Great success! North Korea has successfully launched a satellite into a near earth orbit and it is now circling the earth at about 1 mile below sea level. That’s right: North Korea’s Taepodong-2, the much-feared long-range missile that had even the Obama camp worried, broke up over Japan at about 11:37am and then fell into the water at 11:48am on Sunday. The launch is described as a complete success in North Korean reports although American military command believes it to be a failure. Nonetheless, the ability to push a rocket even close to U.S. soil is obviously disconcerting. The NYT writes:
North Korea’s public portrayal of the event as a complete success was similar in its celebratory tone to the happy note it struck in 1998 after having failed to loft a satellite into orbit.
A general rule of engineering is that failures reveal more than successes. If so, North Korea — which has now test-fired three long-range rockets, each time unsuccessfully — is learning a lot about limitations.
This experience is fairly consistent over in North Korea – a great deal of posturing followed by an engineering failure. However, experts believe that continued launches will eventually prove fruitful and the next Taepodong-2 may break the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of the moon, provided, as this Onion article suggests, they bring the moon to Pyongyang.
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TechCrunch, founded on June 11, 2005, is a weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies.
I love that headline. :-)
I do as well.
haahh totally!
Indeed. Please get John to write all *crunch titles asap.
Reminds me of the old “Operation successful, but the patient died.”
It’s a misnomer that this was a satellite launch test. This was a ballistic missile test and it was successful at that.
Think about it, N. Korea CAN’T say it is testing a ballistic missile without hurting its cause and previous denials of such. They CAN however say they are launching a satellite and not incite outrage in the world community.
The truth is that a ballistic missile has much more value to N. Korea than satellites. They are the odd men out on their own island and satellites don’t give them leverage, ballistic missiles do.
This is very basic common knowledge in intelligence and military circles, but spinning it as a failed satellite launch is not only consistent with their claims of it being as such, but serves to embarrass them as well, so the spin makes sense.
Please cite sources for claims.
Sure thing, just keep refreshing and it will pop up. :)
Um, just check out the news for the past few weeks.
All the US outlets were saying this wasn’t really a satellite launch and instead was to test their missile, and to that end, it was a success.
” The United States and its allies say the satellite never made it into space and Sunday’s launch was really a ballistic missile test that failed. ”
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.c2e3700ab4e271bc32827b0fccfe560b.391&show_article=1
If it’s a cover up, then the autopsy of the “failed” missile will show that. If American military command followed the missile they should be able to salvage the remains and see if there is a “serious” satellite in there somewhere.
If they dissect the debris hat and actually find a satellite, why would US publish that info?
It’s not in their interest to say that Koreans weren’t laying.
If it was a satellite and we will never know.
bye
Andraz Tori
umm…
not sure if any of you guys know anything at all about rockets, and the progression to get it ‘right’…
the fact of the launch, while it wasn’t a ful success (few thought it would be), it apparently managed to successfully have the 1st stage fire/separate and control the trajectory during this phase… If this is indeed the case, this in and of itself is a serious leap forward, unfortunately.
peace..
Ok sure. But “the North Korean government portrayed as a success — even bragging that the supposed satellite payload was now broadcasting patriotic tunes from space” is pretty funny given where the payload is right now.
my buddy said holding the line in korea was the most crazy intense experience of his life, and he just did communications.
After the Gulf of Tonkin Incident I’m not sure who to believe anymore…
Is this CNN or TechCrunch?
It’s CrunchGear!
it was apparently successful in scaring the crap out of Japan
…plus a sensitive enough issue that they’re still using the 2 reporters from Current they arrested as bargaining chips to get US attention. :(
I think they’ll need to actually arrest someone other than Current reporters to get our government’s attention.
although…if they get any better at this I think I may buy some land in Montana.
Montana? Trying to get as far away from the antiVistas in Texas at the same time, eh? haha
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13qeX98tAS8
Oh, so now it’s supposed to be a blog about tech related stuff. I bet most of you weren’t saying that before when Michael and co. were reporting on how great Obama was. Only if it’s something you’re against politically, do you bring it up, eh.
North Korea is held to a standard that no other country in the world is.
Every country has the right to develop space and defense programs.
For the United States, a country which has killed more people than all other countries in world history including Nazi Germany and which is the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons, to attack North Korea for launching a satellite (and lets be clear that’s what they were going for, even U.S. intelligence admits this) is beyond absurd.
Only in a world in which the ideology that the top 1% uses to rationalize its iron grip on the world predominates could such crap go on unquestioned.
The U.S. government has no real qualms with violators of “human rights.” Ask the governments of Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia. North Korea’s biggest crime in the eyes of the corporate rulers of the U.S. is that it threw out foreign business and tried to chart its own independent course.
Wow, hate America much?
Maybe just double standards? I’ll go ask the Cherokee how they feel.
