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According to the article, Dr. Reiffel said, 'The Air Force wanted a mushroom cloud so large it would be visible on earth.' That seems a very odd thing for a ph
by hindenburg 11y ago
According to the article, Dr. Reiffel said, 'The Air Force wanted a mushroom cloud so large it would be visible on earth.'
That seems a very odd thing for a physicist to say, given that of course a mushroom cloud wouldn't form in a vacuum. Perhaps Dr. Reiffel was not at his best on the day of the interview?
- justin_vanw 11y agoThere are too many impossibilities and errors in this to even consider it as remotely factual. - ICBMs can't reach the moon, or even anything remotely close to it - Mushroom clouds don't form in a vacuum. - The fact that some Air Force officer thought it would be a neat idea (if any of this is factual) does not in any way imply that it was even remotely considered by anyone with the authority to make such a decision, any more than seeing a person who works at the Apple store drinking a coke implies that Apple Inc is buying the entire CocaCola corporation.
- versteegen 11y agoBy "mushroom cloud" they must have meant the ball of dust thrown up by an explosion at/below the lunar surface. That is why Sagan would have suggested it as a possibility for detecting micro-organisms.
- justin_vanw 11y agoBut it still wouldn't make a cloud, it would just scatter dust, and each particle of dust would fall back to the moon in a ballistic trajectory (it would not last long at all).
- jld89 11y agoIt was probably just a metaphor to vulgarize what he meant. They wanted a big assed bomb.