N. Korean satellite orbits over U.S.

thanks guys! much appreciated

This is kind of interesting:

Underestimating North Korea and Iran

The West consistently and unwittingly cooperates with North Korea and Iran by underestimating the advancement, sophistication, and strategic implications of their nuclear weapon and missile programs.

Despite North Korea's successful long-range missile test in December 2012, and now its third successful nuclear test on February 12, 2013, the Obama administration and the press keep reassuring the American people that North Korea is not yet a fully fledged nuclear weapons state - that a North Korean nuclear missile threat to the United States is still years in the future.

The facts do not support this judgment. North Korea is already a major nuclear threat to the United States--an existential threat.

Common wisdom in the press, encouraged by the Obama Administration and North Korea, is that North Korea has not yet miniaturized nuclear warheads for missile delivery, and that its nuclear tests are in pursuit of designing a nuclear missile warhead. Indeed, the Obama administration and the western press both naively took at face value and parroted North Korea's public claim that their third nuclear test is for nuclear warhead miniaturization.

OK - we know that some of that is looking pretty accurate, as it has been revealed now that the government has knows that NK can miniaturize nuclear weapons.

so....

Yet this claim is almost certainly disinformation designed to conceal that North Korea's nuclear weapon program is advanced far beyond warhead miniaturization. Miniaturization to develop a nuclear warhead is not difficult to do, and can be accomplished even without nuclear testing.

North Korea and Iran both have strategic reasons to mislead and conceal from the West the true status of their nuclear and missile programs. They intend that the U.S. and its allies will underestimate those programs, fail to act in time to stop them, and be strategically surprised when North Korea and Iran become nuclear super-powers, and progenitors of a dystopian new world order.

That makes sense too. It would be in there best interests to keep everyone unaware of their abilities.

I served on the congressional North Korea Advisory Group during the Clinton administration. We warned the White House, the press, anyone who would listen, that North Korea was cheating on the Agreed Framework. During the Clinton years, North Korea forged full speed ahead on its nuclear weapons program--including with a clandestine uranium centrifuge program, to supplement the known plutonium program for North Korea's advancing nuclear arsenal.

Unfortunately, the press was not interested and our NKAG Report went virtually unreported.

So, North Korea achieved a nuclear weapons capability during the Clinton administration in 1994, and not during the Bush administration with their first test in 2006. We know from our own experience, and from that of other nations, that nuclear testing is not necessary to develop a nuclear weapon. Little Boy, the first nuclear weapon ever built, was developed and used successfully by the U.S. to destroy Hiroshima, without nuclear testing. Hiroshima was the test.

We also know from our own experience, and from that of other nations, that it does not take 20 years to miniaturize a nuclear warhead for missile delivery.

so, this person claims to have been on the "congressional North Korea Advisory Group ". I'm not sure how to confirm that, but if true, it adds to their credibility a bit.

Today, however, North Korea and other nuclear weapon states are not re-inventing the nuclear wheel. They can draw on a vast treasure trove of declassified information about U.S. nuclear weapons development. Moreover, North Korea and other nuclear weapon states are using modern 21st Century technology, and do not have to rely upon primitive 1930s and 1940s era technology, as did the United States during the Manhattan Project and its early nuclear weapons program. Further, North Korea and other nuclear rogues help each other, and also get help from China and Russia.

For these reasons, North Korea and other states like Pakistan and Israel have nuclear weapon programs far more sophisticated than is widely recognized by the press.

That has been mentioned by me and others, in response to people saying that NK just can't do it. They don't HAVE to do it. It has already been done. They just buy and share with the enemies of their common enemies.

There is more in the article above, that we have read about elsewhere, regarding the tests NK has already carried out, which fit the description of a super-EMP.

A Super-EMP warhead does not weigh much, and could probably be delivered by North Korea's Fractional Orbital Bombardment System, successfully tested in December 2012, against any nation on Earth. Thus, North Korea already possesses an ICBM and poses a mortal nuclear threat to the United States, and to all nations on Earth--right now.

North Korea, during the successful test of its ICBM on December 12, 2012, orbited a satellite weighing 100 kilograms (about 200 pounds). One design of a Super-EMP warhead would be a modified neutron bomb, more accurately an Enhanced Radiation Warhead (ERW) because it produces not only many neutrons but also many gamma rays. As noted earlier, gamma rays cause the EMP effect. One U.S. ERW warhead (the W-82) deployed in NATO during the Cold War weighed, including its heavy casing, less than 50 kilograms. Since the EMP attack entails detonating the warhead at high-altitude, above the atmosphere, the warhead does not even need a heavy re-entry vehicle and heat shield.

North Korea's ICBM does not have to be accurate to make an EMP attack against the United States.

The EMP field is so large that detonating anywhere over the U.S. would have catastrophic consequences. North Korea orbited its satellite around the Earth at an altitude of about 500 kilometers. The trajectory of North Korea's satellite is no accident--they deliberately aimed for and achieved this orbit and altitude, as announced before their launch.

An altitude of 500 kilometers would be ideal for making an EMP attack that places the field over the entire lower 48 United States.

North Korea's ICBM, delivering an EMP attack by means of an inaccurate satellite warhead, would likely miss its horizontal aimpoint over the geographic center of the U.S. by tens of kilometers. Bursting the warhead at an altitude of 500 kilometers would compensate for this inaccuracy by creating an EMP field big enough to cover everything. North Korea's satellite did not pass over the United States--but a slight adjustment in its trajectory would have flown it over or near the U.S. bull's eye for a high-altitude EMP burst.

So, a warhead capability of causing an EMP blast can be very small.
Small enough to fit in the satellite.

