North Korea trying to play with the big boys again

[Darth Wong]

So it looks like no one shot it down.

You wouldn't want to bother shooting it down unless you are either need to (because it poses a threat) or you are absolutely 100% certain that you will be successful. Can you imagine if they tried to shoot it down but they missed? You think they look ineffectual now ...

[Seggybop]

Has anyone seen if they really inserted a satellite into orbit?
I also wonder what it ended up costing them to manufacture the missile. It would be ironic if their lack of funds meant they actually ended up creating a more cost-effective rocket than we have available now.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I'm hearing rumblings of conspiracy that Obama will provoke a war with North Korea to jump-start the American economy. I don't know how bad an idea is, but I'm worried too many people will just say 'Good idea!'

[Kane Starkiller]

Failed.

North Korea space launch 'fails'
North Korea failed in its attempt to get a satellite into space after a rocket launch early on Sunday, US and South Korean officials say.

Two stages of the rocket and its payload landed in the Pacific Ocean, a US military statement said.

Hours earlier North Korea claimed the satellite had successfully been put into orbit and was transmitting data.

The United States, Japan and South Korea suspect the launch was a cover for a long-range missile test.

They strongly condemned the launch. US President Barack Obama urged Pyongyang to "refrain from further provocative actions".

"North Korea broke the rules once more by testing a rocket that could be used for a long-range missile," Mr Obama told a crowd in the Czech capital, Prague.

"This provocation underscores the need for action - not just this afternoon at the UN Security Council, but in our determination to prevent the spread of these weapons."

The Security Council approved a Japanese request for the emergency session.

Washington, Tokyo and Seoul regard the launch as a clear violation of Security Council resolution 1718 adopted in October 2006, which bans North Korea from carrying out ballistic missile activity.

Assuming, of course, getting a satellite into orbit rather than performing a ballistic missile test was ever their intention.

[Darth Onasi]

The only way this could be more obvious as a ballistic nuke missile test is if they painted "NUCLEAR WARHEAD GOES HERE." on the top of the rocket in big red letters.

[Revan's Fire]

But didn't you hear? It was an amazing success! The western oppressors shall shake in their boots!

Four hours after the launch, North Korea declared it a success. An experimental communications satellite reached outer space in just over nine minutes and was orbiting Earth, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said from Pyongyang.

"The satellite is transmitting the melodies of the immortal revolutionary paeans 'Song of Gen. Kim Il Sung' and 'Song of Gen. Kim Jong Il' as well as measurement data back to Earth," it said, referring to the country's late founder and his son, its current leader.

But South Korea's defense minister and the U.S. military disputed that account. North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command officials said in a statement that the first stage of the rocket fell into the waters between Korea and Japan, while the two other stages, and its payload, landed in the Pacific Ocean.

From here

[Darth Wong]

I'm hearing rumblings of conspiracy that Obama will provoke a war with North Korea to jump-start the American economy. I don't know how bad an idea is, but I'm worried too many people will just say 'Good idea!'

In general, wars do not jump-start economies: they drain them. Obama is perfectly aware of this. Unfortunately, the people who are spreading these rumours obviously are not.

I heard the same bullshit back in 2002: people were claiming that the Iraq War was a good idea if only because it would boost the economy.

[Steve]

I think it's because of how WWII is seen as "ending" the Great Depression. People assume this means that war can be good for economic recovery without considering how WWII actually effected the US economy and the end of the Depression.

They also forget what WWI did to the global economy.

[Rogue 9]

Unfortunately, the recovery from the Great Depression is associated with the Second World War, whether the war was actually the cause of the recovery or not. (I do not know if this was the case or not, though considering the huge jumpstart it gave American manufacturing in producing war materiel, I can see it being so.) This has produced the brainbug that wars boost economies, even though most wars (including the Iraq war) don't have the associated gigantic production of equipment that went with the World War, especially in the modern environment where the United States armed forces are already well equipped and largely don't need vast amounts of tanks, vehicles, ships, and weapons produced in a hurry in order to fight.

Edit: And Steve got there first. What happened to the function that tells you someone's posted since you started writing?

[Sea Skimmer]

So it looks like no one shot it down.

You wouldn't want to bother shooting it down unless you are either need to (because it poses a threat) or you are absolutely 100% certain that you will be successful. Can you imagine if they tried to shoot it down but they missed? You think they look ineffectual now ...

That logic does not follow on its own. If our systems are so bad they can’t defeat a single missile NOW, then we sure as shit want to know that now and not when it truly counts. But we wouldn’t have failed, because in a real combat situation like this we’d have fired multiple interceptors, and have time for several salvos. One of them will work. Testing uses a single missile because it’s a rather expensive thing to do and we want to learn what doesn’t work. Whatever idiot civilian commentators think is irrelevant, real militaries know ABM works, why else do you think the Russians howl about it so much, and that so many other nations like Japan are willing to spend billions to get it?