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North Korea Ballistic Missile Explodes On Launch Fourth Straight Time

Posted by msmash on from the fake-it-if-you-can't-make-it dept.

Earlier this week, the state media of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) broadcasted video of leader Kim Jong Un watching what appears to have been a successful launch of a submarine-launched ballistic missile. That was all fabricated, according to analysts. According to them, the launch actually took place in April. It is believed that the video was broadcasted as "an attempt to demonstrate North Korea's nuclear threat as a senior DPRK official meets with China this week." Ars Technica reports: The video was broadcast just after analyst reports said North Korea had made a fourth failed attempt in two months to test-launch the Musudan -- a missile designed to strike at targets as distant as Guam and the Philippines. The missile exploded on launch. Earlier on April 15, North Korea's military attempted a launch from a mobile launching system, but it exploded shortly after liftoff. Just two weeks later, as North Korea was preparing for the congress of the Worker's Party, there was an attempt at a dual launch -- with both missiles crashing into the sea.

31 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. the real story here by nimbius · · Score: 4, Funny

    is that North Korea has invented some sort of entropy rocket that can explode unpredictably at low altitude, only to emerge again quickly reassembled for a new flight. Its the ballistic equivalent of the US Republican party.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re:the real story here by DigiShaman · · Score: 3, Funny

      If a rocket could do that, it most certainly was built by the Pkunk.

      Hallelujah!!!!!

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    2. Re:the real story here by Junta · · Score: 2

      Nitwit! Idiot! Stupid! Worm! Loser! Moron!

      --
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  2. New Anti-Missile Laser Tech by zenlessyank · · Score: 4, Funny

    seems to be working quite well. I wonder if they are using the ship based or satellite based?

    1. Re:New Anti-Missile Laser Tech by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Informative

      The idea is interesting but it doesn't really work. I know you are probably joking, but just to be clear the missile blew up very shortly after launch. . In atmosphere the effective range of laser weapons is short. 20 km is a generally safe upper estimate on range. See the Boeing YAL-1 for more detail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YAL-1. And a failure due to a laser would be highly noticeable in the debris and nature of the explosion and even if the laser wasn't visible in the regular spectrum, it would very likely show up on infrared. North Korea is definitely paying very close attention to their borders, and especially near where the rockets are being launched. It isn't clear to me where this launch occurred from. They have two main launch areas. Mof their launches are either from Tonghae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonghae_Satellite_Launching_Ground or Sohae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sohae_Satellite_Launching_Station and neither one is that far from China. Sohae is in fact very close. If the US had developed anti-missile lasers, it seems unlikely they would want to use them this way on China's backdoor at this time.

      That said, it wouldn't surprise me incredibly if some sort of ongoing sabotage has been at work. But for it to be a laser that would mean that many fundamental aspects of the technology would need to have been drastically improved in a very short time, and that they would then think this was a good enough use to to risk it

    2. Re:New Anti-Missile Laser Tech by tattood · · Score: 2

      seems to be working quite well. I wonder if they are using the ship based or satellite based?

      I think it's shark-based.

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  3. Just glad I'm not an engineer there! by Archeopteryx · · Score: 4, Funny

    I imagine failure is not associated with longevity.

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    1. Re:Just glad I'm not an engineer there! by Jason+Levine · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Given how many failures they've had, it's amazing they have any engineers left.

      Then again, maybe that's the problem. All of the good engineers were "retired" after bad launches and now they're stuck with guys who have no experience in engineering and are struggling to make sense of the equations lest they be "retired" also.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    2. Re:Just glad I'm not an engineer there! by Qzukk · · Score: 2

      Assuming they had any to begin with. I'd guess when NK started down the crazy communist path, they had their own "great leap forward" complete with a purge of anyone smart enough to know that it was a bad idea.

      --
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    3. Re:Just glad I'm not an engineer there! by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Funny

      People's Republic of North Korea!

      Hah. PRoNK.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    4. Re:Just glad I'm not an engineer there! by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or maybe it's just hard, especially for a country of 24.9 million people that's largely isolated from the rest of the world. That's about 1/10 the size of the Soviet Union when they launched Sputnik (about 205 million), and the Soviet Union had considerable access to western knowledge both through espionage and German rocket scientists they snapped up.

