Posted on 05/28/2009 6:44:23 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
N. Korean nuclear blast probably less powerful than hoped for: Yale scholar
By Sam Kim
SEOUL, May 28 (Yonhap) -- North Korea apparently failed to achieve desired explosiveness in its second nuclear test, a Yale University professor says, citing seismic readings that have been generated by it.
North Korea set off an underground nuclear explosion on Monday, creating a shock that registered 4.52 in magnitude on the Richter scale, according to a Vienna-based anti-nuclear weapons organization.
North Korea produced a magnitude of 4.1 in its first test in October 2006, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty says.
Jefferey Park, director of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies, said the seismic data from Monday's test indicate that North Korea failed to create a "Hiroshima-class crude explosive device."
"It was too small," he wrote on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, referring to the explosion.
Using what he called standard conversions, Park, a geologist, said North Korea appears to have produced a force of 4 kilotons or less through the test that took place in the northeastern region.
"That's a lot of energy, much larger than the 2006 North Korean test, but it still falls far short of an expected 12-20 kiloton yield of a crude Hiroshima-style device," he said. North Korea is believed to have produced less than 1 kiloton in its previous test.
Park said if North Korea had built a detonator precise enough, it would have obtained a yield of 10-20 kilotons. One kiloton is equal to 1,000 tons of TNT.
"My guess is that North Korea tried and failed to get a simple plutonium bomb to detonate correctly," he said.
But he said the latest explosion should not be taken as a failure, warning, "Make no mistake -- an inefficient nuclear weapon is nothing to dismiss."
"Even at the low end of its estimated yield (2 kilotons), the May 25 test released as much or more explosive energy than the largest conventional-explosive air raids during World War II," he said.
If we let this slide, we will have the third and the fourth.... Eventually followed by ones from S. Korea and Japan.
Ping!
Should we be surprised that someone from Yale thought it was “too small”?
We should drop in a nuke bunker-buster and show them what a big boom feels like.
Too small.. well I gues we have nothing to worry about. Good thing Obama will make all things right, or we’d still have major cause of concern.
non-pc joke ahead, warning
“Wow, they DON’T all look alike...”
Sure!
not
gee, what yield do they need to take out Seoul?
That’s what I’m thinking... Sounds like they’re floating trial balloons, trying to minimize the seriousness of the test. “Look, they failed, they have problems...” Making an excuse for doing nothing. obama is gutless.
100 tons, 10 tons, 1 ton...
It doesn’t matter what the yield is. Simply the fact that it IS a nuclear explosion is enough to get the desired effect.
Using what he called standard conversions, Park, a geologist, said North Korea appears to have produced a force of 4 kilotons or less through the test that took place in the northeastern region.
It all depends on how much fuel they used and what the target blast size was, all things this guy doesn't know.
Perhaps they made a bigger blast than planned, using only a small amount of fuel for testing a 3 KT miniaturized weapon and achieved greater efficiency than expected.
I doubt they are gong to supply the world with the data, so we can only speculate. I'd expect the worst.
Making old fat boy type nukes doesn't make much sense and is a big waste of their limited nuclear fuel. They're most likely trying to build modern miniaturized nukes for short the range missile capability they have.
I’m sure 0bama or his advisors HAVE to know that “minimizing” the Norks efforts have a really bad cultural effect... they lose face, and they react.
If ‘bammy wants an analogy, it’d be like calling Al Sharpton “boy”.
Wouldn't that be embarrassing if our aging nuke failed to go off...
The yield was very small, about 20% of Nagasaki. It is now suspected that was intentional and in fact planned. They are simply trying to make a nuke small enough for transport by missile and don't care if the yield is low because of portability measures.
A 4 kilo yield air burst at 800 feet would flatten any downtown core.
None. They have enough conventional weapons pointed at it to do the job. One day, when the wind is blowing north west, Obama has to toss a few low yield nukes along the DMZ to take that arsenal out, but without creating much fallout. Otherize, if the North koreans fire first, Seoul is done.
"Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!"
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