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posted by martyb on Wednesday November 29 2017, @04:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the plans-are-for-next-launch-to-put-DC-in-oven dept.

North Korea's latest missile launch appears to put Washington, D.C., in range (archive)

North Korea appears to have launched another intercontinental ballistic missile, the Pentagon said Tuesday, with experts calculating that Washington, D.C., is now technically within Kim Jong Un's reach.

[...] The missile launched early Wednesday local time traveled some 620 miles and reached a height of about 2,800 miles before landing off the coast of Japan, flying for a total of 54 minutes. This suggested it had been fired almost straight up — on a "lofted trajectory" similar to North Korea's two previous intercontinental ballistic missile tests. [...] If it had flown on a standard trajectory designed to maximize its reach, this missile would have a range of more than 8,100 miles, said David Wright, co-director of the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. [...] The U.S. capital is 6,850 miles from Pyongyang.

Although it may be cold comfort, it is still unlikely that North Korea is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the U.S. mainland. Scientists do not know the weight of the payload the missile carried, but given the increase in range, it seems likely that it carried a very light mock warhead, Wright said. "If true, that means it would not be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to this long distance, since such a warhead would be much heavier," he said in a blog post.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @05:24AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @05:24AM (#602830)

    These are crap missiles. They are liquid fuel, and thus physically weak. Shooting them down isn't terribly hard for the USA, Israel, and Russia. The job can probably be done, perhaps with a bit of research effort, by many more nations: France, Japan, China, India... maybe even Poland.

    There are many ways to shoot them down. Nothing in life is perfectly reliable, so a sane plan would be to attack via multiple methods. Take enough shots at it, and the probability that it gets through will drop down well below that of equivalent natural disasters.

    1. Hack it before it even gets on the launch pad.

    2. Hit it from a ship or from South Korea with a rail gun.

    3. Hit it with THAAD from South Korea or Japan. We delivered THAAD to South Korea last March.

    4. Hit it with the S-400 from Russia or the KQ-9 from China.

    5. LASER it from a 747. The USA has mothballed hardware that can do this.

    6. Hit it with intercept in space. The USA has tech for this.

    7. LASER it from the ground as it passes through space, perhaps from Alaska or Hawaii. Things in space have been destroyed this way; the true details are not public.

    8. Hit it as it arrives. The USA and USSR both developed working systems for this.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Wednesday November 29 2017, @09:29AM (2 children)

    by frojack (1554) on Wednesday November 29 2017, @09:29AM (#602900) Journal

    We have no deployed rail guns.
    We don't have any deployed Laser planes.
    Russian and Chinese systems aren't for sale, and are not in position to defend the US or Japan.
    THAAD is a short range weapon designed to protect a target, you need them everywhere. Having them in Japan won't help us. Its not designed for a boost phase kill.

    We do have lots of Standard Missiles [wikipedia.org]

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @10:01AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @10:01AM (#602907)

      The claim was essentially that stopping an ICBM is close to impossible. Clearly it isn't.

      We have stuff, not so great, deployed right now and publicly acknowledged. We have more that can be deployed in the near future, and likely more that is not public. There are numerous other solutions that could be viable in just a few years. We aren't talking about fusion power, artificial wombs, or interstellar travel here!

      Because an ICBM would fly north to hit much of the USA (round Earth so flight near the pole), Russia is along many flight paths. Russia might be more willing to help than one might guess from public behavior. We'd owe them something, and it'd look great for them. There is a decent chance that Russia already has the equipment in place.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday November 29 2017, @10:44AM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday November 29 2017, @10:44AM (#602918) Journal

        I wouldn't include artificial wombs in your list. A proof of concept has already been demoed [soylentnews.org] and it's probably only a matter of single digit years before the process is perfected and can be used routinely for animals we don't care about (everything except for humans). Fusion power works, but there are several approaches to it and the question is when it will become economically viable (decades). Interstellar travel works on [wikipedia.org] paper [wikipedia.org], but will not be realized in the near term in any way that could be considered reliable or economical.

        With ICBM interception, we have what is publicly known, and then the black budget stuff. Since being able to reliably stop incoming nukes would be politically destabilizing. Well, even if we did perfect it, China would probably hack and steal it.

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @06:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 29 2017, @06:25PM (#603093)

    ... maybe even Poland.

    I come from Poland. You not say Poland weak. Poland is game to you?! Howbout I take your little board and smash it!!