was the NK test blast REALLY a nuclear device ?

Originally posted by PatrioticAmerican
Erm... no, a country that has 4 mn tons of uranium at its disposal would never test a nuke...

so why have , in no particular order :

Australia , Canada , Namibia , Brazil

not got nuclear weapons yet ???????????

they all have far greater uranium reserves than NK

Originally posted by spacedoubt
Apparently Gamma rays can be detected, even if the test is underground.
Any word on our Satellites detecting these?

that was exactly the confirmation that i was expecting ... and so far it seems absent

another possibility...

Out of the sheer fear and terror weilded by Kimmy over the population of NK, that at 10am this morning when he shouted *jump* they all did...would account for the seismic activity but no radiological traces

I was imagining that the power of a 0.5 Kt nuke being something like the ones in the game "Command and Conquer General" or "Red Alert" -- can destroy a few buildings but that's it.

[edit on 10/9/2006 by warset]

The power of a five-hundred-pound, TNT-equivilent is relatively minor compared to most military munitions. I believe the most concern in the case of that being true, is radiation.

However, with 'no detectable radiation' -- It depnds on which kilotonage measurement was right.

Five-hundred could possibly have been replicated without a nuke.
A 15kt explosion however? I'd have to think that a nuke.

I too have wondered about this.

It seems that the siesmic data indicated that this detonation was a shallow one, not buried deep in a bunker or mine shaft, and yet so far there has been no radionuclide data visible by satellite or other ISR means.

So Shallow Explosion + No Radioactivity = ?

Was it a dud?

Defense Tech . Org has a great article on it. I suggest anyone who's interested in this read their comments.

Also according to the NY Times:
Throughout history, the first detonations of aspiring nuclear powers have tended to pack the destructive power of 10,000 to 60,000 tons — 10 to 60 kilotons — of conventional high explosives. But the strength of the North Korean test appears to have been a small fraction of that: around a kiloton or less, according to scientists monitoring the global arrays of seismometers that detect faint trembles in the earth from distant blasts...

Philip E. Coyle III, a former director of weapons testing at the Pentagon and former director of nuclear testing for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a weapons design center in California, said the small size of the test signaled the possibility of what might be described as a partial success or a partial failure.

“As first tests go, this is smaller and less successful than those of the other nuclear powers,” he said. Perhaps the North Koreans wanted to keep it small, he added. “But if it turns out to be a kiloton or less,” Dr. Coyle said, “that would suggest that they hoped for more than that and didn’t get it.”

Also according to Stratfor:

What if the North Koreans didn't go nuclear, but detonated a large chemical explosive in an underground chamber? It would take a lot of explosive to yield that result, but it is not impossible. A chemical explosion would have a different seismic signature than a nuclear one, and therefore geologists should have already discounted this theory; but the analysis is going to take up to two days, according to the White House. It is certainly not beyond the North Koreans to fake a nuclear explosion, and there have been some big explosions in North Korea that have been mistaken, for a short period of time, for something nuclear. But there is no evidence, beyond our speculation, for this theory.

Back to Defense Tech, I rather like what they said regarding the results of the NorK test:

No one has ever dudded their first test of a simple fission device. North Korean nuclear scientists are now officially the worst ever.






[edit on 10-10-2006 by intelgurl]

I don't know..
A subkiloton yield may mean extremes: either a dud OR a yield most suitable for tactical usage(read korean peninsula) and possibly a Nodong1/2 mountable warhead..
Anyways.. any sources confimring the test was shallow?
How shallow is 'shallow'?
They claimed no radiation has been vented out.
The radionuclide bit takes some time to vent depnding on the depth and sealing measures employed(if it vents at all).
So detecting none of it does not necessarily mean non-nuclear..
a couple of days..
wait and watch..
They've had enough time (a decade or so) to plan this out. One would presume they wouldn't fail.
I retierate the Russians have confirmed it as nuclear..

[edit on 10-10-2006 by Daedalus3]

Daedalus, again, I don't think Korea intentionally produced subkiloton tactical nuke. As I already posted, I think now they need strategical deterrence nuke that could wipe out whole city or military base. Tactical nuke is dangerous but not more than chemical weapons, it simply has not enough scare potential.

As I posted somewhere else here, I think NK has mostly plutonium rather than enriched uranium. Plutonium bombs are much more tricky to get full explosion yield out of since they tend to explode prematurely before all the nuclear material comes together, therefore blowing apart a lot of material before it goes through a nuclear reaction. Our (the U.S.'s) original plutonium bomb (fat man) was a shell of imploding plutonium and was quite more difficult to produce than the enriched uranium bomb that was just a bullet and a target design.

So it's quite possible it was a plutonium nuclear device that was only partialy successful.

