‘North Korea Will Test H-Bomb’

[porkrind]

By Lee Jin-woo
Staff Reporter

A Korean-Japanese scholar who is considered North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s unofficial spokesman said yesterday that Pyongyang has a hydrogen bomb it would test as part of a series of actions mentioned in its statement against the United States.

In an interview with MBC radio, Kim Myong-chol, director of the Center for Korean-American Peace, a Japan-based pro-North Korean research agency, said the Stalinist state is ready to test its H-bomb or conduct a nuclear test larger than its proclaimed test on Monday.

The North’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement Wednesday that it would respond with a series of physical measures if Washington steps up pressure on Pyongyang.

Asked to provide evidence that the North has developed its own thermonuclear weapons, Kim replied, ``That’s why we are going to test the bomb. A test will prove that we’ve got everything necessary just as we had with our nuclear weapons.’’

http://times.hankooki.com/service/print/Print.php?po=times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200610/kt2006101217510111990.htm

[truthisfreedom]

1. before the elections, or after?

[hang a left]

2. lol

[MannyGoldstein]

3. Which Decade?

I don't think they'll be testing a thermonuclear weapon in the near future - you need a working fission bomb (atomic bomb) in order to create a thermonuclear explosion, and it looks like the NK's either faked their atomic bomb or screwed it up.

[Megahurtz]

6. I don't know, never say never!

:scared:

[geomon666]

7. huh?

it looks like the NK's either faked their atomic bomb or screwed it up.

Where did you get that from?

[MannyGoldstein]

8. For Example

The New York Times: U.S. Finds No Radiation in Initial N. Korea Air Sample

It was a very small explosion (as these things go) - only a tiny fraction of the size of our own first a-bomb. EIther a dud or a fake.

[AllexxisF1]

9. Just because...

Just because aircraft have not picked up any airborn radiation it does not mean NK did not set off a nuclear device. It looks more and more that the device was a low yiled and deep underground. If they successfully sealed the underground mine you would not get any radiation detected.

Personally I believe the device did not reach full critical mass and they will try again.

[Vulture]

22. Most likely

There are many other signatures in addition to seismic that can be detected from a nuke blast, and both the Russians and the US (at a minimum) would be able to determine the nature of the explosion almost instantly. Nukes throw off a lot of subatomic particles that are not easily impeded by the fact that they are buried.


I would agree that it was a dud. Efficient intentional sub-kiloton devices require a lot of experience engineering nuclear weapons. But any retard can make a plutonium nuke that gives sub-kiloton yield because of poor engineering. I think the obvious answer here is "poorly engineered first attempt" rather than "fantastically brilliant nuclear design team". A dubious distinction among countries that have developed their own nukes, since most get it right the first time. :eyes:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. Well, they did blow it up underground, you know.

:eyes:

[daleo]

15. I wouldn't trust U.S. government reports on this

At least not until the election is over. There are excellent reasons for them to want to minimize the situation as much as possible. The usual pattern is to alarm people about the possibility of a future event (such as a NK atomic test), but play it down once it happens.

[Tesha]

17. You know what they say: "Buy on the rumor, sell on the news."

> The usual pattern is to alarm people about the possibility of
> a future event (such as a NK atomic test), but play it down
> once it happens.

You know what they say: "Buy on the rumor, sell on the news."

The North Koreans were only useful as a political foil when they
were only "developing" a nuke. But once they had/have a nuke,
they become a real threat, a demonstrable and massive point
of political failure by the Bush Administration.

So of course the Bushies will sell out their NK-as-propaganda
position the minute it can be proven that NK actually set one off.

Tesha

[geomon666]

16. Well...

There's no radiation to find because it was underground. If the mine was sealed pretty good, we'd never know.

The speculation was prompted by reports of a relatively modest test. Estimates of its power range from Russia's guess of 15 kilotons - the same as the Nagasaki bomb - to France's claim it may have been 500 tonnes, an unusually small amount.

