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On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

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Russia and China both condemn North Korea’s nuclear test

Has the veil finally lifted from their eyes? The leaders of both Russia and China on Sunday agreed to work together to deal with the threat of a North Korea with nuclear weapons and ICBMs, with China strongly condemning North Korea.

It appears that these nations have suddenly realized that a North Korea with nuclear weapons and missiles capable of delivering those weapons anywhere on the globe is not merely a threat to the U.S., it also poses a threat to them. It is a shame that it took so long for this basic and obvious fact to sink in.

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16 comments

  • Denis

    Smoke and mirrors

  • Phill O

    Denis: My sentiments exactly. Let us wait for actions that back up those words.

  • Cotour

    Lets also remember the last 20 or 30 years of appeasement and submitting to black mail and the plain and overt transfer of technology to N. Korea that has delivered the world to this moment in time.

    I can not imagine the N. Korean’s developing any of their current capabilities on their own, if I remember in the past they got their tech from the Chinese and the Chinese got their tech from the U.S. and anyone else they could steal it from. Except if again you remember the transfer of missile technology during the Clinton administration.

    And after the N. Koreans we have the gift of the Iranians gifted to us all by past administrations and especially our last fearless leader, Barack Hussein Obama. And some people say that Obama really made no significant progress. He made progress.

  • wayne

    If the Russians & Chinese told me the sky was blue, I’d wonder what sort of lies they were spinning.

  • Cotour

    Governments lie? No way.

  • wayne

    Does anyone have any info on whether this was a true fusion bomb, or a tritium boosted fission design?

    Cotour–
    [Look up our “W-88” warhead, and “Wen Ho Lee.” Chi-coms stole our technology for miniaturizing hydrogen bombs in the early 1990’s.]

    It took the United States 3 years & $2 billion (1940’s dollars) to produce both a gun-type & implosion-type weapon, and that included building “B” reactor at Hanford & the Oak Ridge separation plant.
    There is no reason why North Korea couldn’t (mass) produce atomic weapons.

    >North Korea bought their nuke technology from the infamous A Q Kahn network (Pakistan).
    (I forget who gave the north-Koreans a nuclear-reactor.)

    The only truly complicated process for building nuclear weapons, is producing the fissile material. Once you have that, it’s all just engineering.

  • ken anthony

    Russia and China both know N.K. days are numbered. They are simply preparing for the aftermath where they still have an element of control.

  • Cotour

    Wayne,

    Also remember that to efficiently deliver a device via a missile is crucial. Where did the Chinese get their tech? The U. S., remember Loral electronics? Their headquarters were about 5 miles from where I am sitting in NYC.

    You can bet Clinton was well rewarded by the Chinese.

    “Afterward Loral admits it gave the Chinese a written report about the cause of the rocket failure, without official clearance. A Pentagon office concluded in a still-secret report that “United States national security has been harmed,” according to government officials. And Loral confirms it is now under investigation by a federal grand jury as a result.”

    I find it very hard to believe that if China has access in the many ways that they might have to our high technology that some of that does not get bled off. There are always consequences to elections, both good and bad.

    1/10/02: “”The cloud has been lifted,” said Loral Chief Executive Bernard Schwartz. Loral, the second-biggest U.S. satellite-communications company, neither admitted nor denied the government’s charges as part of the settlement. “We are very happy that we have been able to resolve this.””

    Just cost them a $14 million dollar fine.

  • Wayne: See this article for more details about the North Korea bomb test.

    North Korea’s sixth nuclear test on Sunday released 140 kilotons of TNT equivalent, according to a new U.S. intelligence assessment. The margin of error on the early U.S. assessment is not known and the specific explosive yield figure may be revised, but the U.S. intelligence community assesses this device to have been several times more powerful than North Korea’s previously most powerful nuclear test in September 2016.

    U.S. government sources with access to the latest intelligence regarding North Korea’s nuclear weapons program have told The Diplomat that its sixth nuclear test also involved an “advanced nuclear device.”

    Per the early assessment shared with The Diplomat, the device was either a boosted fission device or, as North Korea claimed in its state media, a two-stage thermonuclear bomb. It’s unclear if the device test was the specific device North Korea showed in photographs prior to its test on Sunday.

  • wayne

    Cotour–
    yowza– totally forgot about Loral. Who owns them? (I have a fuzzy recollection the Chinese bought Loral, something crazy like that….)

  • wayne

    Mr. Z-
    thank you..

    If it was a boosted weapon, that alone scares me, ‘cuz it’s a complicated (and time limited) process to boost fission weapons. The clock starts running down when they are assembled & charged.

    It would be interesting to know if the mock-up was an actual working design, or if they tested a huge immobile configuration, such as we did.
    Either way, they have the rockets and fission warheads. They undoubtedly understand how to make them survive re-entry

    Tangentially, if you look at the blueprints for a W-88 warhead, the concept is surprisingly simple.

    apparently however, manufacturing the plastic gel which focuses the x-rays required to initiate fusion, is a complicated process. See:
    “Fogbank: Lost Knowledge Regained”
    http://www.lanl.gov/orgs/padwp/pdfs/nwj2_09.pdf
    (absolutely fascinating)

  • Cotour

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loral_Corporation

    Loral now defunct. They play down the damage but any time you have a company working at that level with what was then and now an enemy there is only one thing that can happen, transfer of high technology.

    Read down Lorals specialties: Command and control, space information system, space and range systems, defense systems etc, etc.

  • Commodude

    Wayne, prior to the Loral tech transfer to the Chinese, their missiles had a large % of launch failures and would hav ebeen doing well to hit the west coast of the US somewhere.

    After Loral? greatly increased reliability and accuracy. That tech transfer created a new threat to CONUS which didn’t exist previously and gave China true intercontinental reach.

    Pres. Clinton was impeached for the wrong reasons.

  • wayne

    Commodude-
    Thanks for the backgrounder factoid, and I would concur on clinton. (It’s hard to keep track of all the criminality from the 1990’s.)

    I recall as well, somewhere in that period, the Chinese stole and/or bought specialized machine-tools & know-how for making submarines run quieter. (propeller & outer hull precision metal-work tech.)

    [tangentially, I’m convinced we have a serious problem with crony capitalists who sell us out to our enemies in stereotypical fashion, in addition to all the industrial-espionage undertaken by the Chi-coms.]

  • Commodude

    That was actually Toshiba, who sold machinery to Russia which enables their boats to be much, much quieter. Toshiba imports were banned for a while, late 80s.

    The difference between the deals was that Toshiba acted completely illegally, while Loral was given concurrence from Sec. Brown’s commerce Dept.

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