Bay Waka
February - April 2018
15
Opinion: We believe everything we are told. Yeah right. On 29 November 2017, 11:44am, the New Zealand Herald published an article online, “Latest North Korea missile launch puts Washington DC within reach.” Embedded in the article was the following statement:
The article casually implies that North Korea has seriously advanced space travel capability. This is no mean feat; to pass through the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere (just missing the International Space Station (ISS) at 408km) and passing into the exosphere at around 500kms, while continuing onwards into outer space for yet another 4000kms before swinging around and returning back to earth, while physically arriving only 1000kms from their launch pad. Let’s not forget the 2,271 satellites currently in orbit. Lucky, they didn’t clip any of those as they passed by – twice. To achieve this incredible feat within a 54-minute window, the North Koreans had to calculate precisely to bring their missile approximately 2400km from the launchpad due to needing to take into account the ongoing spin of the earth at 1600kph. What incredible trajectory control and communications technology they would need. Furthermore, just the 9000km return trip into space within 54 minutes had this spectacular piece of machinery travelling at over 10,000km/h on average! That is over ‘eight times’ the speed of sound, which makes it one of, if not the most advanced intercontinental missile ever invented. NASA states that the thermosphere can reach temperatures up to 2500°C and up to 2000°C in the exosphere is widely reported. You have to take your hat off to the North Koreans, who must have built their missile out of the purest tungsten steel with a melting point of 3400°C because almost all other metals and internal componentry would have melted during this spectacular demonstration of their space technology. Not to mention the heat of re-entry which NASA has estimated other probes returning from orbit to be at 34g with a surface temperature of 2900°C. Perhaps if the west invades North Korea, we could acquire some of their insulation technology that sits under the burning tungsten steel skin to
protect the electronics beyond 1100°C, after which, not much can survive melting. What strikes me most of all, is that no Government has complained about such a weapon of mass destruction, potentially hurtling (twice) past the ISS and 1100 active satellites while performing this extraordinary feat of space travel ability. It does remind me of the time Tony Blair publicly misrepresented intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq during 2002. Do we seriously believe North Korea can build a tungsten missile heated up to 2000–2900°C for nearly an hour, for a 9000km outer space journey at a speed eight times that of sound? Or, are the mainstream media softening up the public for a military strike on North Korea in the near future?
At school, do you remember being taught about Hitler’s false propaganda? So, what do we have here? By Jim Swan I write for this magazine to highlight what I think fake news might look like.
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“The missile travelled about 1000km and reached a height of about 4500km before landing off the coast of Japan early Wednesday local time, flying for a total of 54 minutes.”