December sky

North Korea successfully fired a rocket today, raising the possibility of a long-range missile that destabilizes a barely-stable area of the world.

It also provides us with an opportunity to glimpse the fascinating and spontaneous outpouring of joy by North Koreans.

“What the North Koreans have done is taken the technology the Russians developed 50 years ago and upgraded it a little bit and they’re trying to use that old technology to cause a splash in the international scene and to get paid attention to,” Homer Hickam, a former NASA engineer, told CNN.

And, yeah, that Homer Hickam, which makes one wonder if there’s a Homer Hickam somewhere in North Korea today?