Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

North Korean ICBM launch detected using GPS

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 101 posts

Re: North Korean ICBM launch detected using GPS

#41

Post by retrac »

samus wrote: post #30
ransom1538 wrote: post #18

Quoted post unavailable.

Even assuming it's not already too late for that: what could they do? NK is already sanctioned to the max. And the few leavers that they can still pull probably wouldn't be enough to stop them at this point. And them being so close to China and SK makes any direct military action against them likely to trigger WW3.

If JP/SK/US did decide on military action against North Korea, I would expect China to stand back, close their border, and do nothing but make loud protest noises. They're not keen on sharing a border with a US client state. They're also not keen on a rogue North Korea with nukes.

The main issue is that, even without nuclear weapons, North Korea has enough conventional arms, including chemical weapons, to cause horrific damage to South Korea. Seoul's entire urban area is within artillery range of the DMZ. I've seen estimates of varying credibility but most experts speak of hundreds of thousands of deaths on the first day of shelling, if a full-scale war broke out on the Korean peninsula.

Re: North Korean ICBM launch detected using GPS

#42

Post by jwsteigerwalt »

krisoft wrote: post #26
cm2187 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what are the moving dots in the animation? Planes, satellites? (seems to move like neither). GPS being a military technology, I presume those fixed gps stations are only located in US-friendly countries. You wouldn't get that adjustment if you are flying over Russia or China, or any ocean. How much of an error in absolute distance are we talking about here? A few cm or meters or a km?

> But what are the moving dots in the animation? Planes, satellites? Neither. The stations are in Japan. Imagine a line going from each of those stations to the satellite. Where this line crosses the ionoshpere that spot is what is measured. That is what you have information about. Those spots are the dots. So you basically see the arc of the Japanese islands projected up towards each satelite which is visible from t…

This explanation helps understand the video.

Re: North Korean ICBM launch detected using GPS

#43

Post by rosnd »

kadoban wrote: post #38
dontbenebby wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>well-after-the-fact missile trail detection. Sorry, I missed that bit, I thought this could also be used to detect incoming missiles. I do not want my enemies to be able to detect incoming missiles. Sorry for posting so angrily.

To do anything about incoming missiles, you'd need extremely low latency tracking, integrated into whatever system you're using anyway. Not sure exactly you'd be worried about even if this was near-real-time.

You could probably use techniques like this to rig an early warning system on enemy territory, but there are of course better options.

Re: North Korean ICBM launch detected using GPS

#44

Post by tdeck »

vkou wrote: post #36
ransom1538 wrote: post #18

Quoted post unavailable.

Acquiring and developing nuclear weapons seems to be the most rational thing North Korea has done in a very long time. Neither the Iraq nor Ukraine conflicts would have happened if they were nuclear states. An armed society is a polite society, or so I've been told many, many times.

Just to add a little context to this comment, the world's foremost nuclear power (the USA) runs live-fire exercises every year where its army practices invading North Korea. Under these circumstances, it's entirely rational for the NK government to develop nuclear weapons.

If the US government really wanted to stop this, it could offer a good faith deal for disarmament involving some kind of reduction of sanctions or normalization of relations.

Instead US politicians prefer to hypocritically hand-wring about other countries' nuclear development while maintaining a massive nuclear arsenal to threaten every other country, and while invading or bombing other countries on a regular basis. These are the actions that cause states to feel threatened enough to pour enormous resources into nuclear weapons development.

Re: North Korean ICBM launch detected using GPS

#45

Post by bismuthcrystal »

rich_sasha wrote: post #39
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NK has a working ICBM with a nuclear warhead today. It's already done. The time to stop it was back in the 90s.

Do we know they can make warheads small enough to fit on ICBMs? I always understood that is quite difficult. AFAICT we know they have blown up stationary nukes and shot out inert ballistic missiles.

Lets speculate a little bit for argument sake. Take this with a grain of salt because I am not a specialist, just a information hoarder.

Lets put miniaturization aside and focus on another aspects, which i judge will be more critical.

The warhead must survive mechanical stress of launch and reentry, and thermal stress at reentry. The question is: can it be designed only with computers and public knowledge? They could build small hypersonic wind tunnel to collect data and simulate the rest.

Re: North Korean ICBM launch detected using GPS

#46

Post by layer8 »

krisoft wrote: post #26
cm2187 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what are the moving dots in the animation? Planes, satellites? (seems to move like neither). GPS being a military technology, I presume those fixed gps stations are only located in US-friendly countries. You wouldn't get that adjustment if you are flying over Russia or China, or any ocean. How much of an error in absolute distance are we talking about here? A few cm or meters or a km?

> But what are the moving dots in the animation? Planes, satellites? Neither. The stations are in Japan. Imagine a line going from each of those stations to the satellite. Where this line crosses the ionoshpere that spot is what is measured. That is what you have information about. Those spots are the dots. So you basically see the arc of the Japanese islands projected up towards each satelite which is visible from t…

What are the stations/receivers? Is this crowdsourced data?

Re: North Korean ICBM launch detected using GPS

#47

Post by FpUser »

retrac wrote: post #41
samus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even assuming it's not already too late for that: what could they do? NK is already sanctioned to the max. And the few leavers that they can still pull probably wouldn't be enough to stop them at this point. And them being so close to China and SK makes any direct military action against them likely to trigger WW3.

If JP/SK/US did decide on military action against North Korea, I would expect China to stand back, close their border, and do nothing but make loud protest noises. They're not keen on sharing a border with a US client state. They're also not keen on a rogue North Korea with nukes. The main issue is that, even without nuclear weapons, North Korea has enough conventional arms, including chemical weapons, to cause horri…

>"If JP/SK/US did decide on military action against North Korea"

NK is no longer part of NPT. Would not this war be illegal? How does it correspond with "we are the nation of laws"?

>"I would expect China to stand back"

And what if it does not?

Re: North Korean ICBM launch detected using GPS

#48

Post by FpUser »

rich_sasha wrote: post #39
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NK has a working ICBM with a nuclear warhead today. It's already done. The time to stop it was back in the 90s.

Do we know they can make warheads small enough to fit on ICBMs? I always understood that is quite difficult. AFAICT we know they have blown up stationary nukes and shot out inert ballistic missiles.

They might ask Russia for help

Re: North Korean ICBM launch detected using GPS

#50

Post by retrac »

FpUser wrote: post #47
retrac wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If JP/SK/US did decide on military action against North Korea, I would expect China to stand back, close their border, and do nothing but make loud protest noises. They're not keen on sharing a border with a US client state. They're also not keen on a rogue North Korea with nukes. The main issue is that, even without nuclear weapons, North Korea has enough conventional arms, including chemical weapons, to cause horri…

>"If JP/SK/US did decide on military action against North Korea" NK is no longer part of NPT. Would not this war be illegal? How does it correspond with "we are the nation of laws"? >"I would expect China to stand back" And what if it does not?

I know quite well, as you probably do, that international law has zero bearing on the military decisions made by the USA in terms of its interests. Yes, it'd be illegal, unless the UN Security Council gave its blessing. Just like the second Gulf War was illegal. That has never stopped the US before.

> How does it correspond with "we are the nation of laws"?

It does not. The United States government rejects the idea it is restricted by international law on these matters.

As for South Korea, it can argue it's an internal domestic matter.

Post reply on HN