New North Korean Missile Is A 'Monster'

npr ^ | November 30, 20172:12 PM ET | Geoff Brumfiel

[BenLurkin]

The intercontinental ballistic missile that North Korea launched on Wednesday appears to be significantly larger and more powerful than previous versions, according to independent analysts.

"It's a monster," says Vipin Narang, an associate professor at MIT who tracks the North's nuclear capabilities. The missile is so much larger than previous versions that Narang suspects it could carry a powerful thermonuclear weapon, regardless of whether the North has managed to make a compact, missile-friendly version.

"They wouldn't have to miniaturize much," Narang says. Other analysts are less sure about what the missile could carry and where it could reach. David Wright, a rocket expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says the devil remains in the details surrounding the rocket's engines and the weight of the warhead it carries.

Still, he believes that this missile gives the North Koreans the ability to deliver a nuclear warhead to U.S. soil. "I think at this point they could," he says.

Earlier this year, the North tested a massive nuclear weapon with a yield of 100-600 kilotons — roughly 7 to 40 times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. The size and weight of that device is unknown, but there were reports in August that the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency believed North Korea has had success miniaturizing some of its lower-yield nuclear weapons.

The new ICBM was launched early Wednesday local time. It shot up to an altitude of 4,000 kilometers and flew for 53 minutes before plunging into the Sea of Japan. After the launch, North Korean media declared the nation had successfully tested a new "Hwasong-15" ICBM.

Based on the height and duration of Wednesday's flight, Wright believes the Hwasong-15 could travel 13,000 kilometers. That would put all of the continental U.S. within range. He cautions that the weight of a real warhead could cause the missile's range to shrink considerably — but even by his most conservative estimate, the missile could hit cities along the U.S. West Coast.

The North has been known to give new names to missiles that have only minor modifications, but in this case "the rocket is clearly something new," Markus Schiller, an aerospace engineer with the German company ST Analytics, said in an email.

The North previously conducted two tests of an ICBM called the Hwasong-14 in July. In addition to appearing to be far larger than that missile, the Hwasong-15 also looks like it has more powerful engines, Schiller says. He also believes the North has learned how to "gimbal" the thrust chambers on the bottom of the engine — an advanced way to steer the missile that North Korea has never used before.

Schiller says he believes the missile could accommodate a payload of 2 metric tons or even more.

The missile's nose is so large that Narang believes it might even be able to hold decoys that could fool U.S. missile defenses.

Even with these advances, many questions remain about the North's missiles and nukes. It's unclear whether the country has perfected re-entry technology that would allow a warhead to survive the final leg of its journey toward its target. Nor is it known how the North's nuclear weapons would tolerate the stresses of being launched aboard a rocket.

But Narang says this new missile unambiguously puts the U.S. within range. And given what's known about the rest of North Korea's weapons program, he says, it's better to err on the side of caution.

He says, "We have to assume that this thing can park a warhead on the Eastern Seaboard."

[Riley]

Go on. Skin it. Skin that smokewagon, see what happens.

[bravo whiskey]

looks like the size of an SS-25, at least by the size of the TEL.

[Steely Tom]

[NPR] == [Lord Haw Haw]

[Williams]

I know all the horrible risks and I say destroy this regime and their missile and nuke capacity and do it now. Use nukes if needed. People talking about this missile are in fantasy land. Imagine when NK has 100 of these pointed at us, our very existence will be at risk.

[DIRTYSECRET]

NPR. Strictly the truth.

[BenLurkin]

If NPR really wanted to be helpful, it would find out who gave the NoKos the know-ho to build this.

[KevinB]

I’m glad we have a man as president now instead of our previous pajama boy.

[mylife]

Skin it back

[Riley]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnXgVcrcyWM

[snoringbear]

“I know all the horrible risks and I say destroy this regime and their missile and nuke capacity and do it now. Use nukes if needed. People talking about this missile are in fantasy land. Imagine when NK has 100 of these pointed at us, our very existence will be at risk.”

Well, whatever we decide to do, we will need the South Korean’s buy-in. Seoul will take a devastating beating with tens of thousands of casualties. Massive destruction of buildings, homes, property. Personally, I think the only solution for us would be a preemptive launch by North Korea and we then shoot it out of the sky. Then, we immediately launch a massive strike on their leadership and neuclear infrastructure.

[pfflier]

The picture of little kim viewing the missile on the website, looks like a modeler’s diorama.

[mylife]

Aint Skeered

[ransomnote]

NPR’s Tokyo Rose broadcast of the day.

[Yosemitest]

There's more to worry about than just than LITTLE CRAZY MAN's missles.

Research Kwangmyongsong-4 (KMS-4), a North Korean Satellite recently launched, and a man named James Oberg, along with Two Russian Generals warning the EMP Commission in 2004 that Russia's Super-EMP Warhead technology was "accidentally" transferred to North Korea.

Read page 4, paragraphs 4 thru 7, off the report titled:

STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD
DR. WILLIAM R. GRAHAM, CHAIRMAN
DR. PETER VINCENT PRY, CHIEF OF STAFF
COMMISSION TO ASSESS THE THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES FROM
ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP) ATTACK
TO
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY HEARING

“EMPTY THREAT OR SERIOUS DANGER:
ASSESSING NORTH KOREA’S RISK TO THE HOMELAND”
October 12, 2017

North Korea Nuclear EMP Attack:
An Existential Threat

...

Or an EMP attack might be made by a North Korean satellite, right now.

A Super-EMP weapon could be relatively small and lightweight, and could fit inside North Korea’s Kwangmyongsong-3 (KMS-3) and Kwangmyongsong-4 (KMS-4) satellites. These two satellites presently orbit over the United States, and over every other nation on Earth--demonstrating, or posing, a potential EMP threat against the entire world.

North Korea’s KMS-3 and KMS-4 satellites were launched to the south on polar trajectories and passed over the United States on their first orbit. Pyongyang launched KMS-4 on February 7, 2017, shortly after its fourth illegal nuclear test on January 6, that began the present protracted nuclear crisis with North Korea.

The south polar trajectory of KMS-3 and KMS-4 evades U.S. Ballistic Missile Early Warning Radars and National Missile Defenses, resembling a Russian secret weapon developed during the Cold War, called the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) that would have used a nuclear-armed satellite to make a surprise EMP attack on the United States. 7

...

Watch this:

BrightStar 4/The Greatest Threat. ( 10:51 )
BPEarthWatch
Published on Nov 7, 2017

Track KMS-4 at n2yo.com and be sure to enlarge of the map, so you can see where it's at in relationship to the United States, and how it crosses the United States.

[morphing libertarian]

waiting for the man to take manly action

[richardtavor]

Looks a lot like a russian icbm, doesn’t it? Oh well, probably just a coincidence.

[BigEdLB]

Go Ahead. Kimmie, Make his day...

[RoseofTexas]

China gave the evil little weasel everything he needed to get those missiles to work!!

[bkopto]

New North Korean Missile Is A 'Monster'

I beg to differ. This is a monster: