50th Anniversary of the Starfish Prime Nuclear Weapon Test Today

Re:Sounds like fun! by Quiet_Desperation · 2012-07-09 05:23 · Score: 5, Funny

I know!

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.

Sounds like a successful test to me. :-) Assuming they were testing for AWESOMENESS!

"Are you sure this is safe?" by saveferrousoxide · 2012-07-09 05:31 · Score: 5, Funny

"Sir...We're hundreds miles from anything...what could possibly go wrong?"

Re:"Are you sure this is safe?" by man_of_mr_e · 2012-07-09 05:33 · Score: 2

Everything.

--
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here

Re:Sounds like fun! by man_of_mr_e · 2012-07-09 05:32 · Score: 4, Funny

I shudder to think of how much atmosphere, ozone, and other vital systems in our atmosphere might have been burned up by these tests.

After all, Nuclear testing is what killed off the Martians,and made mars such an inhospitable wasteland...

--
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here

Not really supernovae and gamma-ray bursts by SirGarlon · 2012-07-09 05:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

Re:Not really supernovae and gamma-ray bursts by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-09 05:47 · Score: 2, Informative

Once Again Mother Nature can kick our Asses with out hesitation.
Re:Not really supernovae and gamma-ray bursts by jellomizer · 2012-07-09 05:55 · Score: 2

From what distance?

--
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:Not really supernovae and gamma-ray bursts by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-09 06:20 · Score: 5, Interesting

I guess, the nuclear test would have to be much much closer to register as one pixel vs. the sun, if you want to compare it vs. a type 1a supernova. Maybe 100m from the nuclear blast is about similar to type 1a supernova at 150,000,000,000m, or about where the sun is, and then *maybe* you may compare the two on the scale of one pixel (the nuke) vs. sun in terms of brightness over about 5 seconds.
A nuclear device can only come close to brightness comparison if you are looking at scales of microseconds or similar. And that comparison only works because of the limitations of speed of light!
To keep it in perspective, a supernova can blow away Earth's like planet atmospheres over a distance of *light years*. It can irradiate and destroy ozone layers at a distance of hundreds and hundreds of light years, and some at a few thousand light years.
Some cosmic BOOMs are so large, that they will glow more brightly than the rest of the visible universe combined. And the longer you look, the larger BOOMs are seen :)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7893771/Nasa-satellite-blinded-by-biggest-ever-star-explosion-seen-in-space.html
Re:Not really supernovae and gamma-ray bursts by russotto · 2012-07-09 09:17 · Score: 2

What happened to the good old days of people building mech playhouses for their kids in the backyard.
All arrested for child endangerment.

There was only ONE! by Thud457 · 2012-07-09 05:39 · Score: 4, Funny

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

Re:There was only ONE! by zlives · 2012-07-09 06:15 · Score: 2

really makes you wish... there was only the one :)
Re:There was only ONE! by DroolTwist · 2012-07-09 06:51 · Score: 2

It was actually a magic missile! They were attacking the darkness!

Re:Sounds like fun! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-07-09 05:40 · Score: 5, Informative

You are thinking of "Operation Plowshare"... A not-wildly-successful-but-truly-a-classic-of-the-nuclear-optimism-period project. Essentially, team nuclear realized that mankind now had the power to dig very large holes very quickly and proceeded to see what sorts of civil engineering could be shoehorned into being based on very large holes.

The godless communists, (as is often the case with these cold-war-era things) had an even larger, also not terribly well conceived; but much less euphemistically named project: "Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy".

Actually? by magarity · 2012-07-09 05:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

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".

