How N. Korea suddenly had ICBMs that work

If you're interested in this story, it may be in print somewhere, but it's also in this podcast that you can listen to online, with no add-on apps:

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Hint: They didn't do it themselves.

Reply to
Ed Huntress
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Ed Huntress wrote on 8/24/2017 6:42 PM:

It is very easy to make a rocket. The difficult part is the flight control unit that keeps the rocket flying straight and narrow instead of going in random directions after liftoff and crashing back to earth near the launchpad.

A modern smartphone has all the sensors required to let the rocket correct its course and guide itself to its destination.

All you need to do is write an App and send the output to an interface to control the power of each of the three nozzles (a rocket as no wings or rudder, so a minimum of three nozzles would be needed to make the rocket go in any direction you want it to).

North Korea makes smartphones:

Download this Android App (Sensors Multitool) to read the sensors:

This "Sensors Multitool" App can read all the sensors in your Android smartphone (everything you need to guide a missile to its destination):

GPS Rotation Vector Linear Acceleration Gravity Gyroscope Accelerometer Magnetic Pressure Orientation

Reply to
EBsoZZ⚛← Mighty ╬ Wan nabe →⚛TeRcSC

The story is about the engines. N. Korea couldn't get a mid-range rocket to fire reliably. All of a sudden, they're building ICBMs that work.

The analysts recently realized why. The engines are Cold-War-Era Russian -- possibly made in the old Russian heavy-engine factory in the Ukraine.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

On 8/24/2017 7:44 PM, EBsoZZ?? ?????? ? ??????? ??TeRcSC wrote: ...

OK .. got it.

Reply to
Bob Engelhardt
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Ed Huntress wrote on 8/24/2017 8:04 PM:

As I said, it is very easy to make a rocket. North Korea's Hwasong rocket is using liquid hydrogen and oxygen. You can tell from the clean exhaust:

A rocket propels itself according to the theory of "Conservation of Momentum". It throws the mass out at high speed (the burning fuel) and the rockets accelerates in the opposite direction. The hydrogen and oxygen can by obtained by simple electrolysis of water. The gas valves and brass tubing can be bought in hardware store. Even the Palestinians can lob rockets at Israel (they just don't know how to control the flight path so their rockets zigzag wildly in the air).

Reply to
RNZhDq⚛← Mighty ╬ Wan nabe →⚛ASlSIX

I think you mean mean russia, not ukraine.

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

The factory is a holdover from the Sobiet days. It's in Ukraine.

But they say they're not making engines for N. Korea. The CIA probably knows the answer to this, but it could be that Russian engineers or unemployed Ukranians are helping N.Korea to build them.

The key point was in realizing what was new about their program. In roughly one year, they made progress that is widely thought to have been impossible, or nearly so.

Reply to
Ed Huntress
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Ed Huntress wrote on 8/24/2017 9:38 PM:

Don't be fooled by your CIA.

A rocket engine is a lot simpler than your car's reciprocating piston engine.

Reply to
GRwNYP⚛← Mighty ╬ Wan nabe →⚛bJLRGs

If you remember, China was blowing up missiles off the launch pad until

- The then President Clinton gave the Chinese the inertial guidance system that we the U.S.A. spent millions, hundreds of missiles and lives to get it right. Now North Korea has one ? And the physical packages and fuels from the Ukraine now ? This is getting out of hand.

Martin

Reply to
Martin Eastburn
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Martin Eastburn wrote on 8/24/2017 11:12 PM:

Please explain how "inertial guidance system" can mitigate "blowing up missiles off the launch pad".

Common sense dictates that the guidance system inside a missile has nothing to do with a missile blowing up off the launch pad.

Reply to
sTQjSE⚛← Mighty ╬ Wan nabe →⚛oPFbEi

message news:CWMnB.27374$ snipped-for-privacy@fx02.iad...

The Range Safety Officer sends a self-destruct command if the missile's guidance fails, to prevent it from causing damage wherever it might otherwise fall.

So much for your delusion of "common sense".

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

there is no ukraine, just russia.

Launching a rocket into the ocean isn't really that impressive, unless you're trying to catch up with the 1960s.

North korea is a joke, but at least they'd put up a fight if the russians walked over and said "this is ours now."

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

there are no range safety officers in china.

see for yourself

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Reply to
Cydrome Leader

We must have different world maps.

Launching one to an altitude of 2,300 miles is very impressive. Angle the trajectory down, and most US cities are in range.

Did you follow the analyses of the launch data? The rocket experts say the last one is a game changer.

Security experts are focused on other issues regarding North Korea.

Reply to
Ed Huntress
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When a rocket launch failed off the launch pad, it was the rocket propulsion engine that failed, not the 'guidance system'.

Reply to
HtOVBf⚛← Mighty ╬ Wan nabe →⚛fUEtdX
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Ed Huntress wrote on 8/25/2017 9:52 AM:

Kim Jong-Un doesn't need to buy old rockets from Ukraine. Rocket engine schematic diagrams are readily available on the internet.

RS-25 schematic:

As I said before, you need at least three nozzles so that you can make the rocket go whatever direction you want it to go (by adjusting the power of each individual nozzle):

North Korea's Kim Jong-Un and his rocket scientists had the smarts to assemble their own rocket engine from Home Depot parts, and use the sensors in a smartphone for the guidance system.

Reply to
avlWst⚛← Mighty ╬ Wan nabe →⚛UXuJNF

You seem to have a cartoonish view of engineering, a lot like the cartoon drawing you linked to above.

The most fundamental problem with your "analysis" is that they DIDN'T have the smarts to build even reliable shorter-range rockets, until, quite suddenly, they had success with much larger and longer-range rockets. Intelligence services were scratching their heads.

But Kim Jong Un's egotism led him to have photos of the new engines published, and US intelligence analysts quickly realized they're now using Russian-designed engines from the Cold War era. Those engines were originally made in the Ukraine.

You would know all of this if you listened to the podcast instead of speculating about cartoon drawings and Home Depot.

Reply to
Ed Huntress
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Ed Huntress wrote on 8/25/2017 11:10 AM:

The problem you have is your blind trust in your "US intelligence analysts". They are the same clowns who didn't know the 9/11 perpetrators were hatching their plan for 10 years right inside the US, and who said Saddam Hussein had WMD (which was proven didn't exist). They are famous for writing their reports by making shit up while on the loo.

Reply to
FqFisA⚛← Mighty ╬ Wan nabe →⚛xGnjoQ

I don't have a problem, but you do, trying to explain why N. Korea couldn't build a reliable mid-range rocket, and now, suddenly, they're building successful ICBMs.

Explain that one with your paranoid fantasies.

Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Hahahaha! Hey, Mark "aerospace" Wieber, since YOU'RE implying that you know something about rocketry, this is a good time to ask... did you figure out how to make your septic water drain into the ground yet? Seems like that should be the top item on your bucket list.

Reply to
Wasn't Born To Follow

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