon program in exchange for food aid, but that is irrelevant. Aid should be given, in exchange for nothing, even if it might be diverted or otherwise help the regime last. Using the threat of famine for political gains is unacceptable. North Korea does it to some extent, we shouldn't.
North Korea could have fed their people with the amount of money that went into this rocket launch. They apparently find it more important to impress the world than actually keep their citizens from starving to death. Also, before North Korea gets to complain about rape and murder, maybe they should consider shutting down those massive prison camps of theirs.
North Korea would have the economic power to buy food for its citizens itself if it wasn't blowing it all on shiny nukes and rocketry instead. The rest of the world shouldn't be expected to feed its people while it behaves like an irresponsible and rebellious teenager that spends all its money on hookers and fast cars. On the other hand, since the North Korean leadership has already demonstrated that it is perfectly willing to let its people starve so that it can play with shiny toys, outside demands aren't going to make much a difference. There is no easy answer to the situation.
would this be like the hypocrisy that charles manson uses a gun, and the police use a gun, and so they are morally equivalent, and to criticize charles manson is hypocrisy?
or a burglar breaks into your home, and the government forces you to pay taxes, so its all the same thing: robbery... hypocrisy!
how about a drunk driver jumping the sidewalk and killing a pedestrian is the same as a drunk stumbling into a highway and getting hit... hypocrisy!
yeah hypocrisy! everything is morally equivalent!
please define the parameters in which the globally condemned mafia family who starves its people while it pursues nukes is the same as the government of the USA
bonus thought (if you can handle more than one thought at a time): it is not required to like the USA to agree with my comment. it is actually possible *gasp*, get this radical craziness!: to dislike North Korea, AND the USA, for different, REAL reasons... at the same time! no freakin way! for real?
rather than the genius level analysis you and parent poster demonstrate. "bad things from government A" = "bad things government B": hypocrisy!
durrr....duhh...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Missiles can be magic. But a magic rocket is just stupid.
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Somewhere, an intelligence analyst is rolling on the floor laughing at your post.
Infiltrate the North Korean working classes? Secret Agent Man just sneaks in? If he somehow manages to get into the country, the first peasant to see him is going to run screaming for help from the army. According to everything they've heard in their lives, the West is a big scary monster out to kill them. How many Secret Agent Men are you prepared to sacrifice before you get one who lasts longer than a couple of hours before he's shot?
More fundamentally, North Korea has a shedload of conventional artillery pointed at Seoul: the capital of South Korea, with a few million people. As soon as you do anything that they notice and don't like - possibly including cutting off food aid, but definitely including any Secret Agent Men - they can open fire and destroy more economic activity than their entire country is worth, several times over. If it weren't for this, the US would probably have just bombed the damn place already.