Dear North Korea

Please let us know where your satellite is so we don't accidentally bump into it during a routine mission and interrupt your lovely music.

Love NASA

@Captain Jamie

Indeed, I actually clicked on the link in the hope of getting some minor jubtastic action of nudey satellite photo bathing.

Alas no.

Simple answer

It's a fake by the Americans and their stooges in the South to try and discredit the technical superiority of the North and the divine wisdom of Great Leader's philosophy of Juche.

@ Captain Jamie

Wow, next you'll be informing us that "merkin" has another meaning too.

Dopping great Norks

Excuse me Glorious Leader Mr Nork but space is that sort of stuff above your head as in 'up' there. You know.... as in 'up' in the way that your rocket thing would have to sort of go 'up' in order to deliver a payload into it.

Looking at that photograph it seems you would have been lucky to have achieved a greater than 30 degree trajectory... which is not 'up'. It does not even approach ballistic. So, not only did it self destruct but, unless that was your intention, you did not even get it to go in the right direction. Guidance failure?

Aye Captain, Tit would seem appropriate. Dopping great Norks.

Back to the Subject in Hand

Communist country makes claim. US debunks claim, states that claim is propaganda. Communist country states Us denials are propaganda. Ad infinitum.

OK so it hasn't happened for a while, but in itself it's hardly news. The world has, however, changed since this sort of thing used to happen almost weekly.

I'm willing to bet that the US have some much better pictures than those published here. I'm guessing they've got some pretty good evidence of the whole caboodle crashing into the Pacific. Of course proving the satellite isn't there is kind of hard, the Norks can simply claim that the Merkins are looking in the wrong place. However the Yanks happen to have good photographic or even video images of the launch actually failling then North Korean protestations that those images are fake will achieve little. In this media savvy day and age where public opinion is everything everybody knows the camera doesn't lie.*

And if the Norks were to cry foul over the Merkins spying on their satellite all the Yanks have to do is claim they were tracking it in order to ensure it didn't pose a threat to their own air, sea and space traffic. Which seems to be a perfectly reasonable response.

The silliest thing about this whole adventure is the claim that the payload will only broadcast communist songs. Come on people surely you could have thought of a better purpose for your satellite?

* OK so everybody KNOWS that the camera does lie quite a lot, but they like to BELIEVE that it doesn't. That way those photographs of a celebrity blind drunk are real, rather than the result of some pap shooting on continuous catching a momentary facial expression suggesting intoxication.

Not a failure

This is a glorious Socialist triumph and shows the limitation of Western capitalist thinking.

Unlike Imperialist Running Dog satellites which must be put into high orbits to do their useful work, North Korea's revolutionary (in every sense of the word) Kwangmyŏngsŏng is even now serenading the Pacific whale population with the soul-stirring 'Song of General Kim Il-sung'.

All together now:

'Vast snowy fields of Manchuria please tell me

Endless night deep in the Taiga please tell me

Immortal guerilla warrior, who is he?

Outstanding patriot, who is it?'

(Clue: it's not Noel Edmonds)

@Camilla Smythe

Low earth orbit starts at about 160km up. Orbital velocity is about 11km per second. Even at 10g, a rocket will have to travel over 1200km to reach that speed. Rockets turn to near horizontal not long after launch.

I have reading too many register comments - at first I thought it said: "US aerospace defence commentards".

@Camilla Smythe

If it went straight up, it would come straight down again, or leave the Earth's gravitational well entirely. In order to acheive Earth orbit, the rotation of the Earth is commonly used to gain transversal velocity by firing the spacecraft from near the equator towards the East.

I stand corrected

A message is required

I saw a film about this once...

Kim Jong Il: [to terrorists on a giant monitor] Who's responsibre for browing up Panama?

Terrorist: We were upset about Cairo.

Kim Jong Il: Goddamnit, how many times do I have to tehr you? You don't use the WMDs untihr you see the signahr! I have worked ten years on this pran! It is a very precise, and a compricated pran! I am sick of you terrorists fucking it up! Now take the weapons where I tord you and wait for the *goddamn* signahr this time! Goodbye!

[shuts off monitor, and cools down]

Kim Jong Il: Why is everyone so fucking stupid?

------------------------------------------------------------------

Was Team America : World Police right all along??

Oh, you North Korea

I am reminded of a story about my sister-in-law, when she was very young, who followed her father into the garage. He immediately asked if she had her shoes on (as they are a requirement in the garage) and she stood there for a moment and said "No", a statement which was immediately proven false with a cursory inspection.

"Pyongyang, your satellite fell into the ocean."

".....No it didn't."

Commie Beats

Dear Dear Leader,

What frequency do I tune into to hear these revolutionary songs? I'm bored of Radio 1.

@Michael Martin

>> I am reminded of a story about my sister-in-law, when she was very young, who followed her father into the garage. He immediately asked if she had her shoes on (as they are a requirement in the garage) and she stood there for a moment and said "No", a statement which was immediately proven false with a cursory inspection.

Your family/in-laws must be really dull if that is what counts as a memorable story.