Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “if at first you don’t succeed,try and try again and again and again etc,etc”

The irony of "Four Successful North Korean Megaprojects" being the title of a Sideprojects video is fuking hilarious.

0:55 - Chapter 1 - Space program 5:55 - Chapter 2 - ICBMS 9:10 - Chapter 3 - Nuclear weapons 14:25 - Chapter 4 - Ballistic missile submarines

Considering that the country was completely destroyed in the 50s and has been blocked and embargoed for its entire existence, just make this achievements more impressive.

Missed opportunity to talk about North Korea's hackers. North Korea is a small, poor country and yet they are believed to have some of the best state sponsored cybersecurity specialists on the planet. This is with a populace that by and large does not have access to computers. It'd be like if Michael Phelps was Nepalese. All of the ones mentioned here are just a part of nuclear weapons development. The difference between spacecraft and ICBM is where it lands.

Please do not use AI images.

A project worth mentioning is the Nampo Dam. It's an impressive feat of engineering and shows what they can do when they don't spend everything on the military.

North Korea always has ironically been a fascinating country in terms of achievements wether it be space programs military programs or just how it hasn’t collapsed yet with their politics

"Russia flat out refused to sell North Korea a SCUD." Even Russia thought they were nutty.. That says a lot!

"North Koreas non existing economy" speaks volumes about the ignorance toward this country, North Korea does in fact have a substantial heavy industry for a country of its size

I like these more unusual topics, well done Simon.

I like the point of view, wish more journalists would have this. Neutral, objective, that kind of stuff.

It is reasonably impressive. The USA had German scientists and engineers to drive success in NASA via operation paperclip post WW2. What we see from NASA today, if we remove SpaceX from that consideration, is pretty average at best in terms of launches and crazy wasteful in terms of budget. Contrast this with what other nations such as India are achieving and it becomes more stark for NASA's achievement in recent decades.

I didn't know why you described NK as having "struggled" in its space program. Do you know how many rockets NASA and the JPL blew up?

If north and south korea ever would reunite it would be a powerhouse

I kept hearing the name of their ICBM as "croissant" and refuse to change that

Thank you for citing the sources in this video. Some of these websites have some absolutely fascinating stuff to read. 😁

TBF, a submarine with diesel-electric engine can be even stealthier than a nuclear one for a simple reason: you can turn off the engine and just stand still completely silent. I'm not saying that the NK sub would be quieter, it would not, but the stealthier subs on the planet are NOT the nuclear one, but the type 212.

Actually the us a while back did a test to see how difficult it would be for a small country to manufacture a nuclear bomb without any knowledge and the people (who had 0 knowledge of nuclear bomb making) had a working prototype within a very short time, like few months. Its kinda shocking it took them this long to make them as us/ussr had them 60/50 years previously. The ussr gave them the direction but it took a long time to figure out how to make it work

Frankly I’m surprised authoritarian regimes don’t successfully pull off mega-projects more often given their ability to dictate the allocation of funds and labor however they choose.

Note that it potentially doesn't matter that the missile submarine sucks and can't hide forever. They can still survive a first strike simply by operating near North Korean shores where they can be protected by North Korean land based and surface assets, or hide near Russian/Chinese waters where those countries wouldn't be particularly enthusiastic about a huge SK/US led ASW effort.

I love you content. Incredible how diverse it is. Do you operate a team or do you run your content yourself?

"literally the stuff of night bears" gotta love the auto captions!

What is really scary is that photo of a little nuclear reactor facility. It looks so ramshackle, yet that’s all it takes.

this is really horrible if you think about how their population is starving and freezing

FYI, the orbits for the space program is about right. The average LEO sat can do 16 orbits a day and the sat was up for ~130 days. that is around the number of orbits reported

FINALLY Simon gets to do a North Korean video that won't get him on a list.

So what happened to the ‘unsuccessful’ teams. Take your time.

Surprisingyly successful megaprojects... in sideprojects. Brutal.

This reminds me of an anecdote that a sergeant in the GDR army told me in the 1980s. At the time, the NVA was considered one of the best armies in the Warsaw Pact. "My captain said that one of the tankers must have a broken valve. I went there with a heavy hammer and found a broken valve. We were then able to refuel our vehicles with the leaking fuel." How many tanks and troop carriers has North Korea decommissioned for a single submarine?

I find it hard to believe that picture of Kim Il-Jung on the Moon is AI generated, it looks soooo realistic 🤣🤣🤣 But seriously their rockets look pretty darned cool

Hey NK, maybe consider doing some Megaprojects that don't involve a nuclear apocalypse?

At 14:53 "....Yugo class...." I didn't know Serbia made submarines!! Seriously, a submarine with that name....I I just don't think I could step into it!! I would be afraid to have the same reputation as the car....

