This could be a really good post with a lot of depth, but I am busy. However, Josh’s productivity is making me feel guilty enough to post something brief.

First, though, a thank-you to Nathan Hodge who was kind enough to “mention me”:http://blog.wired.com/defense/2009/04/north-korea-fue.html#more a little while back. As he noted, I took issue with one phrase in his original post: “once you have mastered satellite launch, you’ve pretty much figured out how to build an ICBM.”

I told him that mastering a satellite launch

bq. helps with the “launch” part, but not the “re-enter the atmosphere and destroy the desired target” part.

This is simply because SLVs aren’t designed to do the “blow up a lot of shit” thing that ICBMs tend to be good for. If you can build such things, that is. It’s not easy – a fact that “this piece in Yonhap”:http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2009/04/05/2/0301000000AEN20090405005400315F.HTML discussed a few weeks ago.

I would also commend “this OTA report.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/file_download/7

Happy reading. And don’t even think about any unconscious motives behind your interest in missiles…

Josh adds: I’m not sure I’d call it “productivity,” exactly. And speaking for myself, at least, I’m still trying not to think too hard about my “interest in SBX”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1999/everything-you-always-wanted-to-know-about-sbx.

If you believe what’s been written about the “Musudan IRBM”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1884/irbm, then the NKs have a big leg up on the re-entry vehicle problem already.