50th Anniversary of the Starfish Prime Nuclear Weapon Test Today

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50th Anniversary of the Starfish Prime Nuclear Weapon Test Today

Posted by samzenpus on Monday July 9, 2012 @05:17AM from the big-boom dept.

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."

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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: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...

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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.
1. 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
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: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".
1. 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)
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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.
1. 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.

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1. 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.
2. 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
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: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'
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.
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: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.

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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