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How Cold War nuclear testing once made orbit unsafe for Apollo
- rdtsc 13y agoThe Soviet Union K project was responsible for quite a bit of EMP damage to civilian infrastructure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_K_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_K_Project Here is the more detailed report on K-3 test (source link form the above wiki page) http://www.futurescience.com/emp/test184.html http://www.futurescience.com/emp/test184.html Some of the effects were seen at 1000km range from the detonation site (which makes sense since it is the altitude is so high). I guess in the case of an all out nuclear war, a handful of high altitude nuclear EMP devices will be enough to cover any continent.
- steve19 13y agoIn the case of an all out nuclear war, a handful of high altitude nuclear EMP devices will be the least of our problems!
- rdtsc 13y agoYes but an EMP pulse will probably be one of the events. It will be one of the first ones as well, as rocket will only need to travel up and not come down. It is just seems like the quickest way to disable a large chunk of an entire class of opponents' infrastructure. Personal communications, cars, water pumps, transportation, food delivery, produce a media blackout. Very nasty stuff.
- gnu8 13y agoAnyone who ever thought detonating a nuclear warhead in space was a good idea was a moron, plain and simple. It doesn't matter how good of an engineer or general they were, they were of low intelligence and low morals.
- Dylan16807 13y agoWhy? Don't just come here and be an ass, explain yourself.
- gnu8 13y agoIt's akin to teenagers setting something on fire because "it would be cool", as Beavis and Butthead would do.
- Dylan16807 13y agoHe said to the room of nuclear engineers.
- rdl 13y agoPersonally, I'd far prefer a small, relatively weak state attacked by a larger state respond with a single weapon detonated at high altitude, causing an EMP, as both a show of force and a way to cripple the higher tech aggressor, rather than with a countervalue strike against population, or even a non-nuclear strike against population. Destroying communications and military infrastructure at the cost of very few lives (maybe some people in aircraft?) seems a lot more moral than incidental deaths of hundreds of thousands or millions of civilians in a counterforce strike, or intentional deaths tens or hundreds of millions in a countervalue strike. (Similarly, I think assassination of foreign leaders is by far more moral than conventional warfare. The only problem is that decapitation strikes as a policy compress decision time and encourage postures like "launch on warning" or "launch on we're pretty fucking scared and think you might launch", which increases the overall odds of a nuclear exchange.)
- s_q_b 13y agoHigh-altitude EMP over the Pacific is often cited as the first step in a Chinese response to open conflict with the United States, followed by cyber-strikes against US infrastructure. It's a very good asymmetrical warfare weapon for weaker states. Regardless of what course I'd prefer an adversary to take, it certainly makes a great deal of sense from their perspective. By no means are the creators of this strategy of "low intelligence."
- cloudwalking 13y agoCan anybody reconcile these two statements? > At 15 rads, blood count starts to change. At 150 rads, > death becomes inevitable without treatment. > The maximum operation dose-limit for Apollo astronauts > was 400 rads on skin, which is equivalent to an x-ray.
- cadab 13y agoI was a bit confused as well, would it be that the skin is a good barrier to the radiation, so most would be deflected away, meaning you would only 'absorb' a very small amount?
- adrianN 13y agoBut rads are a measure of absorbed radiation. However, rads don't distinguish between different types of radiation like sieverts do. So 400 rads of alpha particles (hardly penetrating skin at all) have a very different effect on the body than 400 rads of gamma radiation (messing things up in deep tissue).
- cadab 13y agoAh I was unaware that Rads meant absorbed radiation.