Re:Actually? by timeOday · 2012-07-09 06:51 · Score: 3, Funny

Ha, I'd like to hear commentary on the nobility of scientific experiments if/when China does this. I'm sure we would have no problem with them bursting nukes over our heads and knocking out our satellites (oops!)
Re:Actually? by AmiMoJo · 2012-07-09 07:58 · Score: 4, Insightful

Actually a lot of the data was lost because it went off the charts or the equipment was destroyed.
The dumb thing was they assumed the Soviets would try it without actually witnessing them testing their own version. When you look at the history of the nuclear stand-off the US looks pretty crazy next to the USSR. I can understand why the US is now so paranoid about countries like Iran getting nuclear weapons - it's because they assume Iran will be as nuts as they were.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Actually? by DigiShaman · 2012-07-09 17:25 · Score: 2

The US wasn't detonating nuclear bombs as though you had a bunch of rednecks blowing up anthills. Some of the brightest minds in science poured over the data. Else, the bombs wouldn't have progressed at the technological level they had.
Do you have NetFlix? I highly recommend Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie. It's about the most informative documentary flick I've watched in a while. Nukes in Space - Rainbow Bombs is another one worth watching. Both narrated by William Shatner.

--
Life is not for the lazy.

Re:Sounds like fun! by Quiet_Desperation · 2012-07-09 05:42 · Score: 2

Also WRT to the nuclear explosion being called "starfish" this has lead to endless jokes about Taco Bell, McDonalds, resulting in food poisoning, resulting in nuclear level pain in my starfish, etc.

I'm sorry, what?

This was used in "Voyage to the bottom... by wisebabo · 2012-07-09 05:50 · Score: 2

... 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!

Re:This was used in "Voyage to the bottom... by gman003 · 2012-07-09 06:17 · Score: 5, Informative

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!
Note: I'm going completely off memory here, quite likely to get some details wrong.
This test (and Soviet counterparts) drove a high-altitude test ban treaty (that might actually be the name). They both rather quickly saw that continuing this would bring only ruin to them both.
That probably was a major factor in the later above-ground and then comprehensive test bans, proving that the two countries could write and abide by a treaty limiting nuclear weapons in any way. But those were years later.
Re:This was used in "Voyage to the bottom... by drinkypoo · 2012-07-09 07:40 · Score: 3, Informative

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.
It means Orion has to be built in space and moved away from the planet on some other kind of propulsion before you can start launching nukes, not that Orion is a bad idea...

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"

Someone's got a case of the "s'posed tas" by AaronGilliland · 2012-07-09 06:03 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.

Re:Someone's got a case of the "s'posed tas" by TCPhotography · 2012-07-09 06:20 · Score: 5, Informative

The phased arrays that backed the deployed ABM system would not have been blinded by the interceptor warhead initiations. This was the primary advantage of moving to a phase array system for intercept control duty. There is also the fact that the Spartan missiles would have been doing the intercepts well over Canada, and it is only the SPRINT missiles that would have been doing terminal interceptions. Even with Sprint, a 10-30kt event over your territory is a lot better than a much larger (say 1mt) event that's a ground-burst.
Presently both the US and the Russians use Hit-to-Kill ABM systems because both nations have too much stuff in orbit that is too expensive to replace that we couldn't afford to pump energy into the van Allen belts on the scale that a nuclear-dependent ABM system would provide.

Are you ready for an EMP ?? by bobbied · 2012-07-09 06:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

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

Re:Are you ready for an EMP ?? by Dunbal · 2012-07-09 06:51 · Score: 2, Informative

Let's see, the test was a 1.4 megaton device at an altitude of 400km. While it had some impressive effects 900km away, it didn't destroy all civilization as we know it in the Pacific rim. Yet you claim that a much smaller device at 10,000 feet (3km?) would wipe out an entire continent. Methinks you are full of shit.

--
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Re:Are you ready for an EMP ?? by trims · 2012-07-09 07:09 · Score: 5, Interesting