      All that said, the idea that engineers are executed on failures is wishful thinking. The path to success goes through multiple failures, and the best possible scenario for anyone who doesn't want to see North Korea obtain long range missile capabilities would be for the regime to punish failure severely.

      It is encouraging that their failure rate is so high. But we shouldn't take too much encouragement from that. Just getting to the point where you can fail isn't exactly easy, and if you learn from those failures and funding doesn't dry up, eventually you will succeed. The German Aggregat rocket series (which culminated in the A4 rocket, more popularly known as the "V2") was riddled with discouraging failures though the early years, but the Germans kept pouring money into it. Granted they had the best rocket minds in the world, but they were living in a vacuum tube world where telemetry was much harder to obtain. They had to guess their way through their failures. The North Koreans don't -- not to the same degree.

      If they carry on, the North Koreans will eventually succeed in making something that works well enough to threaten other countries with.

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    5. Re:Just glad I'm not an engineer there! by Thud457 · · Score: 2

      Their NAZIs must not be very good rocket engineers.
      Which makes sense since America, the USSR & Great Britan got first dibs.

      --

      the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    6. Re:Just glad I'm not an engineer there! by eth1 · · Score: 2

      Given how many failures they've had, it's amazing they have any engineers left.

      Then again, maybe that's the problem. All of the good engineers were "retired" after bad launches and now they're stuck with guys who have no experience in engineering and are struggling to make sense of the equations lest they be "retired" also.

      Until they get a smart engineer, who "fails" in such a way that the missile "crashes" where all the brass is standing.

    7. Re:Just glad I'm not an engineer there! by Howitzer86 · · Score: 2

      These are probably their best and brightest and maybe even their most rebellious individuals. I can see them doing this intentionaly as their own way to fight the system. If they employ slave labor the way the Nazis did in the V2 program, the same situation may apply and the engineers themselves could be off the hook for the quality of the components. The workers and scientists could even be working together to undermine the government.

      I expect a lot of really interesting stories to come out of North Korea after they collapse.

    8. Re:Just glad I'm not an engineer there! by painandgreed · · Score: 3, Interesting

      All that said, the idea that engineers are executed on failures is wishful thinking. The path to success goes through multiple failures, and the best possible scenario for anyone who doesn't want to see North Korea obtain long range missile capabilities would be for the regime to punish failure severely.

      True, but it still doesn't mean they aren't doing it. North Korea is a very messed up place. They send plenty of their upper class kids to western schools and get fine degrees from places that are not going to just sign off on them because they are somebodies brat. Still, they may have some great agricultural majors directing the country, but they still follow irrigation and plowing methods that increase soil erosion and hurt their crops in the long term because the eldest Kim advised they do it that way. If one of the Kims happened to do an on site inspection and happened to give some "helpful advice" (there's an actual term for it, but I'd have to go look it up and I'm not sure I even have that book still), then they'll follow that advise no matter what and if anything goes wrong, its still their fault.

    9. Re:Just glad I'm not an engineer there! by Solandri · · Score: 2

      They're unlikely to execute their (indispensable) engineers and scientists for failure. They are however likely to imprison or execute their (expendable) extended family members. Often the people sent to North Korean prison camps have no idea they were even related to the person for whom they're being punished.

  4. This is what happens... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...when technical decisions are made for political reasons.

    At least, that is my assumption as to why they keep failing. I imagine that at every level of organization throughout the team building and launching these missiles, egos are driving people to hide mistakes that need correcting, to promote people with connections but not talent, to skip work in order to meet deadlines, etc.

    1. Re:This is what happens... by CaptainLard · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...when technical decisions are made for political reasons.

      Yeah, thats the problem with North Korea...

  5. Heads will roll by cyberchondriac · · Score: 2

    No doubt someone is up for execution for this embarrassing string of events. Problem is, the engineer(s) on the butcher block was/were probably their best. Un will wind up whittling down his rocket scientists to nothing.

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    1. Re:Heads will roll by LWATCDR · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "Problem is, the engineer(s) on the butcher block was/were probably their best. Un will wind up whittling down his rocket scientists to nothing."
      While I do feel sorry for Un's victims and their families I have to say that this is almost as bad of a "problem" as it was a problem that Hitler hated all the Jewish physicists. The only real problem is that they can not run away with their families.

