
How Cold War nuclear testing once made orbit unsafe for Apollo - llambda
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/08/how-cold-war-nuclear-testing-once-made-orbit-unsafe-for-apollo/
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rdtsc
The 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
In the case of an all out nuclear war, a handful of high altitude nuclear EMP
devices will be the least of our problems!

~~~
rdtsc
Yes 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.

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cloudwalking
Can 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
I 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
But 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
Ah I was unaware that Rads meant absorbed radiation.

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gnu8
Anyone 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.

~~~
rdl
Personally, 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
High-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."

~~~
rdl
I'd probably start with the cyber-strikes, before the EMP :)

~~~
s_q_b
EMP over the Pacific primarily targets military communications, preventing an
organized conventional response. Cyberstrikes are used to pressure the
civilian population into demanding peace.

Theoretically you could just blanket the North American continent with a few
EMPs, but you'd likely provoke a nuclear response or an all-out war, hardly
the desired resolution for China in such a scenario.

~~~
rdl
I'm still amazed that until maybe 2002, the Chinese nuclear arsenal was most
likely smaller than the (unconfirmed) Israeli arsenal, at around 50 weapons --
a genuine deterrent, but certainly not enough to wage a first strike, and
probably not survivable vs. a counterforce first strike from US or Russia
(probably enough vs. India/UK/France, though). Apparently they've stepped up
to surpass the Europeans, though.

~~~
caf
This strategy is known as "Minimum Deterrence". Jeffrey Lewis has written a
book on the PRC's strategic nuclear force posture that explores this:

[http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/minimum-means-
reprisal](http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/minimum-means-reprisal)

...and a short essay on the broader concept of Minimum Deterrence:

[http://newamerica.net/node/8908](http://newamerica.net/node/8908)

China's force is intended to be survivable despite its small size. Their ICBM
force is road-mobile, launched from TELs rather than fixed silos.

