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Reports this week reminded the world of a fitting - if slightly bewildering - relationship: a decrepit and slow North Korean cargo ship, reportedly laden with arms, is on its way to Burma, a country ruled by a similarly obstinate and oppressive military junta. A watchful U.S. missile destroyer is following, close on its heels. (Read "Time to Face Facts on Our North Korea Ignorance...
...progress of the Kang Nam, a North Korean vessel suspected of ferrying banned arms, missiles or nuclear components. The destroyer U.S.S. John S. McCain - named for the father and grandfather of the Arizona Senator, both admirals - is trailing the 2,000-ton vessel. According to South Korean television, the ship is headed to Burma, a nation run by a military dictatorship and a suspected longtime buyer of North Korean weaponry. "If we have hard evidence" that the ship is carrying banned weaponry, Senator John McCain told CBS on Sunday, "I think we should board it." (Read "North Korea, the Coldest...
...allies can ask Pyongyang for permission to inspect the Kang Nam. But once North Korea refuses - as it is expected to do - all the mighty U.S. military can do under the resolution is inform the U.N. and stand aside while diplomats try to force any nation resupplying the ship to allow inspectors aboard. Pyongyang has said any interception of its shipping would be an "act of war," and declared over the weekend that it would "respond to sanctions with retaliation" including "unlimited retaliatory strikes" against South Korea if it helps apply U.N. sanctions...
...long, 2-ton spacecraft is not designed for a landing, but rather will settle into a low lunar orbit just 30 miles (48 km) above the surface, or about half the altitude at which the Apollos flew. The ship will be fairly stuffed with scientific instruments, one of the most important - if least sexy sounding - of which will be its laser altimeter. The altimeter will bounce laser beams off the lunar surface and, by measuring the speed at which they reflect back up, calculate the moon's topography to within inches. That's critical since long-term lunar stays require...
Easily the most exciting piece of hardware aboard the ship, however - for lay lunarphiles at least - will be the camera. Even the best reconnaissance photography before the Apollo visits missed things, which is why Apollo 11's landing almost came to grief when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin found themselves piloting their lander over an unexpected boulder field just seconds before touchdown. That's less likely to happen this time, thanks to a camera that can visualize objects as small as a few feet across. What's more, since the LRO will be in a polar orbit instead...