Posted on 07/06/2006 7:32:32 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
Again, the DPRK not intending nor having any realistic capability to actually directly hit, or close collision or endanger a Shuttle, but being able to create a huge media stink with their timing, and a mindset in the drama department, (which is why they launched on 4 July a few minutes away from the Shuttle launch)--this is possible. Kim Jong il is a movie director, a creator of secenarios. Nobody can predict what is in his brain, but I think this could be one of his scenarios the week after next.
What I suspect they are doing is now readying another Taepodong-2 launch for the day the Shuttle returns mid-month, yes.
We did have a shootdown of a KAL as you remember by the Soviets. I think we are in the same tense mode right now. This is disrupting commerce, oil rates, movement of people, everything right now. Everything KJI is doing is destabilizing.
You can't be serious. There is ZERO chance. You'd have a better chance bringing down a 747 with a BB gun a mile or two away from an airport than they would have hitting the POS shuttle.
Well, I said I was completely clueless about both missiles and shuttles.....but the reply above from AmericaninTokyo makes sense that they would still do it just as a PR stunt.
However, what they CAN do is time a transpacific launch of a Taepodong-2 at the same time the Shuttle returns, for PR effect--the same day, same hour, what not.
It wouldn't make sense, but Kim Jong il is insane. Dictators are often incapable of understanding basic science (they deal in fear, not logic). It is possible that some NK "scientists" are being told to bring down the shuttle.
Exactly. When dealing with someone as crazy as a sh*thouse rat, one must think like a sh*thouse rat.
Kim Jong-il is out to up the ante until everybody else gets scared and gives in. Shooting missiles recklessly, and taking away Chinese trains for their use. It just shows that the N. Korean regime is starting to break apart.
I think that is certainly possible. Scaring people is what he does best. However, if he really does it to Space Shuttle, this will be probably his last stunt.
NK has a good location to disrupt a shuttle landing. While the big-sky-small-plane theory minimizes the chances of a direct missile strike, the possibility still exists and should be addressed by NASA. Also, what if NK intentionally destroys a missile to "shotgun" the flight path of a shuttle? What if they decide to test their first nuke on a missile launched "close enough"?
Just how mad is NK's dictator?
He is doing this, most of all, to shore up his domestic base, yes, and keep the bombers and snipers at a safe enough distance from himself, considering how weak his power hold is becoming. Can you believe the DPRK TV news today? I don't know if you saw a clip. Hilarious. The announcer needed to have an assistant wipe up his drool, he was so excited to announced The Republic's launch of these missiles for self defense, and also issue a threat of war while he was at it. Prime Time Pyongyang TV at its best.
Better to drool than face slow painful death at a gulag. He had better outperform Baghdad Bob.
If it ever got that bad--which I doubt it could get--I am sure the shuttle trajectory could be altered by NASA to keep them clearly away from that part of the northern pacific. I think all KJI wants is a media splash. He saw how the US media (CNN, etc. which he watches in his fortified bunker) tied his launch to the Shuttle Launch....and he must have had a big, fat chuckle. With that kind of sick mindset, me thinks he is timing the next Taepodong-2 to 16 July just for more fun.
I agree, a random missile hit would be rare indeed. But since I witnessed a "near miss" several years ago over the Grand Canyon area, commercial flying can still give me the willies, even given the enormous statistical safety boons.
How near was it? It buffeted our plane (Southwest Airlines, Phoenix to Sacramento), when another jet airliner flew directly underneath in a near t-bone (west to east) angle. Only myself and one other passenger, who was also window gazing, even saw the other plane streak by. All the other passengers, including at least one flight attendant I talked to, just assumed we had hit a pocket of air turbulence. Scary...that cross-path (west to east) plane looked bigger'n Dallas approaching in the portside window.
If they didn't want to reveal their intelligence intercept capabilities, that's one thing, but to reveal them now without any benefit in advance...well...
--"Let's not talk about what Clinton did, let's talk about how Bush has failed."
If the above quoted, carefully coifed, empty headed, 'talking Head' can say that and get away with it, one may assume that Fox is trending Left. Perhaps Fox's owner is more partial to the Left and the Dems than was assumed by many.
The North Korean missile launching area should be nuked. And we shouldn't wait for the UN's "permission".
The long range missile was evidently in flight for more than seven minutes before it was destroyed. The night of the launch all the dems on Larry King's show kept saying it was in the air for mere seconds, then failed. That's why we didn't have to blow it up. But it seems the rocket was in the air far longer than first thought. Maybe we did take it out and just aren't saying.
IMO, given the track record of the South Korean "leadership" this timidity about sounding the alarm is more about not wanting to upset their cozy relationships with the North (slave labor for the chaebol) than anything else.
Certain of Fox's shows have indeed been trending left. Mornings tend to be leftish; Gibson and Hume a bit more to the right, which isn't to say they favor the right, just more of a balance.
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