I somewhat feel similarly. When you think about how our political leaders have pretty much sold us out, though, I think first priority is to kick them out. Then we can worry about international PR. We are an empire, and I think it’s wrong.
As far as N.K. goes, they are definitely right bastards when you look at how they treat their own people. I wouldn’t trust their government.
This is a case of statistics lie.
Assuming that it is true that the more people have died from fighting American armed forces than from those of any other country (which may not be true), you need to analyze that a bit to determine righteous war (e.g., the Nazi’s needed killing) vs. questionable at best war:
For obvious reasons, you need to:
1) Take out all the British killed in the revolutionary war and war of 1812
2) Can’t include the Civil War
3) Don’t include the Spanish-American war
4) Don’t include WWI
5) Don’t include WWII
6) Don’t include Iraq I
7) Don’t include Yugoslavia/Sarajevo et al
8) Don’t include Afghanistan
Now start adding and see where we stand. I’ll bet wherever you come from you have benefited directly or indirectly from the U.S. at some time or another.
Really impressive :)
let me remind you
“TechCrunch, founded on June 11, 2005, is a weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies.”
leave the political propaganda to those that specialize in it.
Just as already said:
“TechCrunch, founded on June 11, 2005, is a weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies.”
This experience is fairly consistent over in North Korea – a great deal of posturing followed by an engineering failure.
In other news, Cuil is allegedly looking to hire a new engineering team in Pyongyang.
(I kid, we love you really, Cuil! If you haven’t checked out Cuil since the early hype, the results are actually bearable now – check it out.)
And so naturally, because they failed to get the missile to reach our shores, we should abandon all our nuclear weapons and de-fund research on missile defense. That makes sense, because they couldn’t possibly ever learn to get it right. Thank goodness we’re in the clear!
But seriously. Does anyone know that we DIDN’T shoot the missile down?
The DPRK doesn’t have global tracking stations, so they have no way of knowing. If we announced it then it’s war. Perhaps we tested our systems just as they tested theirs. Who can be certain what happened?
obviously the deadly earthquake in italy this morning is the result of n.korea’s missile test. i thought there was going to be a tsunami in n. california – maybe next time.
February 1 , 2003 , Columbia space shuttle launched successfully seven astronauts in their graves , funny ain’t ?
That was 7 people.. this was an inanimate satellite/missile. I think that’s a big difference.
Great pic!
Lol.. I Doubt they if they ll ever be able to send missile to the moon.
how do you guys at techcrunch find time to blog about all this ‘other’ stuff. the only reason i can think of (standard practice for blogging seems to be stick to your specialty) is that you need to have a mental ‘blow out’ every now & then and blog about something wildly different … like some good ol fashioned north korea bashing – sorry but that was worked to death in team america!
It happens when you’re a bit thin on the ground with your ’specialty’.
You guys are starting to sound like the F’ CNN, who gives a crap if the coreans launch a rocket or not!
The Alaskans have the sniper rifles locked and loaded y’all..
Sleep well
Great Success! lol
wow congratulations who have a job well done , your success may also our success too…
I’ve been scanning the radio waves to see if I can pick up the glorious patriotic music the satellite is apparently beaming back down to earth. No luck so far…wonder why?
Russia confirmed the successful launch.
The DPRK’s official media reported earlier that it successfully launched a rocket carrying the “Kwangmyongsong-2″ communications satellite, which entered orbit about 10 minutes after launch.
—————-
Why are the US media and Military claiming it was a failure? Because the Military needs an excuse to why we’re not INVADING N. KOREA.
Imagine if Iran did a launch, we would have been at war with them the next day.
Invading N Korea is not an option. Neither us nor China or anyone else is prepared to support 10 million plus people nor help them rebuild their economy over the next ten years…. get real. China is the real victim of a failed N Korea, they will do everything they can to prevent NK from failing…
Iran has worked hand in hand with N Korean techs to get NK technology. In fact, when Syria was bombed by Israel, NK techs were killed and Syria publicly allowed the bodies to be transported via S. Korea to N. Korea… . Also, no chance of us going to Iran over missile launch.
Bottom line: there is nothing the US wants less than to invade NK.
Funniest part of the vid is when they decide to remove the American flag. Hahaha!
Let’s face it, anyone can ask Google a question and get a wide range of answers; nobody needs to be an expert and aren’t those experts paid big money to hush up the actions of all governments? Strange that this swineflu was never heard of until that rocket splashed down and why has nobody made any attempt to find out what’s in the nose? Many websites state that between two and three hundred million Red Indian natives where slaughtered by the American settlers; Catholics, Protestants and Jews joined hand in hand in greed for that land. What is the pont in having laws based on the Bible when nobody pays attention to the rules in their own scripture? If we had of let Hitler continue for a few more years perhaps the greedy bankers would not have this world by the balls. America created Wall street crash, which created poverty in Europe, which created WW2. If your children were starving to death and your nieghbours were still rich and selfish you would do something about it, wouldn’t you? I would.