Several satellites with nuclear reactors have even crashed. Luckily, most appear to have ended up in the ocean, but here is a more scary example [1]. Here is a map of the area with potential debris that I found hidden away over at Wikimedia Commons [2].
What was the logic for putting these in space? I might have missed it in the article but since I'm ignorant to the details of the safety of these things it seems like a dumb idea to put a reactor into an uncontrollable orbit around the earth.
From an article - Because a return signal from an ordinary target illuminated by a radar transmitter diminishes as the inverse of the fourth power of the distance, for the surveillance radar to work effectively, these satellites had to be placed in low Earth orbit. Had they used large solar panels for power, the orbit would have rapidly decayed due to drag through the upper atmosphere. Further, the satellite would have been useless in the shadow of Earth.
Power used to be a lot harder to come by, so there was a lot of experimentation with nuclear tech. Some of it more sensible than others. The US only experimented with one reactor before deciding it mostly wasn't worth it. The Soviets launched over thirty reactors, to power the orbital naval radar satellites they had (which effectively monitored every surface naval vessel in the world).
No, but Project Excalibur was verry similar to the Golden Eye plot. Only difference is that it used nuclear explosions to pump x-ray lasers that would shoot down enemy ballistic missiles rather than directed EMPs.
Fun fact though, detonating nuclear weapons in outer space causes very wide-spread EMPs. It's a very good thing that the Starfish Prime test was done out in the Pacific instead of at the Nevada test site.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954
[2]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Cosmos-9...