At least they are not bombing kids

I'm thinking a video on the things discovered separately the most times would be interesting. Like rocket engines and jet engines. How many separate times in history have wheels been 'invented' or beer or sails.

‼️ Million subs!!! Congratulations! ‼️

Thank you for bring this tough information to those of us who do not see comparable news stories in the major press releases. Not pleasant to learn but necessary to stay somewhat informed about is going on in the big world that most of us never see.

Over 4000km high? But 900 km in distance? Doesn’t sound right.

Computer chips are more important. They are obsessed with over grown firecrackers. They are good at it.

I have no love for North Korea, but keep the videos about them coming! It's like watching mini dystopian horror films.

Shouldn't this be on the Megaprojects projects channel?

In 2009, North Korea announced more ambitious future space projects, including its own crewed space flights and the development of a partially reusable crewed shuttle launch vehicle mockup, which was displayed at Mangyongdae Children's Palace.

I got an ad for JB weld before a NK mega projects video and couldn't help but laugh

what a surprise, every thing on the list has to do with rockets...

0:08 Meanwhile / The USA still uses 8" floppy Discs to launch it's Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles!!! :(

Thank you for being honest that your AI images are AI. I personally dont mind you using them as long as you are transparent about it.

A lot of the NK Juche philosophy really appeals to me. Its a very can do, sweat of our brow outlook, Its a hard philosophy for hard people, and I think it has much to do with the success in projects like these; and although I like to live by the principles of self reliance and strength having to live under it as law would be frightening.

Simon, please, I love your content and your channels, but the AI images are JARRINGLY bad. I have to agree with the others voicing this here. You can do better

Guy in Australia built a cruise missile for pennies on the defense budget dollar and shot it over Perth just to prove the government was wasting tax dollars

"sir, 'Nasa' is already taken!" "Then we shall call it... Nata!"

"Side Projects" refers to the many projects of Simon. Sheesh!

Oh no! Simon and the Sideprojects team must have downed their own weight in Kool-Aid!

It’s crazy that only after 5 years of Soviet and US control, this country was radicalized enough to take up arms against their brethren. Note that in the 40 odd years of Germany being divided between East and West, there wasn’t a civil war. It’s always perplexed me.

The success story we DON'T want to see. However, its important to note things like this so we're never deluded into thinking sanctions or non-violent actions work.

Video leads off with North Korea's space program, and the same day the video is released, their spy satellite blows up mid-launch 😂

If DPRK can go to space, any other country can. It's just sad that the space programs of decently rich countries like mine (Romania) are just a complete joke.

The graph at 7:44 states the distance from LA to DC is 1.5k km. Am I just interpreting this wrong, or are they woefully inaccurate on that one, as it's over double that distance 🤔

The dreaded floppy disc, what's funny is that maybe it could

Credit where credit is due. I like it.

imagine if one of these projects produced food and wealth for their people. haha

Never underestimate the KOREAN people. North or south, they are ALL KOREANS. I am a proud korean.

I'm noticing a trend with their megaprojects

man stop making me root for the underdog here

The achievements in order: Rockets, Rockets, Nuclear Rockets, Submarine.

last time I was this early, Korea was a country

How many youtube channels does this guy have?

How is it surprising that when a country dedicate the entirety of their budget to the military they could achieve these things. What would be _surprising_ is if we hear someone from rural North Korea telling us what great developments happened in their area that they’re now prosperous and well-fed. I would be waiting for that over stupid useless missiles anytime.

How many people know that before the Korean War, what is now North Korea was wealthier than what is now South Korea?

I will say i enjoy the AI images atleast when they are clearly labeled and you can see its almost artistic in nature

It is a bit weird that a country as small as north korea did a manhattan projected. like is 2024 north korea equivalent in absolute productivity to 1944 usa? probably not so it's strange

Minus the new satellite rocket they fired off last night. A very expensive firework 🎆🎇🎆🎇

Neat.

Does the floppy disc have number munchers and Oregon trail disguised as a total control computer virus?

Echoing, please do not use AI images, I understand how it can help aid in storytelling to fill in the gaps - but one of my favorite things about your channel is looking at each of the sourced historical images

koreans are extraordinary people. north korea is a perfect example.