While the effects you describe are definitely real and a huge issue, significant-footprint EMP really requires a thermonuclear device, not a "small" fission one.
For maximum EMP damage, 10,000 feet is far too low an altitude. You want a minimum of 50km altitude. So, to do a EMP, you must have orbital launch capability (i.e. Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile or better capability). Loading a nuke onboard a plane and detonating it at 40,000 feet won't work for producing an EMP of any effect.
Maximum area of the EMP is limited to "line of sight" to the detonation point. So, detonating higher in the atmosphere gives a larger potential EMP radius. However, the higher the altitude, the lower the total amount of radiated energy from the blast converted into EMP. This is primarily due to the atmosphere absorbing a significant amount of the energy before it reaches ground level. And, of course, EMP is not some binary works-or-not; it's a power level, and each device has a different level of interference that it can withstand before frying. So, you're faced with a tradeoff: the higher you detonate the warhead, the larger the potential area of the EMP, but the weaker the EMP is throughout the entire area.
Realistically speaking, warheads under 100kt don't produce usable EMP. At the minimum effective EMP altitude of about 30km, 100kt produces a useful EMP (one which will fry unshielded simple commercial electronics) directly underneath the weapon detonation, perhaps in a hectare or so. A 200kt weapon (the maximum effective yield of a non-boosted, pure fission weapon) could produce a EMP with maybe a few km or so radius.
Effective EMP areas require 300-400kt or more, which requires, at minimum, a boosted fission/fusion weapon, which is much more difficult to build than a pure fission weapon. With these, you might be able to get an EMP radius of 50-100km or so. To get the really big EMP, you need a thermonuclear weapon, ideally in the low MT range (2-5MT). These are the weapons that were used in the USA and USSR's Fractional Orbital Bombardment systems you read about in fiction books. They can produce the 1000km+ radius effects.
Given all the above, to do any real EMP, you need BOTH orbital launch capability, AND boosted fission nuclear weapon ability. At this point, a total of 6 countries (USA, Russia, UK, France, China, India) have this ability, with two possibly working on it (Pakistan, North Korea), and nobody else getting there anytime soon (even Israel is unlikely to have the requisite missile capability). In the big scheme of things, not something that we really have to worry about more than general nuclear weapon use, as EMP use is far beyond the capabilities of any non-state actor, and fairly obvious if any state-level attempt is being made to produce one.
-Erik

--
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Re:Are you ready for an EMP ?? by japhmi · 2012-07-09 07:22 · Score: 5, Informative

As 'luck' would have it, currently it is believed that an EMP pulse over North America would be worse than in Hawaii due to the difference in the geomagnetic field in the two locations. For example, it is believed that a blast over the Dakotas would mostly cause problems south of the blast vs a circle all the way around.
Now, I think from my reading that his numbers are wrong (it would need to be higher), but the total kt isn't as important (and a smaller bomb could be constructed to emphasize EMP over blast).
Check out the US Army's document "Nuclear Environment Survivability." (Report ADA278230)

--
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke
Re:Are you ready for an EMP ?? by bobbied · 2012-07-09 07:40 · Score: 2

I believe you are correct that a higher burst would be better, but the size and type of the bomb is not as important as you seem to indicate.
But my point here is that considering how bound we are to our technology and how unprepared we are for a wide spread disruption of even basic electrical power distribution, an EMP would be a serious problem.
Puts a whole new face on the missile defense systems....

--
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Re:Are you ready for an EMP ?? by zookie · 2012-07-09 10:03 · Score: 2

It's a lot of reading, but the EMP commission report seems to be the most thorough review of the possible impacts of EMP.
I read "One Second After" which paints the end-of-the-world scenario that the OP posits, and then I read the EMP Commission report. My impression was that the actual impact would be awful, but not as bad as the book proposes. The premise of "One Second After" is that almost everything is totally destroyed... all electronics, power, telecommunications, and modern transportation. In reality, only a subset would be affected. For example, from the EMP Commission report:

an EMP attack would disrupt or damage a functionally significant fraction of the electronic
circuits in the Nation’s civilian telecommunications systems in the geographic region exposed to EMP.
Note that it didn't say *all* telecommunications would be damaged. In fact, it later says that there will still be enough surviving infrastructure to overload the circuits from people making calls. Even just a few operational phone lines would go a long way to facilitating emergency response across communities.
However, the report rightly notes that all our infrastructure is interrelated and damage in one infrastructure area can impact others. Notably:

The Commission has concluded that the electrical system within the NERC region so disrupted
will collapse with near certainty. [...] This loss is very large geographically and restoration is very likely to be beyond short-term emergency
backup generators and batteries.
Which means even the parts of the telecommunications infrastructure that survive would be without power to keep it going.
EMP may not send us back to the dark ages, but it is a very serious threat. Also keep in mind that the report was written in 2008, and our dependence on electronics has only increased since then.
Re:Are you ready for an EMP ?? by lennier · 2012-07-09 11:31 · Score: 2

The first words out of our mouth when everyone else gets angry: Hey we've got a lot more where that came from!
At least, we used to, but we seem to be having technical difficulties with our ICBM launch control systems right now. Stand by...
Aw, crap.
(Sure US military networks are EMP shielded. In theory. How do you go about actually testing a network that big? It was probably last fully stress-tested sometime in the 1960s, and everything not inside an actual missile now is probably routed through some web-app written in Visual Basic on an outsourced Windows server in the Cloud.)

--
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Re:Are you ready for an EMP ?? by HeckRuler · 2012-07-10 03:29 · Score: 2

Because the missile shield requires military bases and military involvement in Poland, which is a nice excuse to keep men, guns, and tanks right next door to Russia. You know, to guard the missiles. That's the ticket.

Also, there's not much use for a missle shield that works eventually. You pretty much have one shot at it. If you screw that up, you're all kinda dead.

Might not have happened by mbone · 2012-07-09 06:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

Re:Might not have happened by amicusNYCL · 2012-07-09 06:52 · Score: 3, Insightful

Makes you wonder if there are any other major effects we and the Soviets missed.
Horribly, fiery, radioactive death, for one.

--
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Re:Might not have happened by linear+a · 2012-07-09 07:11 · Score: 2

Horribly, fiery, radioactive death, for one.
Hardly. That's the primary and intended effect.

Re:and gave birth to... by ackthpt · 2012-07-09 06:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'd like to see a science fiction story with a probe landing on Venus and finding evidence of a nuclear weapons accident destroying what used to be a planet covered by forests.

More likely to find highways choked with derelict SUVs

--

A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar

Re:Sounds like fun! by HornWumpus · 2012-07-09 06:14 · Score: 4, Informative

Someone is about to post a picture of the slang definition of 'starfish'.

Don't click the link.

--
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'

It didn't hurt the copper market... by ibsteve2u · 2012-07-09 06:19 · Score: 4, Insightful

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"

Re:It didn't hurt the copper market... by couchslug · 2012-07-09 12:24 · Score: 2

EMP testing trestle with B-52:
http://www.brookings.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/trestle.jpg

--
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."

Some science fact... by slew · 2012-07-09 06:33 · Score: 3, Informative

EMP cannons (non-nuclear variety) are now no longer fiction...
Although they still have the fictional variety for our amusement...

Re:Sounds like fun! by fibonacci8 · 2012-07-09 06:42 · Score: 2

Duck, duck, goose!

--
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.

Re:Sounds like fun! by metalgamer84 · 2012-07-09 06:50 · Score: 5, Funny

Dinosaurs aren't real, they were just made up to discourage time travelers.

Re:Sounds like fun! by Rei · 2012-07-09 07:26 · Score: 4, Interesting

Here's how crazy of an effect nuclear bombs have had on our atmosphere. Basically, artifacts from the latter half of the 20th century and much of the 21st century will not be able to be reliably carbon dated in the future. Even if you want to include a compensation factor, the concentrations for a given location at different times over the lifespan of an organism and the organism's uptake at different points in its life aren't readily quantified.

--
sed "s/SJW.*$/... never mind. I was about to say something stupid, and also, I'm a troglodyte./Ig"

Re:Sounds like fun! by EdIII · 2012-07-09 07:37 · Score: 3, Funny

Dinosaurs aren't real, they were just made up to discourage time travelers.

You ever heard of the redneck Olympics?

Not everyone gets discouraged so easily....

Re:and gave birth to... by Rei · 2012-07-09 07:38 · Score: 2

Venus's problem isn't so much that it has a CO2-based atmosphere, as that it has a *90 atmosphere* CO2-based atmosphere. Even if you removed all of the CO2 and were left with a 3.5 atm nitrogen atmosphere it'd still have a major greenhouse effect (nitrogen isn't generally a greenhouse gas, but at higher densities than are found on Earth, due to the higher collision rate, it gains an induced dipole moment; this is seen on Titan)

As another example, Mars too has a primarily CO2-based atmosphere. But it's a 0.007 atm CO2 atmosphere. Hence, it's frigid instead of burning-hot like Venus.

