"North Korea Has Launched a Missile Over Japan" Topic

" North Korea has launched another missile – this time flying straight over Japan
* It was fired from Sunan district of the Stalinist dictatorship's capital, Pyongyang
* The South Korean and US militaries are now analysing the details of the launch
* It comes as North Korea threatened to nuke Japan after latest round of sanctions

The Japanese government has issued a warning to its citizens after North Korea fired a missile over the country.

It was launched from the Sunan district of Pyongyang, South Korea's military said.

The missile has flown over Japan, Japan's NHK television said, but the government is warning citizens to avoid touching anything that looks like debris.

It landed 1,240 miles off the cape of Erimo in Hokkaido island at about 7.16am local time…
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Amicalement
Armand

Hmm. Another one. They just won't stop. It's like a little game for Li' Kim.

Dan

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

The maximum altitude this missile reached was 770 km. How high does Japan's airspace extend? Did this missile violate Japanese territory?

"Did this missile violate Japanese territory?'
Kinda like someone shooting a gun 100 meters over your head!
Do you trust were the next shot goes?

@Begemot: North Korea is responsible for wherever the missile landed.

That's not jingoism, that's settled international law.

How high does Japan's airspace extend?

There's no international agreement on how high a nation's airspace extends. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airspace

I commit a heresy.

Above I noted that the North Korean missile had a reported apogee of 770 km. It appears that the limit of national air space in the vertical dimension is recognized as between 80 to 100 km. So 770 km seems to be well outside anyone's claimed national air space.

For additional context the following altitudes are noted:

• International Space Station – 340 km
• Hubble Telescope – 595 km
• Gemini 11 mission – perigee 298 km
• First Sputnik satellite – 215 km

How many people freak out about Hubble or the ISS passing overhead?

As for North Korea firing a missile over Japan it might be helpful to look at a map. To the north and west are Russia and China. A missile would fall on their territory. They might not approve. Additionally a North Korean missile fired to the north could suggest an attack vector towards USA, which might trigger unwanted retaliation from USA. A test shot to the south provides sea areas for the missile to fall into but would put the missile onto a trajectory over South Korea, which could be misunderstood and trigger an unwanted military response from USA.

Shooting to the east provides the Pacific as a splash down area. However, it's hard to avoid Japan. Hokkaido is one of the least densely populated areas of Japan, so setting a ballistic path over Hokkaido (which is what North Korea did) is less risky to people on the ground, or provocative, than putting the flight path over Tokyo.

So, maybe while the shoot may be considered a provocative demonstration of capability by a government detested by USA, it looks like it can be argued that, within the given context, the North Koreans selected a flight path that represented the least risk to people on the ground. Is this a sign of rational calculation?

End of heresy.

The difference is that the Hubble, International Space Station, Gemini 11, and even Sputnik were in orbit.

A missile isn't.

A missile is going to land on someone, and with Nork tech/QA levels, it's not particularly guaranteed that it will land where they pointed it.

Not heresy to look objectively at the ground and review the possibilities. However, were I Japan I'd be desperately trying to acquire systems that can defend against those missiles for the simple fact that 'short rounds' could land on Japan.

Oh, I agree that there isn't a good direction for the Norks to test-launch, and that throwing a round over Japan is their least-bad option.

But when any other nation is launching missiles (the US does a test launch of Tridents at least once a year, for example), we tell people ahead of time and try to clear the area.

There would be a LOT less wailing and gnashing of teeth if the Norks would behave like a civilized nation and say, "Hey, we're launching a rocket this day, flying this direction, expected splashdown about here. Anyone in the area will be in extreme danger, so we're issuing warnings ahead of time."

Imagine what would happen if the US launched a missile from Kwajelin towards China without warning.