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50th Anniversary of the Starfish Prime Nuclear Weapon Test Today
The Bad Astronomer writes "50 years ago today, the U.S. detonated a nuclear weapon 240 miles above the Pacific Ocean. Called Starfish Prime, it was supposed to help U.S. scientists and the military understand how the Soviets might try to stop incoming nuclear missiles. What it actually did was blow out hundreds of streetlights in Hawaii 900 miles away, damage a half dozen satellites, and create artificial aurorae and intense radiation zones above the Earth. It taught the world what an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) was, and what the effects might be from a powerful solar flare, a nearby supernova, or a gamma-ray burst."
Let's do it again!
another device for science fiction. Can't even recall the number (high) of books and short fiction where this device has figured in somewhere.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"Sir...We're hundreds miles from anything...what could possibly go wrong?"
So that explains how the Rock got super powers!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Comparing a man-made nuclear bomb to a gamma-ray burst seems kind of like comparing one pixel on your monitor to the Sun.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
blow out hundreds of streetlights
Sounds like an immortal got his head chopped off that day.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
it was supposed to help US scientists and the military understand how the Soviets might try to stop incoming nuclear missiles. What it actually did was
Thanks for the loaded language; actually, it probably did both. It's nice that now when we know about all the negative effects so we can peer down our nose at the evil scientist puppets of the military but they really didn't know back then. That's why it's called an "experiment".
... of the Sea" (With the cool sub that had a giant viewport in the front and could launch a flying saucer like aircraft).
I seem to remember a nuclear explosion high in the atmosphere causing the ionosphere(?) to ignite(?) and BAD THINGS happening. They are sent to launch a counter missile(?) which will extinguish the "flame". (Sorry, it's late here in Vietnam and I'm too lazy to research.
Unfortunately, this is probably a good argument against project Orion. Hundreds (thousands?) of tiny nukes going off in LEO would probably also do bad things.
Was this a factor leading up to the above ground test ban treaty? I mean it wouldn't be good to accidentally wipe out the world's electronics industry. (Now doing it on purpose, that's something else entirely). The test ban treaty probably stopped the development of "shaped" nuclear charges (blasting a city from an explosion in orbit) and other exotic weapons like fission bomb pumped x-ray lasers. Oh well, let's hope the Aliens are friendly!
Sounds like a Mythbusters segment gone wrong.
Bad Astronomer makes it sound like they didn't achieve their objective. They learned a hell of a lot. Modern warheads are heavily shielded against EMP, so it's not a great point defense. What's more, setting off EMP over your own territory is a bit like breaking your car so you won't get into a car accident.
A somewhat similar idea (but not too similar) is the idea of X-ray pindown. To facilitate an attack, the aggressor would detonate a neutron bomb high over the target country, bathing it in x-rays so harsh that the target country's ICBM's would be damaged if they tried to launch in retaliation.
Another interesting aside (at least I think it is): the early anti-ballistic missile programs, Sentinel and Safeguard, were designed to destroy incoming nuclear warheads by... blowing them up with other nuclear warheads. This had the positive effect of taking out one or two incoming warheads, and the very negative effect of blinding the system's radar to any other incoming warheads.
Mind your emissions, gentlemen.
One small nuclear device detonated over the US at about 10,000 feet could make a huge mess of things. Not from the blast damage, not from radiation, but from EMP. Draw some 1,800 mile wide circles on a map and see how large an area can be affected.
The initial effect of an EM pulse would destroy just about everything attached to the power grid. Huge voltage spikes and induced currents would literally overload and destroy both the grid and things attached. Power delivery would most certainly be disrupted because the infrastructure used to deliver power would be seriously damaged. The power lines would exist, but the transformers, relays and controls would have serious problems. Further, power generating plants would likely be seriously damaged, so there would be no power to distribute. Radio communications would be almost totally disrupted for days, and partially disrupted for weeks. Land line phones would surely be seriously damaged and cell phones would not be useable.
Don't think that being disconnected from the grid would not mean you are safe. Anything with even a few feet of wire hanging onto it would be subject to serious damage. Most consumer electronics, including cars, cell phones, radios and TVs would likely be damaged beyond repair. Your solar powered home will be as dark as everybody else and those of you with local generators are unlikely to be in much better shape. You will literally find yourself back in horse and buggy days, only with very few horses to be had. Few cars would be running, mostly old ones with old ignition systems and mechanical fuel pumps.
