Florida Today October 10, 2006
Fla. Air Force base studies N. Korea nuclear test
By R. Norman Moody
PATRICK AIR FORCE BASE - North Korea made no secret of its nuclear ambitions.
But even if Sunday's nuclear test had been concealed, the explosion would have been detected at the Air Force Technical Applications Center at Patrick Air Force Base.
Within the building's steel-hardened facade, technicians would have immediately picked up seismic activity from the underground explosion through more than 80 sensors around the globe that are monitored here to help keep top commanders, including President Bush, informed.
"I would assume that they would have detected it right away," said national security expert John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. "They would have had somebody on watch."
Commensurate with its task, AFTAC keeps to itself. Calls to the agency Monday were not returned. General details of the agency's mission are posted on the Internet, however.
The nuclear test puts North Korea in an exclusive group of nations in possession of the deadliest weapon, but also likely will isolate it even more. The test already has drawn a hardened reaction from China and South Korea and the wrath of other nations, including the U.S.
"A nuclear North Korea poses a dire threat to peace and stability and all U.S. interests in Asia," U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Orlando, said in a statement. "That's why the international community needs to come together and make North Korea pay a heavy price for what we all agree is an unacceptable provocation."
The U.S. reportedly was trying Monday to confirm that the seismic event detected was indeed a nuclear detonation, and not an explosion of another type.
Pike said there could be some ambiguity as to whether a seismic event was a nuclear or chemical explosion. Other data, including satellite image and airborne sensors, would help confirm the North Korean's claim of a nuclear test.
Visually, a nuclear test likely would produce a crater 2,000 to 3,000 yards in diameter, Pike said. It's unknown what other data already had been gathered.
The Air Force will say little about the unique nuclear monitoring mission done at the four-story building at the edge of State Road A1A, across from the base's club for enlisted personnel and officers.
It is the sole Department of Defense agency operating and maintaining a worldwide network of nuclear detection sensors.
So important is the center that SR A1A was closed immediately after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and then restricted to two lanes while a barrier was built and the building's front strengthened. In the months before it was reopened, it remained restricted to small vehicles.
If the AFTAC system senses a disturbance underground, underwater, in space or in the atmosphere, it is analyzed for nuclear identification and the findings reported to National Command authorities through the Air Force headquarters.
The system is designed to detect events, identify the source and even collect samples from the event if fallout drifts into a country that grants the U.S. access.
After the seismic detection, AFTAC would continue gathering and analyzing data. In addition to seismic sensors, it has hydroacoustic monitors, and also gathers data from ground-based monitors and from airborne samples.
"Then I think they go to work on it," Pike said.
The seismic data can locate the general area of the detonation within 15 to 20 miles. Satellite images of the sub-crater created by even a deep explosion would give more data.
"It will tell you the efficiency of the device," Pike said.
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