Post by: Headless Thompson Gunner on October 08, 2006, 07:14:39 PM
Post by: Gewehr98 on October 08, 2006, 07:43:24 PM
I just retired from the agency responsible for tracking nuclear explosions around the world. They're thorough, and downright scary in accuracy. Suffice it to say, when they make their report, typically within an hour or two of the event, the State Department and White House will be very busy, and somebody will be on the TV with a statement. Otherwise, it's conjecture until proven otherwise.
Post by: mfree on October 08, 2006, 08:01:42 PM
Anyhow, http://www.llnl.gov/str/Zucca.html that makes note that a device at the top allowable of the test ban treaty, 150kt, made a richter 6 shake... leads me to believe this is what the Aussies speculated it was, a 10 to 20kt uranium device, likely a gun type bomb like Little Boy was. All you need for that is enriched uranium, the rest of it is literally a cannon barrel, a bag of cordite, and an ignitor with maybe some neutron reflector material around it to increase yield.
Post by: mfree on October 08, 2006, 08:03:11 PM
It's on the charts, ladies and gentlemen, Kim's genie is out of the bottle.
Post by: Gewehr98 on October 08, 2006, 08:12:54 PM
Post by: Headless Thompson Gunner on October 08, 2006, 08:24:32 PM
The source I read said South Korea detected a 3.6 richter tremor at the time of the test. For an underground nuke test, that seems awfully low. Test blasts on the order of 100 - 150kt are known to produce 6.0 richter or thereabouts. If this 3.6 richter blast really was a nuke test, it musta been a teeny one. Conventional high explosives could simulate an explosion that "small".
North Korea is also reporting that the underground test sight was completely sealed, that no nuclear material or radation escaped. Now maybe they did seal it up well enough to conatin all of the radiation. But would the North Korean "government" care enough about the welfare of its people or the environment to bother with a perfectly sealed test sight? Maybe it wasn't a nuke at all and these remarks are simply a cover story, knowing the west would be able to detect the release of radiation from a real nuclear detonation.
Post by: Gewehr98 on October 08, 2006, 08:28:37 PM
Note the loud background data, which has to be filtered and/or factored out of the magnitude equation. But for a quick gut check, nothing says kaboom, either nuclear or HE, like that type of waveform.
Post by: 280plus on October 08, 2006, 09:45:31 PM
28 minutes ago
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea said Monday it had performed its first nuclear weapons test, an underground explosion that defied international warnings but was hailed by the communist nation as a "great leap forward" for its people.
The reported test drew harsh rebuke from North Korea's neighbors. The U.N. Security Council is expected to discuss the North Korean issue on Monday, and the United States and Japan are likely to press for a resolution imposing additional sanctions on Pyongyang.
The U.S. Geological Survey said it had recorded a magnitude-4.2 seismic event in northeastern North Korea. Australia and South Korea also said there was seismic confirmation that pointed to a nuclear test.
However, Japan said it could not immediately confirm the test.
North Korea's nuclear test was equivalent to 550 tons of TNT, a state-run South Korean geological institute said. That is relatively small compared to the bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima, which was equivalent to 12,500 tons of TNT.
Although North Korea has long claimed it had the capability to produce a bomb, the reported test Monday, if confirmed, would be the first proof of its membership in a small club of nuclear-armed nations. That would dramatically alter the strategic balance of power in the region and seriously undermine global anti-proliferation efforts.
The test Monday morning came a day after the ninth anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's appointment as head of the Korean Workers' Party. Tuesday will be the 61st anniversary of the party's founding.
The North warned last week it would conduct a nuclear test, sparking frantic diplomatic efforts to head it off.
Condemnation of North Korea from world powers came swiftly after the test was announced.
"A North Korean nuclear test would constitute a provocative act in defiance of the will of the international commuity and of our call to refrain from actions that would aggravate tensions in Northeast Asia," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
"We expect the U.N. Security Council to take immediate actions to respond to this unprovoked act," he said. "The United States is closely monitoring the situation and reaffirms its commitment to protect and defend our allies in the region."