Maybe!

reply to post by BlueAjah


All this is Pry again. Remember, the lobbyist for this sort of thing? He's also being misleading in a number of key places. See if you can spot one, they're pretty obvious.

reply to post by Bedlam


He was right about the cover-up of North Korea nuclear capabilities.
So - I will keep an open mind about him.

My main point above was that it is IS possible to have a nuclear device small enough for this satellite,

This is kind of interesting.

The Iranian satellite in orbit, www.n2yo.com... at 4/13 21:58
seems to almost cross paths across the US,
with the North Korean satellite www.n2yo.com..., at the same time 4/13 21:52

And again
4/15 21:36
4/15 21:39
close to Washington DC

Just an interesting tidbit.
I know satellites criss-cross each other all the time over us, but I was curious about the Iran satellite,and happened to notice this.

...please don't jump all over this I am not over-reading into it and I have not researched the Iranian satellite enough yet, other than that is is a bit larger than the NK one, at 352 lb.

just interesting

reply to post by BlueAjah


USA could fit a nuke in an artillery shell.
So I guess designs for small nukes must be existing.

However the utility of such small nuke in a satellite is doubtful.

Please do not worry about these satellites. These are just to scare people.

The real worry is the missiles and bombs that can be delivered atop missiles or other methods.

reply to post by Gazrok


Speaking of targeting, you have hit the bulls-eye. The payload they placed in orbit tells them how much mojo the booster has got. The Space shuttle had a max-operating altitude close to 300 miles and look how much grunt it took too get that monster into orbit! DPRK has a barely-ballistic missile in the modern vernacular, with a very tiny, probably, single warhead attack. Any country that places nuclear devices in orbit, is breaking the treaties and leaves itself open to counter-attack, be it against the orbital element, or the point of origin (launch point), google FOBS or fractional orbital bombardment system, and pour yourself a cold one. In satellite operations, a payload of that size, depending on shape and drag, at 300 NM altitude, will be up there for a long, long time. If it's tumbling, and it always has been, it will probably be up there even longer since it has no attitude control, and it can't be 'commanded' to re-enter anyway. In satellite operations, the orbital inclination is why the ground track looks like it does, as previously stated in this post, the Earth turning underneath makes it look that way. The steeper the orbital inclination, the closer together the ground track traces on the Earth surface. Rock on! star for you and fair winds and following seas to DPRK's warhead test payload.

reply to post by BlueAjah


I don't follow how developed NK weapons are but those statements there have a good point. It sounds naive how Obama administration belittles what NK has and yet the words are often 'we do not know of'

'we do not know of' means never seen what they have, that does not mean 'exclude', because like other articles, no1 knows what NK has and what they do not in terms of nuclear weapons.

It should not be even surprising that they already have enough to do big damage to the world...

Originally posted by ImpactoR
reply to post by BlueAjah

 

I don't follow how developed NK weapons are but those statements there have a good point. It sounds naive how Obama administration belittles what NK has and yet the words are often 'we do not know of'

'we do not know of' means never seen what they have, that does not mean 'exclude', because like other articles, no1 knows what NK has and what they do not in terms of nuclear weapons.

It should not be even surprising that they already have enough to do big damage to the world...

You really shouldn't confuse what Obama & Co say in public with what goes on in private.

reply to post by BlueAjah


Does the United States have an orbital EMP weapon?

reply to post by HomoSapiensSapiens


I hope so.
I would hate to think we are defenseless.
We obviously have defensive satellites.

The difference is, if we do, the US has shown that we can handle them responsibly.
If the US did not have nukes, it would not stop the dangerous countries from having them, then we would be in serious danger.

reply to post by BlueAjah


So, if the US does, how on Earth can NK be up to our capabilities?

reply to post by HomoSapiensSapiens


It is kind of egotistical to think they can not be. It is not like they have to reinvent the wheel. The technology is already there. They don't have to "invent" anything.

We know they have technology agreements with Iran to share information. Russians have said they have scientists who have worked with NK and Iran.

NK's main priority is military. They invest in their military at the expense of feeding their own people.

So, why would we think they did not build a nuke or few?
In addition to the intelligence community that says they have modest confidence that NK has miniaturized nukes.

reply to post by BlueAjah


It's not egotistical, it's that for all the money they spend on their military, they are still using technology that was old before I was born as their main defense. What's the point of having nuclear weapons, if you don't have the conventional forces to back them up? Or that can stop someone from blowing up your nuclear weapons before you can launch them?

reply to post by Zaphod58


Or - maybe that is the reason to spend your resources on one particular type of weapon that has the potential to knock out your enemy from the start, since you don't have the ability to build a whole army of high-tech tanks and planes?

Intelligence shows they have worked with Iran, and Russian scientists have warned that NK has an EMP.
To assume they don't is highly risky.

We can't know what we don't "know", if it is at all a possibility.

reply to post by BlueAjah


Because if you only have the resources, even with help, to build a small handful of weapons of this sort, you want to protect them. If your enemies know you have them, then at the first sign of movement anywhere near them (and since they can't keep them fueled 24/7/365 there's GOING to be movement), they going to go for them. Why have them, if the first time you fuel them, you lose them? There's no point.

reply to post by Zaphod58


I'm not so sure the US knows exactly where they are.
Even if we did, tthere is China - it is not so easy for the US to just go for these weapons without China's cooperation.

We can not forget the insanity factor. Un does not seem to have much common sense, and considers himself and his country to be invincible. He wants to be a big man to his own people and the rest of the world.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Intelligence has its limits.

NK has 1.1 million under arms. There will be a lot of activity at lot of places.

It has mountainous terrain. They must be hiding lot of stuff in tunnels.

A pre-emptive raid does not look like a great option. It is better to wait and let the regime collapse under its own weight.