Can North Korea Actually Hit the United States With a Nuclear Weapon?<br />Schematic diagram of the re-entry vehicle<br />Atmospheric forces and intense heat affect the re-entry vehicle<br />Schematic diagram of the<br />Atmospheric forces and<br />intense heat affect the<br />One trick of designers is to coat the reentry vehicle with thick materials<br />that burn off evenly, making an ablative shield that sends dangerous heat into the wake.<br />Highly advanced states that have worked on the problem for decades can launch ICBMs whose warheads will hit target areas<br />roughly 200 meters wide – “an astonishing technical achievement,” says Donald MacKenzie, author of “Inventing Accuracy.”<br />One estimate for North Korea, based on the accuracy of other first-generation<br />ICBMs, ranges between three and five kilometers, or about two to three miles.<br />If the North keeps up its rate of missile tests, it will likely have perfected a crude re-entry<br />vehicle by next year, if it doesn’t possess one already, private analysts say.