China, the North's closest ally, said Beijing "resolutely opposes" the test and hopes Pyongyang will return to the six-party nuclear disarmament talks.
Japan's top government spokesman said if confirmed, the North Korean test would post a serious threat to the stability in the region and a provocation.
South Korea's presidential spokesman says Seoul will "sternly respond" to North Korea nuclear test and the Defense Ministry raised the military alert level.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the underground test was performed successfully and there was no dangerous radioactive leakage as a result of the underground test.
North Korean scientists "successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions," the KCNA report said, adding this was "a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great prosperous powerful socialist nation."
"It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the ... people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defense capability," the KCNA statement went on to say. "It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it."
South Korean intelligence officials said the seismic wave had been detected in North Hamkyung province, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency. It said the test was conducted at 10:36 a.m. (9:36 p.m. EDT Sunday) in Hwaderi near Kilju city on the northeast coast, citing defense officials.
An official at South Korea's seismic monitoring center confirmed a magnitude-3.6 tremor felt at the time North Korea said it conducted the test was not a natural occurrence. The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition his name not be used, because he was not authorized to talk about the sensitive information to the media.
Australia also said there was seismic confirmation that North Korea conducted a nuclear test.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was skeptical as he arrived for a summit in South Korea.
"We must collect and analyze information to determine whether a test was actually held," he said.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun convened a meeting of security advisers over the issue, Yonhap reported, and intelligence over the test has been exchanged between concerned countries.
Kyodo News agency reported that the Japanese government has set up a taskforce in response to reports of the test.
The North has refused for a year to attend six-party international talks aimed at persuading it to disarm. The country pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 2003 after U.S. officials accused it of a secret nuclear program, allegedly violating an earlier nuclear pact between Washington and Pyongyang.
A U.N. Security Council resolution adopted in July after a series of North Korean missile launches imposed limited sanctions on North Korea and demanded that the reclusive communist nation suspend its ballistic missile program a demand the North immediately rejected.
The resolution bans all U.N. member states from selling material or technology for missiles or weapons of mass destruction to North Korea and it bans all countries from receiving missiles, banned weapons or technology from Pyongyang.
Speculation over a possible North Korean test arose earlier this year after U.S. and Japanese reports cited suspicious activity at a suspected underground test site.
South Korean and Chinese envoys to North Korean disarmament talks prepared Monday to confer on North Korea's announcement that it had conducted a nuclear test.
South Korea's envoy, Chun Yung-woo, was on a plane to Beijing when North Korea made its announcement. Upon his arrival in Beijing, Chun said he was caught unaware and wanted first to consult with his Chinese counterpart, Wu Dawei, before commenting.
The South Korean and Japanese leaders were expected to meet in Seoul on Monday to discuss how to resolve the nuclear impasse and repair soured ties between their countries.
On Sunday in Beijing, Abe held summit talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao and they pledged to work to persuade North Korea to call off the test and rejoin the six-nation talks.
South Korean stocks plunged Monday following North Korea's announcement of the test. The South Korean won also fell sharply. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index, or Kospi, fell as low as 1,303.62, or 3.6 percent.
Markets in South Korea, the world's 10th-largest economy, have long been considered vulnerable to potential geopolitical risks emanating from the North. The two countries, which fought the 1950-53 Korean War, are divided by the world's most heavily armed border.
Post by: Iain on October 08, 2006, 11:42:56 PM
I'd guess that North Korea knows something about the work you used to do and would do a bit better than digging a really big hole and dumping all the conventional explosives in the country in that hole. Is it possible to separate a nuke test from HE, especially as 280's article claims that South Korea is saying that it was a fairly piddly one?
Post by: 280plus on October 09, 2006, 03:19:52 AM
Quote
an underground explosion that defied international warnings but was hailed by the communist nation as a "great leap forward" for its people.
A leap forward into what?