The real question is how long would it take to repair the grid and get things going? If the east coast storms of last week are any example, one can only conclude that it will be a LONG time. How many people will starve during that time?
Science fiction aside, this EMP thing is real and more dangerous than using nuclear devices to blow stuff up. Even a small device could cause serious long lasting damage for a HUGE part of the US.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Starfish Prime occurred during a sudden burst of testing between the lapse of an unofficial US-Soviet testing moratorium and the Limited Test Ban Treaty (1961-63). If the geopolitical winds had been a little different (i.e., if Khrushchev and Kennedy had respected each other and the French hadn't started testing in the Sahara), there might not have been any exo-atmospheric tests before the LTBT, and we wouldn't know about EMT.
Makes you wonder if there are any other major effects we and the Soviets missed.
The EMP "revelation" sold an awful lot of copper...anybody who was around "sensitive" technology in the military in the following couple of decades probably remembers grounding anything that didn't move...or, rather, wasn't moving at the time - and then grounding the grounds.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
That's why it's called an "experiment".
LHC: Hey what happens if we turn this on? *SHHLUURP!!*
EMP cannons (non-nuclear variety) are now no longer fiction...
Although they still have the fictional variety for our amusement...
What goes shooting through the frame @ ~39 seconds into the video?
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=starfish+explosions&qpvt=starfish+explosions&FORM=IGRE
Slightly offtopic but you won't be disappointed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE06ECcimb8
Okie dokie.
sed "s/SJW.*$/... never mind. I was about to say something stupid, and also, I'm a troglodyte./Ig"
In the 1960s, Defense Secretary Mcnamara said that as few as three nuclear bombs exploded high above the USA could start every structure in North America on fire simultaneously. He was speaking to the point of how hard it would be to make effective defense. You might stop 3000 but if only 3 get through your day may still be ruined.
including government propos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqXu-5jw60
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Tinfoil hat beats EMP 9 times out of 10 according to 19 of 20 conspiracy theorists.
The trick is to electromagnetically harden your electronic against radiation. Key to this is to individually wrap electronics in tinfoil. For extra protection buy the heavy duty tinfoil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime
An awful lot of unforeseen things were learned that way. Way to go science!
Nukes also generate heat and light, plus vast amounts of X-rays and gamma rays – high-energy forms of light – as well as subatomic particles like electrons and heavy ions. ... heavy ions.
subatomic
Can we research big words before throwing them out to sound intellectual, please? kthx.
#include <disclaimer.h>
Yeh because bombing 20 countries since WW2 is really sane and peaceloving.
Back in the day we used asbestos as construction material and dioxins as pesticides! We didn't wear helmets for anything! We just rode our bikes down hills with no helmets or anything! The only people you saw wearing helmets were motorcycle riders, and most of them only did it because it was the law! Funnily enough these days everything else requires helmets and motorcycling doesn't. Ahh how times change! Anywhoo back to the story!
So there we were in this potentially highly toxic and dangerous environment, in a perpetual Mexican stand-off with the Soviets where one wrong twitch on either side could have destroyed the world. It's a wonder any of us survived to make a new generation. You know, "The Good Old Days!"
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You look back now, and from the 40's to the 60's, considering we (those with nukes) really didn't know what they were doing, it's a wonder we didn't blow up each other or the world LOL.
On this date in 1962 my father recorded the detonation and the resulting pulse from a "laboratory" he had set up in his suburban house in the San Fernado Valley {Northwest Los Angelews] The resulting paper "Distant Electromagnetic Observations of the High-Altitude Nuclear Detonation of July 9, 1962" was the only non-classified scientific paper which was published in The Journal of Geophysical Research about the pulse see: http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1963/JZ068i006p01781.shtml
Some where around here I have a 35mm Strip chart negative of the detonation as recorded by the oscilloscope camera... I would donate the film to a university library for preservation but I have no idea who'd be interested in it. At 89 years old my dad now suffers from dementia and does not remember much about his days as a pocket protector / slip stick using Space Scientist / Engineer
This is why people feel like CERN is unsafe. It's the same "well, I'm sure all it will do is this: ______" mistake as the nuclear test except we know even less about the physics involved.