      --
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    2. Re:Heads will roll by kbonin · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Historically, nations that follow these sorts of practices become self-limiting in their ability to cause widespread geopolitical problems, at least pushing it out a few generations. Other nations have stunted their technical and scientific growth massively in the past, for reasons which make little sense today, like China destroying the largest navy in the known history of the earth in 1525 and banning construction of ships with more than two masts.

    3. Re:Heads will roll by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "Make little sense"? What do you mean? It made plenty of sense to get rid of this hugely expensive white elephant. China had looked out into the world and found nothing but squabbling barbarians in every direction. There was nothing in the world worth having, China already made everything it needed (autarky). Where is the idea that scientific growth was needed to succeed? China was already the most developed nation in the world. I think you have a very narrow-minded and Western-focused view of what history should be like. It's kind of frightening because you consider yourself educated and yet don't know anything about the motivations of foreign cultures.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  6. So ballistic missiles aren't easy... by BellyJelly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think we should be thanking the North Koreans for demonstrating that making ballistic missiles that actually work isn't easy.

  7. Despite how funny this is, it IS serious by mhollis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Watching North Korea fail, and do so repeatedly is really funny. What is not funny is their determination. I note that others are suggesting that their rocket scientists are probably short-lived, as are their nuclear scientists. Nonsense. Kim Jong Un does offer special favors for those persons who are successful but a nuclear scientist or a rocket scientist are unlikely to challenge him or his heirs to government positions of power. They are scientists, not political operatives and, thus, are seen as commodities to be used, not existential challenges to be met.

    The determination they are showing that they will do everything in their power, including starve their people, in order to produce weapons of mass-destruction is the real takeaway here. While I am happy at their repeated failures, I am not happy at their persistence.

    --
    Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
    1. Re:Despite how funny this is, it IS serious by OzPeter · · Score: 2

      Watching North Korea fail, and do so repeatedly is really funny. What is not funny is their determination.

      Last week I watched The Propaganda Game on Netflix. It was an interesting eye opener of what North Koreans think of themselves and the rest of the world. Especially interesting was the Spanish guy who effectively emigrated to NK and was spouting the NK political line.

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    2. Re:Despite how funny this is, it IS serious by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

      Actually, I think Kim Jong Un is eminently rational; cold, probably sociopathic, but incredibly rational. Think about it. When he first took over from Kim Jong Il, the regime put minders in place, most prominently his uncle, Jang Song-Thaek. Kim Jong Un seems to have understood that the first few years of his reign were going to be with training wheels, but when he decided it was time to come off, he took out anyone in the regime that had a significant power base, or any close ties with China. Stalin and Mao both did the same sort of thing in their time, taking out rivals, usually brutally, and with show trials to make it clear to anyone else who had any designs that opposed the Supreme Leader that he could dispense with them just as easily.

      While there are nutcases like Idi Amin out there, for whom power leads to a sort of megalomaniacal madness. But there are rulers like Stalin and Saddam Hussein, and Kim Jong-un, who may be megalomaniacs, but who are most definitely very rational actors.

      --
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  8. Re:Entirely expected by TWX · · Score: 2

    I don't think it matters what Taepodong they have if they can't get their 'dong up...

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    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  9. Re:Trump is right, the experts are wrong by OzPeter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Trump's proposal to have Japan and South Korea go nuclear is the right response to this.

    OK remind me again. Which day of the week is it that you are saying that Trump thinks a nuclear Japan is good? I've lost track of which side of the topic he is currently on.

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  10. sabotage or incompetence? by publiclurker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    considering how North Korea lises to kill people as punishment, I wouldn't be surprised if they have managed to run out of top rocket scientists.

    1. Re:sabotage or incompetence? by edtice1559 · · Score: 2

      Or perhaps their top scientists know how oppressive the regime is and they are intentionally dragging their feet. At some point in the future, they may be regarded as heroes. They are in a precarious situation no matter what. If they fail too spectacularly, they may get put to death. Once they are successful they may no longer be useful and know too much and get put to death. So self-interest and heroism may align here. Make just enough progress to stay alive.

  11. Re:US propaganda by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 2

    How exactly do you know North Korea exists to destroy everything you know and love?

    Because North Korea is trying to build nuclear bombs and missiles that can reach North America.

    Last time I checked, Mexico and Belgium weren't working hard to try to figure out how to drop a bomb on my head.