Post by: Ron on October 09, 2006, 03:39:39 AM
Post by: 280plus on October 09, 2006, 03:43:52 AM
Thanx GoRon, I needed that. What was the name of that flick? Finest example of puppet porn I have ever seen.
Post by: Ron on October 09, 2006, 03:48:07 AM
Post by: HankB on October 09, 2006, 04:05:08 AM
Quote
Is it possible to separate a nuke test from HE,
Some time ago there was a special on one of the cable channels about the use of explosives in open pit mining. The mining operation typically set off a LOT of charges at once in order to break off a LOT of rock from the face of the mine, and they mentioned that they were required put in a delay between the detonation of adjacent explosive-filled boreholes in order to differentiate their detonation from a small nuclear blast.They found out that altering the timing actually improved the rock-face fracturing effect of the explosives, so they didn't mind at all.
Anyway, that suggests that it may be difficult to tell the difference between a conventional detonation and that of a small nuke. (The US has manufactured devices with much less than a 1-kiloton yield.)
Post by: Iain on October 09, 2006, 04:20:27 AM
Post by: AJ Dual on October 09, 2006, 06:34:55 AM
Quote from: HankB
Quote
Is it possible to separate a nuke test from HE,
Some time ago there was a special on one of the cable channels about the use of explosives in open pit mining. The mining operation typically set off a LOT of charges at once in order to break off a LOT of rock from the face of the mine, and they mentioned that they were required put in a delay between the detonation of adjacent explosive-filled boreholes in order to differentiate their detonation from a small nuclear blast.They found out that altering the timing actually improved the rock-face fracturing effect of the explosives, so they didn't mind at all.
Anyway, that suggests that it may be difficult to tell the difference between a conventional detonation and that of a small nuke. (The US has manufactured devices with much less than a 1-kiloton yield.)
Would that look different on the seismograph or not? With all the fancy filtering they can do with computers, my gut tells me "maybe". My thinking is that it would be hard to get the same "spike" as a nuke, since that big a pile of conventional explosives would detonate a bit slower and with less simultaneity. I saw the mining special that they needed to time the blasts and file reports so international agencies didn't think it was nuke-testing as well. However, I wonder if that's just to prevent initial alarms, and that the monitors could still tell the difference with further study.
But what do I know?
If it was a nuke, I'm guessing it's a crude gun-barrel device. If it truly is a sub-kT yield, I think it was an explosives test for bomb design, but not actually nuclear.
Right now I'm hearing conflicting reports of the Richter scale. Since it's a logarithmic scale, there's worlds of difference between magnatude 3.6 and 4.2. From what I gather, one's a big pile of dynamite, and one's an honest-to-God nuke.
I also imagine that the geology of the region could either mask or amplify the actual yield somewhat.
Post by: 280plus on October 09, 2006, 07:23:45 AM
Post by: The Rabbi on October 09, 2006, 07:33:22 AM
Post by: Gewehr98 on October 09, 2006, 09:55:55 AM
Oh, I know what we're doing. I just can't get into the specifics for at least 75 years after I retired this last May. Suffice it to say some folks are rather busy right now, depending on the regional air mass trajectories, crew rest, etc. I'm rather glad they don't have my phone number anymore, truthfully. It's kinda nice not being awakened in the middle of the night to go fly in 30 minutes against an event-triggered alert. Not that there wasn't sufficient warning to preclude hammering out most of the alert checklists prior to yesterday.
There'll be sniffing, analysis, and a demarche or three handed out at the U.N. Security Council. Just enough to let the world and NK know we know what it was, but not enough to let them figure out how we know.
Behold, Boeing WC-135C Constant Phoenix tail number #62-3582, fresh from rebuild as a previous EC-135C Looking Glass. The Japanese newspapers have been known to call it "The Great White Bird", as some sort of savior against North Korean evil.
