The Dear Leader's Peoples' Committee for Cultural and Racial Diversity of the North in Praising the Great Works of Communism holds its weekly meeting -- NY Times
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.
I still believe that these “tests” are for military purposes first (see the small bomb theory), and advertising second to potential buying who can send over cash to keep the regime afloat.
Exactly. That’s why this geologist is dead wrong in thinking they are building primitive fat boy type nukes.
They would be concentrating their efforts on making modern miniaturized nukes similar to ours, and NOT wasting their limited plutonium supply. A 4KT blast could mean they had a very successful test, after following the directions at ‘howstuffworks.com’ LoL!
Their goal isnt a miniature deliverable. They just need something that goes “boom” down in a hole. That achieves Kim’s goal of squeezing money out of the USA. We got a weak naive president in January. He figured out how to play his guy in a nanosecond.
The proper way to measure the yield of a North Korean is not in Kilotons,,,it’s more properly measured in billion’s of dollars bluffed out of the USA!!
For all we know, they were testing a nuclear trigger. Our nukes have triggers that put out as much power as the nagasaki bomb.
And supplied them with a design and a bucket of fissile material...
the homogeniety always astounds me.
I can’t believe that. They want regional power as well, power over Japan, a deterrence to China and Russia, major influence over S.korea, and something salable, which they THEN can blackmail billions from the USA with, much like Pakistan does.
The Dear Leader's Peoples' Committee for Cultural and Racial Diversity of the North in Praising the Great Works of Communism holds its weekly meeting -- NY Times
Not a lot of “empathy” in NoKo.
Surely people don't think their scientists are cave men.
WOW...they look “happy.”
Gee, ya think?
The psychological effect is HUGE as well.
Just “North Korea Nukes Seoul”, no matter what the yield, is enough to cause huge disruptions worldwide.
And, for all we know, Obama will get his high powered foreign policy team together (aka Hillary) and start tough negotiations with North Korea. But first, they’ll need to offer them something as a sign of good faith...something like our nuclear trigger technology...yeah, that’ll get North Korea to come back to the bargaining table...
They also told us that “nuclear shelters” wouldn’t work. Not against a volly of bombs by the major nuclear powers but ultimately there were people in Japan who were partially burned by where they were exposed.
Depends on the yield of the bomb.
If you are at ground zero you don’t have much hope but beyond that...
I went through tornado drills living on the Gulf Coast. Maybe he was just confused. Or lying again.
What’s the carbon footprint?
Where is the no nukes crowd?
How many animals and weeds were killed?
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