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A Look Back At Bombing the Van Allen Belts
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.
At least it will be a very pretty ending when the nuclear war begins.
These images look very similar to what I had seen last night. The colors bouncing off of the clouds lit up the sky quite well. In fact, if no one replies in the next few minutes I can probably assume that was the end of humanity.
In the end I suppose it's time to do what I always wanted to do. You know, the things we won't do because of societies "rules." However, now that society no longer exists I can finally bathe myself in chocolate sauce, whip cream, nuts and ride my bike around town screaming who has a banana!
Even being the end of the world it's shaping up to be a great day.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
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.
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.
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.
Isaac Azimov wrote a short sci-fi story about an explorer, who had just come back from visiting the newly contacted planet "Earth", adding humans to the "Register Of Intelligent Life". Some minutes later, after the explorer explained how humans tested atomic bombs "on their own planet" the registrar erased the entry as being unqualified for inclusion under "Intelligent".
In case anyone got interested, the 1958 test was called Operation Argus.
By the way, despite what TFA says, there are two electron radiation belts, not just two of them at all; there's also a proton one. Wikipedia considers it to be a part of the inner radiation belt, but the accepted terminology says otherwise to the best of my knowledge.
This test series (specifically, Starfish Prime) uncovered the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effect, an unexpected side effect of nuclear explosions at altitude. The gamma rays from a high altitude burst hit atoms and thus eject electrons high in the atmosphere over a wide area, more or less simultaneously, and the current from the ejected electrons can cause a very wide-spread electromagnetic pulse, which can knock out power lines and electronics at great distances (> 1000 km).
So, I guess we can call Allen the father of the EMP, although I am not sure he would have wanted the honor.
> Why would you expect people back in the dawning days of the nuclear age to think any differently?
They weren't born with as much brain-damage from excessive radiation exposure.
Those radiation belts are composed of trapped electron and proton particles, bouncing back and forth along those magnetic field lines. There are several numerical models that predict what the population of these particles based on their location, and general behavior under different conditions (solar cycle variations, solar flares, etc).
Anyone building a satellite will use those models to determine what levels of radiation levels the satellite will encounter along its orbit, and add on the appropriate level of shielding to protect the electronics.
A nuclear bomb will never be able to alter the shape of the belts. All it will do is add a spectacular amount of electron and proton particles to the radiation belt, potentially frying the electronics of most of the low to medium orbit satellite (geosynchronous ones will probably be ok). Depending on the size of the bomb, the radiation belt may take weeks or even months to return to a 'natural' state.
There are some experiments in the works to 'tweak' the radiation belts by beaming low frequency EM waves, to change the energy of the existing particle populations. In theory, that will enable some of the particles to become 'untrapped', thereby reducing the overall population.
That is a misconception, though unfortunately a common one. The real situation was that a single scientist on the project posited that it might, all of the others disproved it mathematically, he irresponsibly went to the press, and they kicked him out. That's the truth, though it makes a much less sensational headline.