Fact sheet:
http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=192
Post by: Telperion on October 09, 2006, 10:44:44 AM
Post by: 280plus on October 09, 2006, 11:37:32 AM
Post by: Mabs2 on October 09, 2006, 01:09:21 PM
Post by: Headless Thompson Gunner on October 09, 2006, 01:50:50 PM
Post by: drewtam on October 09, 2006, 02:12:59 PM
From the siesmograph, I tend to believe that if you wanted to fake it with HE you can. It just might take a lot of well coordinated blasting caps to set it all off quickly.
If its true, which I tend to believe it is, I dont see how this really changes anything. We weren't going to invade. NK knew it couldn't invade SK. We weren't going to nuke them. They aren't suicidal, so they aren't going to nuke us or SK or JP. And I doubt they will have a coup anytime soon.
That border aint moving. It might make SK worried, but I find it highly unlikely that it is the real danger.
Now the Wahhabist Muslims on the otherhand; we are willing to invade them, they are willing to invade us. We're almost ready to nuke them, (remember the angry threats in the days after 9-11). And if they got a nuke, they would nuke us, since they certainy are suicidal.
Lets keep our eye on the ball.
Drew
Post by: CAnnoneer on October 09, 2006, 04:23:03 PM
Post by: Gewehr98 on October 09, 2006, 04:41:05 PM
They were contract built by Rock-Ola and Seeburg, using the same record changer technology from the jukeboxes of the late 50's and early 60's. Each U-1 foil has 13 screened filter paper assemblies in an indexable carriage assembly, allowing the mission crew to expose 12 individual 13" special cotton filter papers per each side of the aircraft. (The 13th screen is actually a purge screen to flush out contaminants in the foil prior to landing) There's a remotely-actuated clamshell door on the front of the foil, and inside the duct portion of the foil is a Geiger-Muller tube that sits directly against whichever filter paper is being exposed. We expose those filter papers to the airstream anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours, depending on sampling profile and what activity we find accumulating on the papers.
That's the particulate portion of the collection. There are also 4 very powerful compressors on board that take engine bleed air and compress it to 3000psi in 30 minutes, loading the whole air sample into 900 cubic inch stainless steel spheres. We carry 48 or more of those spheres on each sortie, plus the 24 filter papers, so our sampling duration isn't the limiting factor in a mission - it's crew duty day, not to exceed 24 hours. I've had a few 21 hour-long flights, particularly during Desert Storm, and it ain't a whole lot of fun. The sound/cold insulation inside the foil assembly and the fuselage can be un-velcro'ed from inside, and that's where I normally put my Mountain Dew cans during transit flights at 35K feet. In a few minutes, it's ice-cold, but one had better retrieve them before they explode and incur the crew chief's wrath.
A close-up of the right U-1 foil:
Cannoneer, when you're done re-fighting the Civil War to your liking in the other thread, please educate us on how we would keep a horribly unstable and trigger-happy North Korea from running a reactor, extracting the fuel rods, reprocessing those fuel rods for the Plutonium 239 created therein, assembling, and then testing a fission device. Please be specific on tactics and strategy in waging an overt military operation in China's own back yard without appearing to be expansionist or imperialistic to the rest of the world. Nor would a covert operation under cover of SEALS go unchallenged once the DPRK figured out what hit them. In case one forgets, real gunboat diplomacy faded away after the Great White Fleet. If the world body doesn't sanction us to go in and clean house, the best one can hope for is we hire the Mossad to get the job done, then deny any involvement afterwards. Otherwise, it's back to sanctions and smoking/starving them out. We've got time and we can wait, be it Kim Jong Il, Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei, or Fidel Castro.
Post by: CAnnoneer on October 09, 2006, 05:07:15 PM
Quote
when you're done re-fighting the Civil War to your liking in the other thread
Pray elaborate.Quote
Please be specific on tactics and strategy in waging an overt military operation in China's own back yard without appearing to be expansionist or imperialistic to the rest of the world.