[edit on 10/10/2006 by djohnsto77]

It is also possible though that the western countries are lying and the test was in fact 10-12 kt. They might want to provoke Kim to do second test and to waste some of NK fission material.

I believe this was NOT a underground nuclear test.

Only one reason...the underground water system...If this was indeed a 15 megaton explosion the whole Korean peninsula would be effected with radioactive material.

The whole ecological system system would be damaged, considering the fact that north Korea has such a low water table.

China and south Korea would definitely notices the affects (maybe this is what the US is waiting for to confirm).It would flow into the sea of japan.

North Korea would not poison there own water supply..
Dumb move even for North Korea..

I'm a poker player and I say there bluffing...

Mods,If I'm right please please feel generous with points.

thank for your time -PEADY-.

Here is more info stating if it was nuclear, then it was a dud.

Acton says that going for a 15 kilotonne yield was "the natural size" for a country trying to test a nuclear weapon.

Paradoxically, it is easier to make and test a Hiroshima-sized weapon of this size rather than to make a smaller one, which requires mastery of miniaturisation techniques.

"If it turns out to be less than a kilotonne, it could look very much like a fizzle," a bomb that failed to detonate properly and achieve a full chain reaction, Acton says.

abc.net.au...

Kim Jong-il may have showed us his hand, but his hand is somewhat weak.

Originally posted by longbow
Daedalus, again, I don't think Korea intentionally produced subkiloton tactical nuke. As I already posted, I think now they need strategical deterrence nuke that could wipe out whole city or military base. Tactical nuke is dangerous but not more than chemical weapons, it simply has not enough scare potential.

Not really..
a tactical nuke IMO is much more relevant to nuclear war than a strategic nuke.
Whether N Korea has the ability to do so is again debateable,but tactical nukes are an important asset anyways you look at it.
Tactical nukes are true miltary weapons. And best suited to use in areas where reverse fallout(aggressors being affected) is possible and in areas where one is at a numerical disadvantage. If employed properly and subtly, tactical nukes can even win(or ceasefire) a war which you would have lost conventionally anyways and which you would have lost if all out MAD was carried out.
Its very complex and one needs to go 'beyond' the words 'nuclear war' to examine the various levels of nuclear warfare. Most just go upto the N word and then equate the rest to 'holocaust'.
If one uses a tactical nuke on an advancing division or a closely grouped battle group; there may be a chance that the response is NOT on the strategic scale. See, once you get into nuclear war, both sides are looking to come out victorious WITHOUT going the whole way.
Usage of strategic devices on the peninsula would cause obvious reverse fallout repercussions.
Tactical nukes would give NK a serious advantage.

NK might have simply detonated the device in a large chamber, as opposed to detonating it directly next to the rock strata.

Its called 'decoupling' and can quite successfully disguise the true yield of the weapon.

The UK experimented with this technique during their Project ORPHEUS tests of the late 1950s-early 1960s, prior to the Atmospheric Test Ban treaty. They were trying to determine exactly how much weapon yield could be disguised by 'decoupling' the detonation, in order to aid their monitoring of expected Soviet underground nuclear tests.

It is thought that it is possible to muffle the seismic shock waves by a maximum of 40x, if fully decoupled.

So, although NK's detonation might appear to be circa 400-500 tons, its true yield might easily be 1-4 kilotons.


zero lift

[edit on 10-10-2006 by zero lift]

Originally posted by PEADY
I believe this was NOT a underground nuclear test.

Only one reason...the underground water system...If this was indeed a 15 megaton explosion the whole Korean peninsula would be effected with radioactive material.

The whole ecological system system would be damaged, considering the fact that north Korea has such a low water table.

China and south Korea would definitely notices the affects (maybe this is what the US is waiting for to confirm).It would flow into the sea of japan.

North Korea would not poison there own water supply..
Dumb move even for North Korea..

I'm a poker player and I say there bluffing...

Mods,If I'm right please please feel generous with points.

thank for your time -PEADY-.

Underground N detonation does not necessarily mean contamination of the environment(above or below the surface).
The test site would obviously be chosen keeping all this in mind.
It cannot be a 15 megaton yield explosion..

.If this was indeed a 15 megaton explosio

I stand corrected ...15 kiloton

Underground N detonation does not necessarily mean contamination of the environment(above or below the surface).

Yes it does...Do your research!!..
here is a good place to start...
google
peady

sorry about that,

here ......google

doh....nuclear contamination

Originally posted by Iblis
The power of a five-hundred-pound, TNT-equivilent is relatively minor compared to most military munitions.

0.5 Kilotons = 500 tons of TNT
1.0 Kilotons = 1000 tons of TNT

1 US ton = 2000lbs