Well, those pesky North Koreans were at it again today when they attempted to launch a "weather satellite" into orbit.
To make matters worse they invited hosts of journalists to take part in the historic moment - timed to coincide with 100th birthday celebrations of the state's founder, Kim Il Sung.
Do we see a pattern here? First was Kim Il Sung, then our recently and dear-ly departed leader, Kim Jong Il, and now we have Kim Il Un. (Is Un North Korean for Junior?)
The sad part is that the cost of the ill-fated, giant Roman candle was in excess of $800 Million or enough to feed the entire starving nation for a year. Since the rocket only travelled 93 miles, the cost can be calculated somewhere in the neighborhood of $9 Million per mile. And we think gasoline prices are high!
The carrier rocket model is called an “Unha-3” where “unha” means galaxy. And the alleged weather satellite was a Kwangmyongsong-3 where kwangmyonsong means bright star. Hopefully after this fiasco there will not be an Unha-4 and Kwang-4!
Was it me or when they showed the North Korean Space Control Center did it not look like a group of students at a code fest? Seriously, there were no large screens for tracking (not that they needed sophisticated equipment to track a 93 mile sparkler) and I’ve seen more computing power at the local senior citizens home.
It was just in February of this year that the US engaged Pyongyang in an agreement to end their nuclear and long-range missile testing in exchange for 240,000 tons of US food. (At a flight of only 93 miles this probably cannot technically be considered as a long-range missile test.) Now the US is threatening to not deliver the much needed food supplies.
Since young Kim Jong Un has lost face with this recent “failure to launch”, sources are concerned that North Korea will soon follow up with nuclear bomb test. If it is anything like the Unha-3 bottle rocket, the nuclear bomb yield should be similar to about 100 M-80’s or enough explosive power to knock over the family utility shed.
Just sayin’