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