A few minutes after the launch, the rocket disintegrated into several pieces and lost its altitude[.]
Someone is going to get a bad performance review. Of course, it is fitting to honor Kim Il Sung with an utter failure.
UPDATE: The US adds details:
The missile was tracked on a southerly launch over the Yellow Sea, according to a statement issued from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.
Initial indications are that the missile’s first stage fell into the sea 102.5 miles west of Seoul, South Korea, the statement says. The other two stages were assessed to have failed and no debris fell on land, it says.
“At no time were the missile or resulting debris a threat,” it says.
Clearly, North Korean technological prowess is our first line of defense against nuclear missile attack.
So North Korea has more incentive to up the ante:
Analysts agree that the failure of the launch – monitors indicate that it suffered catastrophic structural failure about one minute after it was fired and fell into the ocean off the west coast of the Korean peninsula – is a humiliation to a regime that had made the event the centrepiece of celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of the founder of the nation, Kim Il-Sung. ...
"To win some of that back, they need a new achievement," he said. "A new nuclear test would provide that."
Which is kind of funny. And pointless. North Korea can't build a missile to carry a nuclear warhead to America so the North Koreans will detonate a nuclear device on North Korean soil? Dudes, we can do that for you--if you piss us off enough.
Ignore them and don't send aid. Oh, be willing to send delegations to talk to them, but don't talk about it to our press. Don't give them attention, either. Just let North Korea die.
