Hacker News Reader

Comment by rebootthesystem | Hacker News Reader

Having worked in aerospace I find it very interesting that a nation like North Korea can manage to launch such rockets with regularity. There is no way they are able to do this on their own. That much might be obvious. The real question is: Who's helping them and what's their objective?

View on HN

>Who's helping them and what's their objective?

Who's helping them is obvious - China.

What's their objective? Destabilizing and undermining American military hegemony in their sphere of influence and establishing themselves as Asia's sole superpower. I don't know how North Korea works into that, though. Maybe China just wants a proxy to harass the US with while having politically plausible deniability. Maybe they're hoping to step in when NK takes it too far and look like heroes, while making the US look feckless and weak.

> look like heroes

No one is gonna fall for that. Especially since most of its neighbors are aware of China's belligerence, and are hostile to China (India, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia) or are skeptics of China (Australia, New Zealand)

Seems if you say anything negative about China even if completely accurate on HN you get downvoted. Yes China has assisted NK:

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/china-sold-trucks-us...

It's relatively common on most social media sites including HN, reddit, etc. It was particularly noticeable during the coverage of China's DDoS attack on github a few years back.

Alternatively they may have got engines from Ukraine https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/world/asia/north-korea-mi...

In the 60s Russia and the US manufactured thousands with 60s technology. North Korea has access to enough ore to make good enough metals and knowledge from history of what works.

The difficult part for them is propellants. Historically they’ve used kerosene and nitric acid but the newer rockets use hydrazine compounds and dinitrogen tetroxide oxidiser, which means either they’ve advanced their chemical industry a lot or they’ve found a supplier.

Even Hamas can launch rockets with pitiful infrastructure, what makes you think a nation like North Korea that has granted itself the capability of using all productivity and resources in the land wouldn't be able to do this?

Hamas launches the equivalent of sugar rockets with an explosive attached and lacks any precision.

North Korea is tinkering with a delivery system capable of placing nuclear weapons in the exact position necessary for optimal damage.

These things aren't equivalent, it's like comparing a rudimentary wooden wagon to an F1 car in terms of technology.

Not that they're not deadly on a smaller scale.

Not sure what you're saying is obvious. What makes you think they can't do this on their own?

There was a great podcast on NYTimes' The Daily about new advancements in the rocket engines used – their conclusion is that with Ukraine in flux, the source of Russia's missile engines (which Russia has recently stopped buying) are selling them off to North Korea, or an intermediary.

Do you listen to Arms Control Wonk? It's a podcast; they go deep, deep into the weeds of these missiles and what we know about them. In one podcast recently they talked about the cooperation between Iran and North Korea.

What makes you believe NK can't launch rockets alone?

It's not like it's rocket science. Er, ok, so it is rocket science but still. Other groups of people have done it, what makes it impossible for NK?

The impressive part is the pace. There are multiple launches a year, and constant incremental increase in capability. At this rate, they will have the ability to strike anywhere in the world in just a few years.

They're using the lean startup methodology. Iterate. Iterate. Iterate.

Ukraine. https://nyti.ms/2vwepeu

Reply on news.ycombinator.com