Nope, you’ve ignored the reason for the launch. The paint job on the rocket is unimportant. The date of the launch attempt was very important indeed. It was the 100th birthday of the (dead for 18 years, but still in office) first & eternal president of North Korea, the God-King whose grandson is now the semi-divine ruler, anointed by heaven where his grandfather rules supreme, blessing His beloved people with fine weather when they do not offend Him or stray off His true path of Juche.

Have you actually paid any attention to what goes on in North Korea? I remember when its government paid for multi-page advertisements in the main British newspapers to celebrate Kim Il-Sung’s birthday. They were totally bonkers. They were insane – but apparently, deadly serious. They not only claimed that he was infallible, but stated that the weather & wildlife had celebrated his birth, that the sun broke through clouds to shine on his birthplace to mark the time he was born, etc.

The rocket launch was completely, totally, & utterly about appearances. It was saying (mostly to the poor bloody North Koreans who paid for it) “Look at what we can do!”, & an act of worship of their founding deity.

No I did not ignore. But to say that they made the decision to launch or test the rocket only due to the 100th birth anniversary is wrong. The date of launch may have been made to coincide with the week of celebration….but I’m sure they planned and started preparing for this launch since the last flight of the rocket in 2009. After the current launch, we heard that they will be preparing another launch of this rocket in 2years.

I don’t know about North Korean advertisement in British newspapers as I don’t live there and no one reported about it in the forum.

But I don’t buy the theory that the launch was for appearance. Their first priority definitely was (and has to be) to test their technology and create a base for the next level. The next priority could have been for boosting the image or anything like that. If it was just for appearance, they first of all would have resisted any opening of the event to foreign media in the face of strong Japanese and South Korean propaganda against the launch. If it was purely for appearance, they would could have avoided the media and promoted wrong story to their people that the rocket launch was successful etc. But that is not what happened. They reported about the failure without much fanfare and in silence. And that is natural because it is embarrassing when an event with so much expectation fails in its mission.
But that happens every where, we in India have been witnessing many rocket launches through our national broadcaster and the last flight of the GSLV was the most embarrassing for me of all the launches that I have watched. It is not because the rocket could not succeed in its mission (they will manage it next time), but because, for the first time, the telecast ended abruptly without the routine as if someone unplugged the telecast. I’ve never seen such a reaction during earlier failures like the one I saw last time when GSLV failed.

No, they said they’d shoot it down if it looked as if it might land in Japan. Not the same thing.

well that is not exactly how the Japs & yanks behaved. They reached to that level of “consideration” when they realized that the outright threat of shooting it down wont work and will only complicate matter for the worse. That is what i remember from the news telecasts..

Nasa need to learn too…man that bin next to the brown jacket is almost spilling over..!!:eek:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eoa7aTS35vI/TJfdzVbqohI/AAAAAAAAAlk/rBDMGa3Vwm0/s1600/Mission_control_centerShuttle.jpg
http://www.firstpost.com/topic/organization/indian-space-research-organisation-indian-scientists-watch-displays-as-they-sit-in-th-image-0e5G3ApfoPaNs-91727-1.html

:rolleyes:

the ability of some people at self depreciation never ceases to amaze me…

ok maybe i was wrong in writing….let me make it clear little more.
By the clean stuff I mean not the table and contents on it or the crowded room. The screen shot I made came up with the engineers and their table also and may have conveyed different meaning. I meant the large display, the arrangement of 1 + 4 display…. it looks very neat and good. That is what I was mentioning. You might have seen many rocket launches in India and seen how the launch station of ISRO looks like.

ISRO’s centre still have those small screens compared to the well laid out large displays that we get to see in the Korean control centre…

btw, is it a rule that we should not learn or see the positive things from those who are lower to us in terms of capablity?? :rolleyes:

some more good photos that were not posted.