I doubt that the major powers will tolerate countries like North Korea having both nuclear weapons and rockets capable of being used as ICBMs. There was talk of shooting down North Korea's rocket that may or may not have put a satellite into orbit. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/05/north-korea-rocket-launch

So this seems like a good sign for the future of space travel:

"Obama, who is making his debut on the world stage, said in
Strasbourg, France on Friday that he would lay out an agenda to
secure the world's loose nuclear materials and halt the spread of
illicit weapons.

He added that he wanted to offer an agenda "to seek the goal of a
world without nuclear weapons."

> From: Dan Wylie-Sears

I find it terribly troubling that even on this list some people make no
distinction between space launch technology and nuclear weapons of mass
destruction. It's like saying that a light aircraft is the first step
towards building a nuclear tipped cruise missile - because of course powered
flight has absolutely no other application.

Reality check:
*North Korea doesn't have nuclear weapons.
*NK doesn't have any credible ICBM technology.
*NK has missiles that can reach Japan and the chemical weapons to arm them
with.
*NK already has a credible MAD capacity towards every country within a 1000
mile radius.

The US can wipe can destroy NK, but NK can masacre Japan and South Korea,
and make sure enough crap is dumped in China's lap that they might actually
retaliate against America with their *real* ICBMs. I cannot think of any
realistic scenario where America would see those three inevitable outcomes
as a good thing, or as acceptable colateral damage. Therefore NK already has
a practical MAD capacity against all NATO countries, including America.
Hence they already have a similar position to Russia during the cold war.
Hence the political realities of the situation in that region wouldn't
change.

Also, to the best of my knowledge, for all it's sins, North Korea is not
onem of those nations with a dangerous and religious fundimentalist
obsession with the end of the world. Like, for example, oh I don't know:
America.

North Korea's launch was basically a non event that is only newsworthy
because of America's embarressment at being snubbed by one of the smallest
and worthless nations on the planet, and being completely unable to do
anything about it.

> He added that he wanted to offer an agenda "to seek the goal of a
> world without nuclear weapons."

You can probably severely reduce them, but I doubt they'll ever go away.
With that in mind, this sounds like the desire a hundred years ago to have
'a world without battleships'. That didn't work out too well as I recall...

John

Spacefaring is a light aircraft, to ICBMs being a cruise missile?

How can you have the ability to get to orbit, and not have the ability to get to an intercontinental trajectory? Or how can you have a high enough precision and reliability to launch people or multi-million-dollar satellites, but not have the precision and reliability to have the relatively small chance of success that's sufficient for your adversaries to find it unacceptable to provoke you into launching?

It's true that North Korea doesn't really have nuclear weapons, but they did get to the point of testing one. It had a very low yield, but I think it was enough that it very probably wasn't just a conventional bomb set off to look like they were testing a nuke. In other words, they're close enough to having nuclear weapons that having the capacity to deliver them when and if they get them is something that the US isn't going to be happy with.

It matters what the top of the hierarchy of threats is. We're not going to deliberately provoke a massive attack on Japan and South Korea, except as a response to something almost as bad. But if you look a couple levels down the sequence of "or else" responses, they can't intimidate us nearly as effectively with the threat of a chemical attack on Japan as they could with the threat of completely annihilating multiple US cities.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "ANTIcarrot" wrote:

> From: Dan Wylie-Sears
> Spacefaring is a light aircraft, to ICBMs being a cruise missile?
> How can you have the ability to get to orbit, and not

How do you build a vehicle that can fly 1000 miles, carry a 100kg
cargo/warhead and can be fitted with an autopilot - and not have the
capacity to use it as a cruise missile? Oh wait, you can't. Because they are
functionally the same thing.

I did not say the two were unrelated. I said that people who imagine that
ICBMs are the *only* application of rocket technology are stupid idiots. And
this would include the vast majority of talking heads on the news channel.
As a consequence of this attitude, which usually goes completely
unchallenged by said talking heads, basic information about parts of the ISS
(like the doors) are considered highly classified weapons technology. It is
a stupid attitude and it gets in the way of peaceful applications of space
technology.

> Or how
> can you have a high enough precision and reliability to
> launch people or multi-million-dollar satellites,

Something else NK doesn't have by the way. But to answer your question,
parking in orbit is actually slightly easier than hitting a precise target
on the ground. Especially if you have radar assistance, and several orbits
to get it exactly right. If you want to miss a ground target by less than
ten miles or so it's really really tricky to get it right without a lot of
practice.

> In other words, they're close
> enough to having nuclear weapons that having the capacity to
> deliver them when and if they get them is something that the
> US isn't going to be happy with.

Detonatable nukes doesn't translate to deliverable nukes. The first hydrogen
bomb weighed close to 50 tons. Building it and doing that famous
disappearing trick with Bikini Atoll didn't mean American was instantly
capable of H-bombs on their missiles.

> It matters what the top of the hierarchy of threats is.

Not really. Russia destroying America 10 times over is just as bad as Russia
destroying America once. It is already impossible for America to invade
North Korea in the manner they invaded Iraq. Making it doubly or triply
impossible doesn't change anything.

> We're not going to deliberately provoke a massive attack on
> Japan and South Korea, except as a response to something
> almost as bad.

Then America has no option for first strike. North Korea doesn't want to be
exterminated completely, so they have no option for first strike. In both
cases China would probably strike back at the aggressor. Introducing nukes
into this equation on NK's side will not change anything.

John

> I said that people who imagine that ICBMs are the *only*
> application of rocket technology are stupid idiots

So you did. But that's not what I read the first time. My mistake on that part.

However, it's a distinction that doesn't much matter to most people. We don't want N. Korea to have nuclear ICBMs, we don't trust them not to outfit their rockets as ICBMs if they had adequate rockets, and they're close enough to having nuclear weapons that we can't count on them not to get to ones that could be used as warheads. So we don't want them to have adequate rockets.

That's still a problem for space development even if we're irrational to care whether they have nuclear ICBMs after they already have medium-range missiles carrying chemical weapons.

--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "ANTIcarrot" wrote: