Allen Thomson's Most Recent Comments
in: North Korea Expanding Key Missile Site
in: It Takes a Village to Raze a Test Stand
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I took the “heat” remark to imply detection of an actual engine plume by US missile warning satellites like DSP, SBIRS and possibly other, more obscure ones. That, after all, is kind of what they were designed for.
A horizontally fired biggish solid motor would be the easiest target, but not the only possibility.Clouds would be a problem for direct detection, of course.
in: Domestic UDMH Production in the DPRK
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> Is there a way to estimate volume of the wastewater ponds
Kinda. Using the polygon tool in Google Earth Pro, one gets about 45,000 square meters for the area of each of the north and south ponds. Something like 90 – 100k square meters for the both of them.
The terrain looks pretty flat and close to sea level, so I don’t think they’re all that deep, a few meters, say three as an order-of-magnitude estimate. So ~300,000 cubic meters volume, give or take a factor of 2 or so.
in: Australia and Nuclear Submarines
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Does this concern full-up nuclear propulsion or a hybrid scheme with a small reactor to provide low-speed propulsion and hotel services coupled with a conventional engine for high-speed sprints?
in: Presidential Command and Control in the Age of Trump
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McClatchy has a longish article on just this topic:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article117054908.html
Trump’s finger soon will hover over the nuclear button. Will he be ready?
By Tim Johnson
November 25, 2016 4:28 PM
in: DPRK Missile Designations
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In the US military/intelligence community, the assignment of weapons and space systems designators is done by a subcommittee of the, you’d never guess it, Weapon and Space Systems Intelligence Committee (WSSIC, pronounced Wiss-sick). Nominations for designations can, of course, come from WSSIC member agencies. Steven Zaloga has a little on this, https://tinyurl.com/hpmn3xh .
In looking for references, I came across the following description of WSSIC which, since it’s in a job announcement and those tend to be transient, I’m going to copy here in the interests of preservation.
https://clearedjobs.net/job/sr-science-amp-amp-tech-intel-analyst-vienna-virginia-351849
[excerpts]
The Weapon and Space Systems Intelligence Committee (WSSIC) provides the national level Intelligence Community (IC) forum for technical analysis and reporting on the capabilities of foreign weapon and space systems. It operates under the auspices of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The WSSIC responds to requests for intelligence products from senior policy and decision makers across the US government. It facilitates collaboration on intelligence across the IC and with US allied nations.
[snip]
[Duties]
[snip]
– Provide staff support to Subcommittees to edit and disseminate memos assigning designators and names for foreign weapon and space systems
in: MH17 Anniversary
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Not imagery forensics per se, but since both pictures appear to be near-nadir shots taken, according to the labels, at 11:32 (presumably local time) on 17 July 2014, it should be possible to get the orbital elements of satellites in LEO at that time and verify that an imaging satellite was, indeed, in position to take the pictures. And, of course, identify which satellite it was, if any.
Checking out the shadows wouldn’t hurt either. Just eyeballing them, they do look like it was a late morning in summer, but detailed mensuration might provide useful constraints.
in: Python Library for Nuclear Weapons Effects
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Very interesting. Digging far back in vague memory, ISTR that at one point it was discovered, possibly from the handbook you have, that Soviet modeling of ground shock from low airbursts differed significantly from the American calculations because physics.
BTW, would there be any problems with running GLASSTONE under Python 3.x?
in: Producing Tritium in North Korea
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For the sake of completeness, it should be pointed out that tritium production based on a high-power proton accelerator has been studied in the US since the ’90s. See, e.g., https://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/lib-www/la-pubs/00418751.pdf
in: Applying Jus in Bello to the Nuclear Deterrent
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Silo attacks would very likely use contact fuzing, i.e. ground bursts, and produce large amounts of fallout. In the Cold War context, the results of that would have been extreme. See the FEMA study NAPB-90 and remember that the mean lethal dose is about 600 roentgens:
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> which is in Hamhung: 39.957300° 127.556200°
If I might be allowed to ride a favorite hobbyhorse for a second, one degree along a great circle is 111 km. So one place to the right of the decimal place is ~10 km and six places is ~ 10 cm. The facility in question is a couple of hundred meters across, so accuracy to the 10 cm level definitely needs some justification.