The part on nukes implies that they fooled Soviets and were secretly working on nukes and the work just "happened" to produce results in 2003. This is BS. Building nukes is not that hard if you already have access to nuclear materials and do not need it to be good. Even North Korea had technology superior to what the US or the Soviets had for their first nukes for decades before 2003. The deterrent blocking them was that despite technically being at war the risk of their enemies invading despite opposition from China and the Soviets was too low to justify pissing off everyone, including China and the Soviets. They would have just been giving the US an actual reason to invade or otherwise mess with them for no real gain in security. Especially since both China and the Soviets made it clear they do not approve the idea and just might decide they prefer the US winning the Korean war to North Korea with nuclear weapons. Unlikely but too possible to risk without good reason. What changed was that the US decided to invade a country to do a regime change using weapons of mass destruction as the rationale despite said country already having been forced to give up such weapons and there being no evidence to suggest they had any that wasn't already known to be unreliable or outright proven false. This drastically changed the calculus for nuclear weapons for both North Korea and Iran. The need for deterrent against opportunistic invasions for regime change went way up after the US did one despite it being obvious the resulting instability would be bad for their interests. And the benefit of not being an international pariah for building nukes became irrelevant when the US just ignored all evidence and treated Iraq as an imminent threat close to having nukes anyway. Plus North Korea is a pariah without real friends anyway. Even Saddam was far more popular. Incidentally, this is one thing many allies were warning the US about BEFORE the invasion of Iraq. Bigger concern obviously was how removing Saddam would totally break Iraq because Saddam had spent decades removing everyone who could replace him. Which in turn would give both Iran and Islamic militants a golden opportunity to move in. Not to mention the separatists that Saddam was already brutally suppressing also obviously being a major obstacle to having a stable central government. And this was something everyone already understood because it was the reason Saddam got to keep his position in the previous war. But obviously both North Korea and Iran would have been more interested in having nukes instantly going from an expensive major liability without real purpose to something you need to prevent being invaded that doesn't really lose you anything that might not be taken away at anytime anyway. North Korea already had access to nuclear materials and basic nuclear technology so they could respond fast without there being anyway for anyone to stop other than the US doing a third major invasion while still being committed in Afghanistan and Iraq and China likely to provide significant support to already large North Korean military, which by the way, even before nukes, had the ability to destroy many South Korean cities with conventional weapons. At least potentially, nobody really knows how that would work out but South Korea doesn't really want to find out no matter what people in Washington say. So in practice even if the US president wanted to invade North Korea they probably couldn't because their local allies and possibly even the Pentagon would refuse to risk the potential number of civilian casualties in a country where they won't just be ignored by media like with Iraq or Afghanistan. Too bad the people in power in North Korea are too paranoid to trust their enemies refusing to attack them so... they got nuclear deterrent as fast as they could. Which really is just few years if you already have the materials. To be fair invading Iraq was known to be dumb in advance and the US did it anyway and even got a coalition to support it, so the paranoia was somewhat justified.

That rocket is a joke. It needs to be pointy.

I’ll never understand why nobody especially NATO didn’t do whatever was necessary to prevent North Korea from making nuclear weapons BEFORE they did.

More successful than UK Trident launches. LOL

In the Korean war the Pentagon had a game plan of nuking North Korea .. With US pointing Nukes at North Korea ( and heavily Sanctioning them ) then pointing some Nukes back is a logical defensive step .. Criticizing North Korea is well and good, but the Pentagon is not so perfect either .. holding biases when reporting diminishes your report .. 🤔

Well when you're building because your life depends on the outcome is bound to be good.

Free health care

When was the former Great Britain had anything close to a Megaropject?

Impressive.

I thought nuclear powered subs were really noisy underwater, with those steam turbines?

Im no longer sure what success means.

Man... that whole place is nutty AF. Also didnt they just have one of their subs sink for like... no reason at all?😂

How is Korea paying for all of this?

Submarine Diesel Engines can be super stealthy, didn't the Finish or was it Norway remain undetected with theirs under a US ship during an exercise?

Simon is like Alton Brown's younger brother...😅 Which is a complement.

I like this. I want to know more about human achievements regardless of which country did it. Remember, some of those who are making these achievements possible are just normal people wishing for a better life. Its not their fault where they live. Oh. Also, stop using those ai generated images. They cheapen all of your channels.

Basically North Korea gets a participation medal. The video.

The real concern with North Korea is what it will eventually become, if left unchecked. Think about what what will happen if sanctions are lifted and they're given an easier time to develop their technology. North Korea won't forget those that stood in it's way.

I know pizza and burger is from north korea I think golf too most things actually come from there

100€ A North Korean will watch this from North Korea. It's happened before

Oh no! North Korea has captured Fact Boi, taken him to The Basement, and is forcing him to make North Korean propaganda! 🤣

You're right! It WOULD be legitimately difficult for ANY nation to develop this tech from scratch! Which is why I expect the Chinese and/ or Russians provided help to the N. Koreans in this endeavour (ICBMs + MIRVs). After all, China has always shown a vested interest in supporting N. Korea, going so far as to directly go to war against the USA in the 50s, in defence of Korea (ostensibly to prevent the USA from having control of the Korean peninsula, so close to the Chinese mainland).

The food aid we provided helped them do this.

8:03 👍

Lol James Martin is my hotel name.