was the NK test blast REALLY a nuclear device ?

well ?

at the risk of stating the obvious ,

all nuclear blasts are large explosions , but not all large explosions are nuclear blasts .

so far all we seem to have is NK " official announcements " -- which IMHO are not worth the paper they are written on .

so far - the only seismic dada , indicates that there was a blast of some kind in NK at the time they claim the "test " occurred

the port Chicago munitions ship disaster [ 1944 ] registered magnitude 3.5 on seismic sensors


so - seismic data alone does not , a nuclear rest make

so where is the radiological and electro magnetic confirmations of the blast being nuclear in origin ?

during the cold war - both the soviets , and NATA maintained chains of radio receivers , which could pick up the tell tale EM spike of a nuke blast -- above or below ground -

the cinematic portrayal of an underground nuclear explosion presented in the movie " broken arrow " was pure hog wash

but an underground blast would generate exactly the effects portrayed in that dire movie , but on a much smaller scale

a scale delectable by the sensitive monitoring sensors owned by the US and soviet militaries , and western , Chinese and Japanese agencies .

any peasant can pour a few thousand tons of ANFO slurry into a mine shaft and detonate it .

I would like to see some signature from this blast that could only have been produces by a fissile explosion .

as I said -- all nukes cause large explosions , but not all large explosions are caused by nukes .

Note that Russia has confirmed the test as a nuclear one...
and then immediately condemned it of course.
But Russia confirmed it as a nuclear explosion

[edit on 9-10-2006 by Daedalus3]

Ditto on that, Daedalus3. I've seen the Russian reports from several sources.

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
...
so far - the only seismic dada , indicates that there was a blast of some kind in NK at the time they claim the "test " occurred
...
so - seismic data alone does not , a nuclear rest make

According to what I've been reading/hearing, seismologists are able to differentiate between conventional and nuclear based on the blast/seismic wave "signature", for lack of better wording.


$.02

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

alas....NK still chose to ignor the rest of the world, and make its own nukes.....how stupid......

The question is - was the test really sucessfull? According to reports I've read it was only 0.5 kiloton. That's really quite low. First American nukes were over 10 kt range. I even think that it's quite difficult to make subkiloton nuclear weapon. So might it be possible that it malfunctioned and the explosion was less powerfull than intented?

[edit on 9-10-2006 by longbow]

Originally posted by longbow
According to reports I've read it was only 0.5 kiloton. That's really quite low.

What if we underestimated NK and it was a suit case nuke. That would be perfrect for terrorist. What if it was a nuke they bought from China or Russia?

^let's say, there is no way russia and china will sell nukes to NK, this is not the cold war era, plz live up to date.

and I heard news from russia that it has confirmed that it was a nuclear explosion test, and it has been a 1.5Kt explosion, not like the SK claimed 0.5 Kt explosion.

I think its in the media and all governments interest to claim it was a nuke even if it was just a lot of conventional explosives. I have my doubts about it being nuclear at all if North Korea wanted to convince the world they would have at least filmed it in my opinion if for nothing else than their own TV, Research and chest thumping propaganda. Until I see video evidence I don't buy it.

Even if Russia and China sold NK nuke, I highly doubt it would be the suitcase kind. It would be very stupid by them, because such weapon could be used against them. And I don't think Nk would be able to make it's own, to make such small nuke you'll need to be world class in nuclear technology.
Anayway Russians are reporting that it was in fact 12kilotons, so we will see.

Could possibly be that NK has decided to put it's limited nuclear resources into producing lots of tactical mini nukes rather than build fewer large-scale devices...a warhead designed to fit current missile/bomb delivery systems rather than spend time on R&D to design new missiles to fit a larger payload?

[edit on 9-10-2006 by timski]

I've heard other reports that it was a 400 kiloton detonatation. The SK seismologists have confirmed activity. I think that the USGS has yet to officially make a statement on this.

That is rather odd.

Rumsfeld was noted as previously saying that if there was a nuke test, the US would be the first to know, and yet, there isn't a strong message that yes there was a test. We've even sent, or have the ability to send, special planes that can overfly the site and test for leaked radioactivity, but there isn't much of a statement yet, really.

When there is a nuke explosion, there are waves of varying types that pass through the earth, these waves go to all portions of the earth, and are picked up by seismographs nearly everywhere. You can't have, for example, a 'secret' nuke explosion. The US government had to have known, within moments, that there was a test.

