NYT: Blast May Be Only a Partial Success, Experts Say

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/world/asia/10detect.html?hp&ex=1160452800&en=852a761e6445352c&ei=5094&partner=homepage

The North Korean test appears to have been a nuclear detonation but was fairly small by traditional standards, and possibly a failure or a partial success, federal and private analysts said yesterday.

Throughout history, the first detonations of aspiring nuclear powers have tended to pack the destructive power of 10,000 to 60,000 tons — 10 to 60 kilotons — of conventional high explosives

But the strength of the North Korean test appears to have been a small fraction of that: around a kiloton or less, according to scientists monitoring the global arrays of seismometers that detect faint trembles in the earth from distant blasts.

“It’s pretty remarkable that such a small explosion was promptly apparent on seismometers all over the world,” said Paul Richards, a seismologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y. “The detection of this was really good. You can’t hide these kinds of things, even very small tests.”

A senior Bush administration official said he had learned through Asian contacts that the North Koreans had expected the detonation to have a force of about four kilotons. Because classified information was involved and there was lingering uncertainty, he would not let his name be used.

[truthisfreedom]

1. unless there's some special signature that indicates a nuclear event

rather than a conventional explosives event, it's my call that NK is trying to influence our elections.

[daleo]

9. I have read that there is a recognizable signature

First there is a an explosion of the chemical explosives, then that sets off a nuclear chain reaction and big explosion. That does create a recognizable signature. I don't know if it can be faked or not, or how easy that signature is to see, though.

[gratuitous]

2. Are they disappointed?

I mean, did they really want a hugely successful test? Or, isn't a 1 kiloton explosion big enough? I'm guessing it's still enough to do some serious damage. I mean a thousand tons of dynamite? Probably enough to send your car into low trajectory orbit or bring down a building.

[jgmiller]

3. Well there's two ways to look at it

The "small" nukes that range in the 1 - 4 kt range are normally battlefield nukes. In other words if you make them small enough you can put them in an artillery shell and take out an infantry division. Now my way of thinking is that given the North's inability to make things well there's no way they could make something that small which means if it's the size of VW and it only resulted in 1 - 4kt then yeah I'd be upset if I were them. On the other hand if they did make it small enough for a shell then the price of poker just went up.

Let's not forget the North has the largest collection of artillery ever produced and it's all pointed at the South. Put one or two nuke shells in the mix and you don't really need a missile to ruin everyones day.

[struggle4progress]

4. It's about 1/20 of the size of what US first tested at Trinity in 1945

and about 1/8 the size of what Pakistan tested in 1998. And it's about 1/6000 of the size of devices we tested in the 1950's.

I'm not scared of NK. But it would be wonderful if the whole world came together to rid itself completely of these crappy things.

[Thor_MN]

5. Probably a primative gun type, making faux's unending clips of rocket

launches last night look ridiculous. The three or four minutes I could stand to watch were a constant series of launches, probably most of them being footage of US launches. One would think the buffoons were trying to scare people.

They could have drilled a 200 foot hole in the ground, dropped a chunk of plutonium to the bottom, then dropped another on top of it. Total development time, (given the hard part, a source of weapons grade fissile material) a day or two of drilling and utterly useless except to join the Nuke Club and give Faux something to soil their pants over.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. How much of the disinformation should we believe?

As far as I am concerned everyone is lying their asses off here.

[Random_Australian]

7. I say the seismometers are good.

Too many people have access to those readings to freak around with it except at exceptional risk.

[MGD]

8. I think there's a tendancy among Americans to grossly underestimate Kim's

intelligence (apparently, his name does translate as "stupid idiot"). This tendancy is amplified amongst the neo-con ranks. I would be hesitant to do that myself. If he did detonate a nuke and I suspect he did, the small yield was a carefully thought out and willfull choice on the part of Kim. Furthermore, once a nuclear chain reaction starts, there is no partial success. It's like being partially pregnent, it just doesn't happen. The reaction will occur according to the E=MCsqared equation until the mass defect is resolved. My guess is, he used a small amount of fissile material to conserve materials and to raise questions in place of answering them. Furthermore, there's no doubt, he is openly maneuvering against our own intellectual giant of a leader. He is playing chess and GW is playing checkers.