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vetsetradio t1_ir036oo wrote

Reply to comment by Aazadan in North Korea launches missile 'believed' to fly over Japan by electromagneticpost

I'm no fan of the DPRK, but if you want to get to space from there (or anywhere) your easiest path is East due to Earth's rotation; from N Korea that means right over Japan. I'm sure the response you speak of is a bonus for Kim Jong-un, but if they are shooting for space, there exists no better direction to launch than East.

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DeadLikeYou t1_ir2en6w wrote

Do you think the missile was NK trying to launch a satellite?

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vetsetradio t1_ir3gms6 wrote

And they hit the missile button by accident? I doubt it.

It was probably something like a Hwasong-12 --- The missile traveled nearly 3,000 miles and reached Mach 17, with an apogee of 970km (~602 miles), well above the Karman Line of 62 miles (the common definition of where space starts).

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