[quiote]timski
Could possibly be that NK has decided to put it's limited nuclear resources into producing lots of tactical mini nukes rather than build fewer large-scale devices
Now that they've been able to successfully set off a nuke explosion, they can take that data and design and start deciding whether to make ICBMS or shoulder fired tactical nukes, etc.

This isn't to say that they can quickly make whatever they want, but now, that they've confirmed that their designs work, they can get started.

ultralo1
What if it was a nuke they bought from China or Russia?

THey wouldn't've tested it if it was bought from RUssia or China. They tested it to make sure that their nuke weapon technology works.

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

Seismographs would be the first line of detection. They're allways active, all over the world. Nothing that I have seen on the news so far suggests that anyone thinks this was a 'fake' test or something like that.

Erm... no, a country that has 4 mn tons of uranium at its disposal would never test a nuke... You ought to read this: www.globalsecurity.org...

[edit on 9-10-2006 by PatrioticAmerican]

Originally posted by timski
Could possibly be that NK has decided to put it's limited nuclear resources into producing lots of tactical mini nukes rather than build fewer large-scale devices...a warhead designed to fit current missile/bomb delivery systems rather than spend time on R&D to design new missiles to fit a larger payload?

North Korea doesn't need low yield tactical nukes it needs something BIG that can wipe the city out and scare their oponents. And subkiloton nuke would not scare anyone. It would have only 3-4% of Hiroshima bomb power.
And 400 kiloton explosion seems wayyyy too much for prototype fission bomb.

This is funny, everyone says something different.
Maybe it was just Kim's fart.

[edit on 9-10-2006 by longbow]

Originally posted by PatrioticAmerican
read this: www.globalsecurity.org...

the early 2005 stockpile would be 13 weapons, growing to about 20 weapons by the end of the year.

Looks like they have more than enough to spare for a test. Indeed, there's no sense in stockpiling nuke weapon material without testing. They need to test to verify that they can make a nuclear explosion. No country is going to build nuke weapons without testing them, far too many things can go wrong. It would be a real disaster to launch untested nukes at an enemy, have them not go off, and then be annihlated in a counter-attack.

(of course, it'd be a disaster to have a successful attack, and then be annihlated in a counter-attack too).

How mad is this nut going to be when he finds out the rest of the world is really laughing at his dud of a bomb.

There was some talk that at another test site something was going on.

I would let him keep his little bomb.

The bombs dropped on japan registered a 12 on the richter scale.

Nygdan, I'm serious, NK isn't going to refrain from testing, or even using, nuclear weapons while they can. Who would relinquish nuclear strike capability? Yeah, a democracy would... but NK's no democratic country.

As for their bomb stockpile... READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE.

North Korea maintains uranium mines with four million tons of exploitable high-quality uranium.

[edit on 9-10-2006 by PatrioticAmerican]

Originally posted by PatrioticAmerican
Nygdan, I'm serious, NK isn't going to refrain from testing, or even using, nuclear weapons while they can. Who would relinquish nuclear strike capability? Yeah, a democracy would... but NK's no democratic country.

country that has 4 mn tons of uranium at its disposal would never test a nuke

I am confused, are you saying that they would or wouldn't test? I think I misread the previous post, were you being sarcastic originally?

Originally posted by Nygdan
I am confused, are you saying that they would or wouldn't test? I think I misread the previous post, were you being sarcastic originally?

Yes, I was originally sarcastic.

Originally posted by warset
^let's say, there is no way russia and china will sell nukes to NK, this is not the cold war era, plz live up to date.

and I heard news from russia that it has confirmed that it was a nuclear explosion test, and it has been a 1.5Kt explosion, not like the SK claimed 0.5 Kt explosion.

When Russias economy went belly up everyone was struggling to stay alive, there black market was at its highest. I did not mean that the Russian gov sold the nukes I wa sthinking about the black market. So plz dont give me the up to date line any more. Russias economy is comming back and they have there hands in a lot of world politics.

Also to those that think that a 0.5 kiloton explosion would not be that devistating Imagine the tourist taking a tour of the Grand Cooley damn. BOOM the little nuke goes of. Or the little guy trying to get into World seris or the World cup soccer match. BOOM the little nuke goes off. Or Some one in the lobby of the sears tower looking around. Boom the little nuke goes off. I think you see where I am going with this.