The long range NK missile went 42 seconds before crashing. This sounds like it went a long way. Anyone agree?

Question

42 seconds is a longer amount of time than most people would think, and missiles like this one travel at about 8 kilometers per second (yes, that fast), it sounds to me like the missile probably went quite a long way and the media and government are just playing it down. Does anyone agree?

I just saw on a re-run of abc world news tonight that it crashed near Hawaii.

Answer 1

Yes, I agree and it wont be long before we are at war with them. This country has caused to much trouble. They need to mind their own business. Should have way back when.

Answer 2

The media would never play anything down, absolutely not. The government would, sure, but not the media. This is especially true because they are rabid toward our current government. If they could make the President look bad about this launch, they would, and they've never shown any willingness to cooperate with President Bush.

The missile didn't get very far because a good portion of that 42 seconds is straight up as the missile gains altitude and speed. Although the missile didn't perform well, it did perform, and 42 seconds is definitely not a failure by any means. So I think the bottom-line answer is somewhere in between. It wasn't a great success, but it wasn't a failure either.

Answer 3

Let's assume this missile was on a constant acceleration trajectory. In 42 seconds, it reaches a speed of 8km/s. This means it is accelerating at 0.19 km/s^2. After 42 seconds, the maximum distance it could have traveled would be 168 km. It is unlikely that it even traveled that far as normally missiles are shot upward and not sideways. I would also question if the missile reached 8km/s (is this it's top cruising speed?).

After thinking a bit more, it clearly could not have obtained a velocity of 8km/s. 190m/s^2 is about 19g's. The actual distance had to be much less that 168km.

My understanding is that this missile had either a control, guidance or actuator failure from liftoff (to the extent that nobody is really sure of its intended trajectory).

Answer 4

Basic physics applies here...
The Initial velocity of the missile is 0...You could even solve for the distance the projectile traveled using x=x0 + v0 t + 1/2 a t t
where t=time, v0 =initial velocity, x0 =initial distance and "a" is the acceleration.

Almost 1/3 of the time the projectile is "projecting" up or away from earth. That leaves ~ 25 seconds for horizontal displacement.

If even more time was spent projecting up or away from earth, the horizontal displacement time is even less.

Answer 5

Personally, I think it's partially the government playing it down, but it's partly Kim Jong Il playing us. Think about it. He says "If you get involved in Korea, I'll shoot this at you." Then, he sets up a "dud" to lure us into a false sense of security. He invaded, we intervene, and BOOOM! We lose the whole Western seaboard. Sure, he'd be done then, but he'll have crippled us mightly. Yes, I am worried about this. I agree that the government is playing this down. We'll see soon. Gotta good feeling.

Answer 6

I believe that the United States shot down the missle with a top secret weapon fired from a submarine off the coast of NK.. North Korea is furious and that is why they threaten to continue with more launches.

Answer 7

It didn't land near Hawaii, it was aimed at a spot near Hawaii. It landed in the water between North Korea and Japan

Answer 8

The way I heard it is that the missles that were launched landed in the sea of Japan as they were suppose to. Except for one that landed just off the coast line of Japan. And our gov. is more likely to play it up than down. They would be looking for a reason to go to war. And if it didn't sound completely out of hand our gov. could not justify another war to our people.

Answer 9

It barely made it out of its own air space and crashed in the Sea of Japan and without the additional weight of a payload. This was an act of a child throwing a tantrum, hoping to divert world attention back to himself.

Answer 10

What bothers me is that it's being reported as if it was a misfire-- at least from the local newsources in L.A.. First of all, if it was a misfire, what was it aimed at? Secondly, if it wasn't a misfire, then why was it fired into the ocean? There's just something about the whole thing that bothers me tremendously.