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| Unha-4 |
The rocket flew for around 90 seconds before exploding, hitting its intended target according to North Korean officials – a flock of birds. A spokesman for the regime, who refused to give his name or age, said that the North Korean people would eat well tonight and "the bird-killing rocket was made possible by the vision of the revered late leader Kim Jong-il, who selflessly died of starvation in December so that North Korean children could eat". But Fox News said it believed the birds were American and the attack was effectively a declaration of war by the North Korean puppet regime, with an emotional presenter threatening to destroy Pyongyang in a 'sea of fire'.
The regime had originally claimed the rocket would carry a dual-purpose observation-communication satellite into space that would be used to monitor the weather, find trees to cut down, and communicate directly with Hankyoreh journalists in the South. But South Korea, Japan and many Western nations accused the North of using the rocket test as a cover for its nuclear program, which is aimed at American cities.
International journalists and space experts had been invited to the launch site to act as human shields in case the hated Americans tried to take military action to prevent the launch, although officially they were there at the invitation of Pyongyang in order to witness the launch and verify that it had peaceful purposes.
One Russian space expert present at the launch site said the rocket was clearly civilian in nature rather than military, because it was painted white rather than green or brown. An American space expert also at the site, who said he had a wife and young children back home but had come to North Korea for resume purposes, said he didn't think the Unha-3 rocket launch was possibly intended to be used for military purposes.
North Korean scientists and officials at the space center were unable to immediately comment on the success of the launch, as many were caught up in long queues for the bathroom. Some claimed to have worked so hard on the rocket they hadn't been to the toilet since 2009, when Pyongyang claims it put a satellite broadcasting revolutionary songs into orbit using a Taepongdong-2 rocket, embarrassing South Korean officials who had been in a race to launch a satellite to broadcast K-pop songs first.
But despite the claims from Pyongyang, scientists and officials in the rest of the world said that the 2009 launch had been a failure, with no evidence of a satellite being placed in orbit. Further bad luck seemed to strike when all the scientists involved in the program subsequently died in a series of bizarre accidents which seemed to mirror those from the Final Destination series of movies.
After the failure, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il – a noted movie buff – laid plans for the new launch which finally took place today. While the regime is claiming the latest launch as a success, officials at the North American Aerospace Defense Command - NORAD - said it had failed with the rocket breaking into several pieces just over a minute after launch. This seems likely to raise tensions on the Korean Peninsula, as North Korea had earlier warned that any failure of the rocket would represent an act of war by South Korea and the United States. An attack on South Korea in the near-future is now considered highly likely, again.
U.S. Navy ships are now said to be racing to the location parts of the rocket splashed down, as analyzing the wreckage will yield vital intelligence on the nature of the North Korean program. But South Korea's Hankyoreh newspaper says the American search is likely to come up empty-handed, as it believes that "after exploding, parts of the rocket traveled back in time - a well-known science fiction phenomenon – and fell into the West Sea, hitting the warship Cheonan two years ago, finally solving the mystery of its accidental sinking."
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