Here’s the kicker.  The launch, contrary to popular belief, was a success.   Did it blow up shortly after launch?  Yes.   And everyone, on both sides, would have you believe that wasn’t supposed to happen.   Okay, stop laughing for a moment and let me explain.   I know right now you’re thinking, “Everyone knows a rocket is NOT supposed to blow up, You sir, are an idiot.”    I totally understand your thought process on that.  I do.   And maybe I am.  But if you’ll allow me, I’d like to tell you why I believe I’m correct on this.

First, Everyone knows this was not a Satellite launch.   The opposing governments knew it, the Koreans knew it, everyone knew it.   Why do you think the opposing governments raised such a stink about it in the first place.   This was a test launch of an ICBM (Inter Continental Ballistic Missile).   It was never meant to launch a satellite into orbit.   Yes it had a payload, but its payload was to mimic the size and weight of a nuclear bomb.    The actual test was the launch and navigation itself.   Once they had that data confirmed they were free to blow the rocket up.   Both successful*.

Second, Why blow it up you say?   As the Korean story has to be maintained there should have been a satellite on board.  There wasn’t, so naturally you’d have to make the evidence extremely difficult to retrieve, hence…  Boom.

Third, You can understand the Koreans lying about the “Failed launch” but why would our side lie as well?    Well, simply, to save face.   You see it takes a lot of the pressure off them to back up their heavy threats if the mission was seen as a giant flop.    The opposing side (us) made some pretty big threats against the Koreans if they launched their rocket. However, we also knew we were powerless to stop them and couldn’t really back any threats we were making.   And when you make threats you can’t back up, you need to look for an alternative story line to mitigate your embarrassment.   In this case it’s, “Ha! See, you’re rocket’s a FAIL!  Lets all LAUGH at you.    …so we really don’t need to do anything, cuz you didn’t really do anything.”  And then we try to sweep it under the rug as soon as possible, usually by hyper focusing on something else they are about to do.   Shifting focus from our own empty threats is the main goal.   Problem is, our government, totally knows this was a successful launch.   Contrary to what you’ll be told in the media.

So there you have it. Pretty simple and logical.  Feel free to start shooting holes in this theory if you’re so inclined.

*NOTE: Explanation of why the rocket was destroyed so quickly.   As you can imagine, an ICBM has but one purpose, to go up and come back down.   Blowing the rocket up early in its flight path eliminates a large fraction of determining it trajectory, giving the Koreans plausible denial.   If they had allowed it to continue on its designed trajectory their story of it being an orbiting vehicle would have faded.