It is curious how concerned we are with appearances, almost to the exclusion of everything else, yet everybody hates us anyway no matter what we do. Methinks we should be less concerned with appearances and more concerned with reality. Then useful appearances will naturally follow. Everybody who has been a successful leader understands that.If it is China's backyard, they should take care of it. If it is not, Kim is up for grabs. If he is up for grabs, all options are on the table - ultimatum, coup d'etat, economic strangulation, assassination, invasion, conventional bombing, nuclear pre-emptive strike. Whatever gets the job done, in order of increasing severity.
Post by: Headless Thompson Gunner on October 09, 2006, 05:45:41 PM
Quote from: CAnnoneer
It is curious how concerned we are with appearances, almost to the exclusion of everything else, yet everybody hates us anyway no matter what we do. Methinks we should be less concerned with appearances and more concerned with reality. Then useful appearances will naturally follow. Everybody who has been a successful leader understands that.
If it is China's backyard, they should take care of it. If it is not, Kim is up for grabs. If he is up for grabs, all options are on the table - ultimatum, coup d'etat, economic strangulation, assassination, invasion, conventional bombing, nuclear pre-emptive strike. Whatever gets the job done, in order of increasing severity.
Agreed. Now that the lunatics running NK can turn entire cities into glass and slag, it behooves us to stop worrying about our reputation and start worrying about our safety (and that of our allies in SK, Japan, The Philippines...). If it is China's backyard, they should take care of it. If it is not, Kim is up for grabs. If he is up for grabs, all options are on the table - ultimatum, coup d'etat, economic strangulation, assassination, invasion, conventional bombing, nuclear pre-emptive strike. Whatever gets the job done, in order of increasing severity.
Kim Jong Il's temperament leads me to conclude that this is an "us or them" type situation - someday, somehow, somebody is gonna get nuked. Better them than us. The Bush Doctrine/Pre-Emptive Strike Theory is looking mighty appealing right now.
All that guff about respecting sovereign nations and moral equivalence and so forth is a bunch of hot air. The purpose of the US governemt is to protect the liberties, property, and interests of the American people, NOT to win some sort of international popularity contest.
Now that KJI has the bomb, ugliness will ensue one way or another. Let us hope that our leaders have the courage to do what needs to be done to minimize that ugliness, and failing that, to keep the ugliness as far away from our soil as possible.
Post by: RocketMan on October 09, 2006, 06:54:57 PM
Quote
I was thinking about that, what if NK just set off a heap of conventional explosives to fake it as a bargaining chip?
What if it was a fizzle, and now North Korea is down a few nuclear physicists? I wonder if the NKs make the family members pay for the bullets?
Post by: Guest on October 09, 2006, 07:43:50 PM
Post by: mtnbkr on October 10, 2006, 02:06:16 AM
Maybe it's time for the international community to collectively point and laugh at NK. Maybe China will give them a big wedgie.
Chris
Post by: 280plus on October 10, 2006, 02:07:11 AM
Didn't we BAN nuclear weapons?
Doesn't seem to be working. Hmph...imagine that.
Post by: utahminirevolver on October 10, 2006, 04:10:19 AM
Amen.
Post by: ilbob on October 10, 2006, 04:22:34 AM
Quote from: CAnnoneer
I am thoroughly disgusted with our Fearless Leaders. To allow this commie nutcase to get a nuke is a high crime against sanity and our national interests. It would be an even greater crime to allow him to get away with it. The consequences and implications are beyond grim.
keep in mind how this happened in the first place.a previous administration sold rocket technology to the red chinese in exchange for large campaign contributions.
then they GAVE nuclear technology to NK in exchange for an agreement that every one knew they would not abide by. my guess is it was part of the rocket deal.
there is little you can do to put the genie back in the bottle.
Post by: The Rabbi on October 10, 2006, 05:06:17 AM
Post by: roo_ster on October 10, 2006, 05:16:53 AM
Quote from: ilbob
there is little you can do to put the genie back in the bottle.
