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A Look Back At Bombing the Van Allen Belts

Posted by Soulskill on from the shiny-and-fallout-y dept.

An anonymous reader points out a recent story at NPR describing one of the greatest lightshows in history — a US hydrogen bomb test 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean in 1962. The mission came about after James Van Allen confirmed the existence of radiation belts around the earth that now bear his name. As it turns out, the same day Van Allen announced his findings at a press conference, he "agreed with the military to get involved with a project to set off atomic bombs in the magnetosphere to see if they could disrupt it." According to NPR, "The plan was to send rockets hundreds of miles up, higher than the Earth's atmosphere, and then detonate nuclear weapons to see: a) If a bomb's radiation would make it harder to see what was up there (like incoming Russian missiles!); b) If an explosion would do any damage to objects nearby; c) If the Van Allen belts would move a blast down the bands to an earthly target (Moscow! for example); and — most peculiar — d) if a man-made explosion might 'alter' the natural shape of the belts." The article is accompanied by a podcast and a video with recently declassified views of the test. They also explain how the different colors of light in the sky were produced.

6 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I can't see the tags... by Rotworm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, nowadays our view on the environment is that it is fragile. In the sixties the general view on the environment was that it was robust. For instance, abandon a suburban house and nature will take it back over time. The summary quietly acknowledges this viewpoint, they were trying to see if they could disrupt the magnetosphere, much less damage it.

  2. Hypocrasy by jvillain · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is amazing how the US comes down on on other countries for even thinking of having 1 bomb. While their history is of irresponsibly setting them off like fire crackers on the 4th. How many atolls no longer exist? How many places on earth are radioactive? Yet we are all supposed to believe that they are the sole responsible country on the earth.

    1. Re:Hypocrasy by Runaway1956 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You probably have citations for your claims. May I look at some?

      I always thought that the western world didn't want Iran to have nukes because their president and their ayatollahs frequently pass judgement on Israel, saying that they should be bombed out of existence. I could be wrong. Maybe all those speeches are just so much propaganda, and I've been drinking to much Kool-Aid. Ayatollah Kookoomaniac and President Abinutter have really been searching for a way to play kissy-huggy with the Jews, right?

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    2. Re:Hypocrasy by Teancum · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Something completely missing from this article is nothing about the history of the high altitude tests and some of the significant concerns raised about those tests.

      Perhaps more significant is the rapidity with which the Partial Test Ban Treaty was negotiated, approved, and ratified when the full impact of these tests were finally realized. It is important to note that both the USA and the Soviet Union were involved with these tests, and it wasn't just a one-sided thing. The largest problem is that continued testing of nuclear weapons would have essentially ended manned spaceflight for awhile until the radioactive materials would dissipate from the upper atmosphere... potentially taking as long as a hundred years or more if it was really pushed.

      BTW, if you are complaining about islands, atolls, and other underground and surface tests, nearly every nation who has detonated a nuclear bomb has been involved with this sort of contamination including "enlightened" countries like England and France. Opposition to other countries getting nuclear weapons isn't restricted to the USA either, but America is painted as the bad guy usually. Most countries who can afford nuclear weapons, such as China, India, and Pakistan, already have them. Countries like Kazakhstan, the Ukraine, and Belarus even gave up nuclear weapons that they had at one point. South Africa even had nuclear weapons technology at one point. The number of countries with nuclear weapons or at least the capabilities of having them is quite a few. Some countries like Japan certainly have the wealth and the technology base to build them, but don't for very deliberate political reasons (not that I blame them for that attitude either).

    3. Re:Hypocrasy by Pentium100 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Maybe it has something to do with the fact that nobody has invaded the USA recently enough for currently alive people to remember it.

      Maybe if more people knew what it's like to lie down in some ditch and hear bullets flying over it, be forced out of home because it currently is too near the front line or even worse, having your house (and everything you own) destroyed by a bomb (or the retreating army lighting it on fire so it could not be used by the enemy) with or without your loved ones in it, they would not talk about war as if it was a good thing.

  3. Re:I can't see the tags... by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wow, cool! Let's nuke it and see what happens!

    And the truth about the origin of global warming is finally revealed!

    --
    When information is power, privacy is freedom.