--
sed "s/SJW.*$/... never mind. I was about to say something stupid, and also, I'm a troglodyte./Ig"

Re:Sounds like fun! by Antipater · 2012-07-09 07:39 · Score: 2

It was more like, "Hey! We've got that whole 'Siberia' thing, right? Wouldn't it be great if we could irrigate it and make it do something useful?" "Well, sure, but all the major rivers skirt around it and head south. There's no way to redirect that much water-flow!" "Sure there is! WITH NUKES!!"

Meanwhile, the Americans had Op. Plowshare, which was basically fracking. But with nukes.

--
Everything is better with chainsaws.

Re:Sounds like fun! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-07-09 07:50 · Score: 2

The 'irrigating siberia'(and accidentally killing the Aral sea...) thing was actually another wacky soviet project: The Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature....

EMP Not The Only Way To Ruin Your Day by anorlunda · 2012-07-09 07:50 · Score: 2

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.

Re:EMP Not The Only Way To Ruin Your Day by phayes · 2012-07-09 08:47 · Score: 2

Mcnamara was prone to exaggeration, in this case wild exaggeration....

--
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Re:EMP Not The Only Way To Ruin Your Day by Carnildo · 2012-07-09 09:59 · Score: 2

Technically, he was right. My back-of-the-envelope calculation says that you'll need three 500-gigaton bombs, but there's no upper limit to the size of a fusion bomb...

--
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.

Re:Sounds like fun! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2012-07-09 09:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

I can only assume that half the fun of having enough nukes that you can use them for digging holes is not having to listen to NIMBY sentiment...

Given that Panama was, in no small part, created as a country in order to facilitate US interests in building the canal the first time around, I suspect that we would have been more than happy to ensure that the CIA provided whatever assistance was required for the free people of panama to make the right choice.

Re:and gave birth to... by idontgno · 2012-07-09 10:29 · Score: 3, Funny

Hence, it's frigid instead of burning-hot like Venus.

In fact, it's cold as Hell.

-- Sir Elton John, probably not FRS

--
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.

Ah, The Good Old Days by Greyfox · 2012-07-09 11:33 · Score: 2

You kids don't know what you missed! Back in the day we used to just EXPLODE NUCLEAR DEVICES in the open air! Oh they'll say they were researching this or that, but the fact of the matter, it was just fun! We used to just take spheres of radioactive material and just poke at them! Mostly with sticks. Sometimes with our fingers. Back then, every chemistry set had a vial of mercury and a block of lead in it! Don't eat the lead now, kids! What's that? Oh... A chemistry set was an educational tool by which you could experiment with chemicals to teach yourself chemistry! They used to sell them in "Sears" -- kind of a proto-Walmartean store. I think you can still get them on that newfangled internet thing you're always going on about, but they're kind of lame now. Mostly just salt and food coloring at this point.

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?

Re:Sounds like fun! by mbone · 2012-07-09 12:55 · Score: 2

Here's how crazy of an effect nuclear bombs have had on our atmosphere. Basically, artifacts from the latter half of the 20th century and much of the 21st century will not be able to be reliably carbon dated in the future. Even if you want to include a compensation factor, the concentrations for a given location at different times over the lifespan of an organism and the organism's uptake at different points in its life aren't readily quantified.

Well, not quite. There is useful post-bomb carbon dating. Basically, we put a lot more C14 into the atmosphere in the 1950's than the natural background. It's largely gone from the air, but it will be decaying in trees and the like for some time to come, and that, too, can be used for dating.

The Only Non-Classified Paper by gishzida · 2012-07-09 15:20 · Score: 4, Informative

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

Slashdot Mirror

50th Anniversary of the Starfish Prime Nuclear Weapon Test Today

54 of 190 comments (clear)