True. But, you can always kill the genie & the bottle-rubber if it comes down to brass tacks.Quote from: c-yeager
I wonder what kind of threat is actually posed with a couple of nukes in NK. I mean the worse he could do is lob them at Seol or Japan, but what would they have to gain from that? It would cost them a hell of a lot more than they could ever get. All that is accomplished here is a little saber rattling.
If the Norks toss a nuke & hit Seoul or Tokyo, get ready for the mother of all depressions. The, uh, fallout from a nuke tossed at a first world country would be global and severe. If KJI decided not to sling nukes at SK or Japan, he can always sell them to flush-with-oil-cash jihadis.
Post by: 280plus on October 10, 2006, 05:39:46 AM
Would you take your bomb to MAACO for fresh paint before you put it on the market? Could make all the difference in the sale price.
An this is probably a good time to review the correct response to a nuclear attack:
1. Bend Over
2. Place head firmly between knees
3. Kiss your tookas goodbye.
LOL...
Post by: CAnnoneer on October 10, 2006, 06:07:28 AM
Quote from: The Rabbi
'm stil waiting for LooseCanoneer's response to Gewehr on how he would have prevented all this. Then I'd like to see how he proposes to cut off all trade with NK without nuking most of the world.
Quote from: CAnnoneer
If he is up for grabs, all options are on the table - ultimatum, coup d'etat, economic strangulation, assassination, invasion, conventional bombing, nuclear pre-emptive strike. Whatever gets the job done, in order of increasing severity.
Post by: richyoung on October 10, 2006, 06:11:58 AM
Post by: 280plus on October 10, 2006, 06:44:53 AM
But in this case something HAS changed, nowadays we know you should hunker down NEXT to your desk and not underneath it.
Post by: Perd Hapley on October 10, 2006, 07:02:39 AM
Post by: richyoung on October 10, 2006, 07:32:09 AM
Quote from: fistful
In the nineties, it was UNDER the desk.
...at least for Monica, it was. Perhaps if El Presidente were paying a bit more attention to his duties, he might not have given NK two reactors and fuel oil in return for a promise that Kim Il Whoever had no intention of keeping....
Post by: RadioFreeSeaLab on October 10, 2006, 07:54:07 AM
Post by: mfree on October 10, 2006, 08:12:01 AM
Clinton left Bush stuck between a rock and a hard place because Nork had *exactly* what it wanted already.
Post by: richyoung on October 10, 2006, 08:15:05 AM
Quote from: dasmi
And perhaps our current Fearless Leader could've done something about it as well. But he didn't. Our government is consistently a failure.
Ok - put up or shut up. What would YOU have done different, were you Bush II? AFTER Bill the Rapist, Madeline Half-bright, and "Iranian hostage crisis" Carter GAVE the mad dictator TWO reactors AND nuclear technology? Please, oh please, enlighten us...what's YOUR master plan? By the time Clinton had gotten done selling guns to the Injuns, there's litle Bush COULD do to stem the tide.
Post by: RadioFreeSeaLab on October 10, 2006, 08:19:00 AM
Post by: richyoung on October 10, 2006, 08:41:54 AM
Post by: Gewehr98 on October 10, 2006, 07:47:50 PM
As for the kaboom, it's looking more like a fizzle, less than 1/2 Kiloton, so it could be a bunch of explosives in that coal mine tunnel, or the HE package initiated compression without causing a sustained fission of the Pu239, resulting in predetonation and a small yield. (Bad tamper design/implementation?) In other words, the bomb didn't stay together long enough to develop maximum fission yield, for Pu-239 devices the supercritical mass has to be kept together for at least 0.8 µs.
Which means if it was a real fission device, there's a bunch of unburned Pu-239 splattered around in that tunnel that the DPRK will probably want to retrieve and process for another go at it. Oops!
Post by: .45Guy on October 10, 2006, 10:28:18 PM
Post by: Bogie on October 11, 2006, 03:49:09 AM
Seriously, didn't Galveston get hit with worse? Or was it Corpus Christi or Houston, when the big fertilizer ship blew?
Post by: richyoung on October 11, 2006, 04:55:55 AM