Russian Free Press on North Korean Launch — using my rocket!

The crack reporters at the ℜussian Free Press found a great visual for today’s North Korean rocket launch — my fiberglass V-2! You can’t make this up… but they can!

Here’s the launch video too: youtu.be/Oo9-lkAdAxw

Side note: The straight flight comes from 30 lbs. of solid lead bricks at the top of the nosecone. While the V-2 is an iconic design harkening back to comic book spacecraft, it is incredibly unstable if it lacks nose weight. When the U.S. rocket pioneers tested a variant of this design in White Sands (without a warhead up top for safety). in 1947, it rose a couple hundred feet, and then went into a wild spin overhead. Once it burned off enough fuel weight to become stable, it came out of the random spin and screamed off horizontally. By the time the UTC observers in the bunker peeked up again, it was on its way to Mexico. It crashed into a Mexican graveyard where the remaining fuel exploded. I can only imagine the conversations that ensued to keep the whole episode quiet…