"Politically it seems very odd to design a test weapon with a yield of just 1 kiloton, because people will have anticipated a larger device and think it just fizzed. That the yield wasn't higher suggests the test was not entirely successful," said James Acton at the London-based group Vertic.

Mark Fitzpatrick, a former US state department diplomat and now a senior fellow for non-proliferation at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said yesterday: "It is my assumption it was a nuclear test."

Seismic charts from global monitoring stations may still hold clues. In particular, seismologists are checking for signs that the shockwaves emerged from a single point, evidence that a small nuclear device was used instead of the equivalent amount of conventional explosives, which would occupy a room 100 metres square.

Which means they don't know how big it was and won't know for a while so I wouldn't make up my mind just yet.

[LetsGoMurphys]

13. The measurements of the explosion (I believe a 4)

could have been created with a large amount of explosives. There were no higher levels of radiation in the air samples taken to be tested. It was a partial detonation at best.

[krispos42]

19. It was a 4.2, calculated to be an detonation of 2 kilotons of TNT

"Divine Strake", the massive non-nuclear detonation in Nevada that is still on hold, would be equivilent to 0.6 kilotons if they ever get EPA clearance in the matter.

It may well be that they yield they got is not the yield they wanted; however, they got a yield, which is important in and of itself. And they will get better at it.

However, it must be noted that using an implosion-type setup, they can make the yield to be anything they want it to be.

To summarize: a perfect sphere of fissionable material is made. It is sub-critical, meaning that there is not enough nuclear material to self-detonate. It might be only, say, a couple of kilos of uranium or plutonium. Then the perfect sphere is completely enveloped ith carefully-shaped high explosives. The explosives, when properly and precisely set off, generate a uniform spherical shock wave which crushes the nuclear material into a much smaller, and higher density, sphere. This means that you have a much higher density of both atomic nuclei AND neutrons from atomic decay. The neutrons strike the nuclei, splitting them and releasing more neutrons, which hit more nuclei and release more neutrons, etc. This is the critical chain reaction event that causes massive nuclear fission, and a massive release of energy.

The ones we made back in 1945 were intended to be used ASAP as weapons. We didn't have the fissionable material or time to piddle around with low-yield stuff. We wanted as much bang as possible.

The fact that they have a fission bomb means they can now make a fusion (hydrogen) bomb, because you need a fission bomb to generate enough heat to get the deuterium fusing into helium.

What makes this scary is that hydrogen bombs are scalable, with essentially no upper limit on yield. The Sun, for example, is an ongoing nuclear fusionn detonation. The biggest bomb ever made was about 50,000 kilotons. Many ICBMs use warheads in the 100-500 kiloton range, it seems. Keep in mind the two dropped on Japan in 1945 were about 14 kilotons each.

[harun]

24. They got that from the propaganda machine

(which most people on DU are smart enough to spot when it is lying)

[kwolf68]

4. Meanwhile in other news

North Koreans still don't have anything to eat.

[LetsGoMurphys]

14. I wonder what percentage of the population

likes this type of leadership?

[Zenlitened]

5. "North Korea Laughs & Laughs & Laughs as it Jerks the Bush Admin Around...

... Like a Puppet On a String"

[Eurobabe]

10. On?

eom

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

12. How about getting the A-Bomb right first.

I suspect that a few of the science and engineering team may soon be test subjects for one of Dear Leader's Chemical Weapons tests on prisoners.

[Vulture]

23. They may be miserable engineers...

...but they are the only engineers he has. That is a pretty thin herd to be culling. :-)

[OllieLotte]

18. H-Bomb?

They don't have a working A-Bomb...yet.

[TX-RAT]

20. both New York City and Tokyo will be blazed?

[krispos42]

21. I would guess Tokyo and Seoul

That destruction of manufacturing, banking, logistics, management, business, and population might well crash the world economy. Plus, they don't have nukes to hit back.

The might hit Taipei, too, although China sees Taiwan as a 'renegade province' and might use that attack as an excuse to nuke N. Korea off the map.