
In the summer of 1962, the U.S. blew up a hydrogen bomb in outer space - dpflan
http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2010/07/01/128170775/a-very-scary-light-show-exploding-h-bombs-in-space
======
rdtsc
Well one thing they didn't mention is that these kind of blasts create
enormous EMP pulses.

You can EMP blast whole continents with it. It is thought that in case of an
all our nuclear attack at high up detonation like that would happen early one
to disable as many electronics and communication facilities of the enemy.

Then of course countries have been working on EMP hardening military tech.

For example
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse)
says that:

\---

if the Starfish Prime warhead had been detonated over the northern continental
United States, the magnitude of the EMP would have been much larger (22 to 30
kV/m) because of the greater strength of the Earth's magnetic field over the
United States,

\---

Then the Soviets also "played" around with that too:

\---

The monitored telephone line was divided into sub-lines of 40 to 80 kilometres
(25 to 50 mi) in length, separated by repeaters. Each sub-line was protected
by fuses and by gas-filled overvoltage protectors. The EMP from the 22 October
(K-3) nuclear test (also known as Test 184) blew all of the fuses and fired
all of the overvoltage protectors in all of the sub-lines.[15]

\---

~~~
KGIII
What's awesome is that this led to the confirmation of the Van Allen Belt.
There were some skeptics who felt that blowing up space was a bad idea.

Which, you know, kinda makes me giggle a little. We, the US, attacked space
with a hydrogen bomb. The scientific world wasn't actually sure what effects
this would have and we're like, "Hold my beer and watch this."

And then, we bombed space. That might actually be one of the most American
things we've ever done.

~~~
1001101
As Professor Fleming puts it: "this is the first occasion I've ever discovered
where someone discovered something and immediately decided to blow it up."

~~~
KGIII
It is more American than the 4th of July.

"F*ck you, space! Being all spacey and stuff!" (At least that's what it sounds
like in my imagination.)

~~~
axiom92
"F*ck you, space! Being all spacey and stuff!" sounds more like Ricky from the
Trailer Park Boys.

~~~
zenkat
I heard it in Rick (Morty's grandpa) voice.

------
13of40
My dad watched this detonation and wrote a very detailed letter to his parents
about it, which I can't find right now, so I'll summarize from memory: Epic
green ball of fire with purple lightning shooting out of it.

------
rpeden
There was a great Bad Astronomy post a few years back on the 50th anniversary
of Starfish Prime:

[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/07/09/th...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/07/09/the-50th-
anniversary-of-starfish-prime-the-nuke-that-shook-the-world/)

------
rl3
Fascinatingly, the aftermath of _Starfish Prime_ endangered future space
exploration of the era, and created uncertainty surrounding continued human
space flight.[0][1]

[0] [http://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2016/01/starfish-
and-...](http://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2016/01/starfish-and-
apollo-1962.html)

[1]
[http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/410338.pdf](http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/410338.pdf)

------
pcunite
_the most pressing argument for a military experiment was, "if we don't do it,
the Russians will." And, indeed, the Russians did test atomic bombs and
hydrogen bombs in space_

Competition has a way of getting out of hand, no?

~~~
marcosdumay
I'm sure the possibility of a bomb there blinding missile detectors was
pressing enough to do the tests even if there wasn't any competition spirit.

And Van Allen was quite possibly thrilled about the possibility of measuring
his discover, from strength and shape to stability. (Good thing it is stable,
otherwise people would keep probing it.)

------
ythn
I was under the impression H-bombs utilized hydrogen in the atmosphere to feed
its fusion reaction. If you send it up to "outer space" it wouldn't have any
fuel to fuse?

~~~
jloughry
As others have already explained well, hydrogen in the air doesn't contribute
to the explosion.

But what does make a big difference is the _air_ around the bomb---a nuclear
explosion in space is way different from one in atmosphere. X-rays from the
nuclear reaction heat surrounding air to many millions of degrees [1] and
that's what causes (most of) the fireball you see. In space, the only matter
available to make a fireball is the weapon's structure, probably only a few
hundred kg, and that dissipates and cools rapidly. Nuclear-armed air intercept
missiles were built in the nineteen-fifties and sixties that depended for
effectiveness on being in air to generate the necessary blast effects to kill
a bomber with relatively inaccurate aiming, but in space, a nuclear explosion
almost needs be a contact hit to do much mechanical damage...discounting
nuclear radiation effects, of course.

[1] Fahrenheit, Celsius, Kelvin...it makes no difference.

~~~
computerex
> ...discounting nuclear radiation effects, of course

[https://history.nasa.gov/conghand/nuclear.htm](https://history.nasa.gov/conghand/nuclear.htm)

> Third, in the absence of the atmosphere, nuclear radiation will suffer no
> physical attenuation and the only degradation in intensity will arise from
> reduction with distance. As a result the range of significant dosages will
> be many times greater than is the case at sea level. With such weapons the
> lethal radii (from nuclear radiation) in space may be of the order of
> hundreds of miles.

~~~
jloughry
I didn't know that. Thanks!

Also:

    
    
        Second, thermal radiation, as usually defined, also disappears.
        There is no longer any air for the blast wave to heat and much
        higher frequency radiation is emitted from the weapon itself.
    

So more of the energy of the bomb remains in the x-ray or gamma portion of the
spectrum---penetrating radiation, hard to shield against---in addition to the
longer effective range.

------
vermontdevil
We were sure nuts back then with our atomic toys.

~~~
chiph
Not just the military toys, either.

"I know! We'll make Polonium-filled spark plugs for people's cars!"

[https://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/consumer%20products/spar...](https://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/consumer%20products/sparkplugs.htm)

------
tim333
I rather hope they'll try setting off a nuke near an asteroid as research for
preventing meteor strikes on Earth. I guess it would vapourize part of the
surface facing the bomb, diverting the thing away from there.

~~~
RobertoG
Are you sure you want to divert an asteroid with an orbit close to the Earth
that is not already in its way to Earth?

~~~
tim333
Well, there is that issue.

------
strongai
Forgive me, but more and more I see the phrase 'outer space' referring to
stuff that happens at distances between the Earth and the moon. Is this a
thing now?

~~~
dragonwriter
It's always been a thing. It's, for instance, the sense used in the 1967 Outer
Space Treaty.

“Outer space” is basically everything outside of some fuzzy demarcation line
(often, specifically, the Kármán line) marking the “edge” of Earth's
atmosphere.

------
tyingq
Hmm. One of the main plot devices for many "asteroid is about to hit Earth"
movies. I had no idea a nuke had been exploded in space before.

~~~
ekianjo
a nuke would do nothIng to stop any large asteroid at good speed. Like a fly
hitting a tank.

~~~
tyingq
You might want to inform NASA.

[https://www.nasa.gov/content/asteroid-grand-
challenge/mitiga...](https://www.nasa.gov/content/asteroid-grand-
challenge/mitigate/blast-deflection)

~~~
ekianjo
do you have the source of the actual study ?

------
HillaryBriss
yeah. i remember this. my garage door opened and closed all by itself. and the
weird thing is this: i hadn't even been born yet.

~~~
mathgeek
What's even stranger is that your garage door was a manual.

But seriously, I wonder what specifically about the side effects here would
cause a garage door opener to not only open the door, but also consequently
close it again. Perhaps it completed one full cycle as a result of the blast?
Guess we'll never truly know.

------
c-smile
So in the summer of 1962 we've sent clear message to all aliens that we are
here, nice.

So when they will arrive with who knows what intentions we know whom to blame.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
If there's an intelligent lifeform watching us is probably smart enough to
stay away from a species that destroys its own planet in many creative ways.

~~~
mathgeek
I wouldn't call our methods very creative, at least on the creativity scale
that any species capable of observing us would operate. We pretty much burn or
blow up everything we can to generate energy.

