A Very Scary Fireworks Show: Exploding H-Bombs In Space

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128170775

by rpledge • 16 years ago

43 24 16 years ago

bitslayer• 16 years ago

Krulwich concludes "...that we never want to see again." but I'd much rather those nuclear weapons making awesome fireworks shows than destroying the earth. Or am I missing something?

hugh3• 16 years ago

Nope, just standard NPR ingroup assumptions. ("Nuclear weapons are bad, mmkay?")

shadowfox• 16 years ago

Are nuclear weapons good?

rbanffy• 16 years ago

I imagine similar light shows would be seen when a really big spaceship leaves orbit, firing its engines to propel it into deep space.

It's definitely something I would love to see.

code_duck2• 16 years ago

I'd like to see it in my rear-view mirror!

lutorm• 16 years ago

The question was not: "Would you prefer the nuclear bombs be blown up in space or here on earth?" There is no "rather", just the question of whether we want to be blowing up nuclear weapons in space.

sprout2• 16 years ago

A nuclear blast is never an awesome fireworks show. This detonation created serious electromagnetic interference that would likely fry a lot of consumer electronics if done today.

If you want fireworks, use fireworks. And even then, don't. They shoot up a ton of smog and can easily start fires. Cool? I guess. But really dangerous. Especially when you're intentionally setting off a bomb that you know will cause major destructive electromagnetic interference across a sizable chunk of the Earth's surface.

shaddi• 16 years ago

Discussion from a few days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1478114

johnohara• 16 years ago

One of the purposes for detonating the H-bomb was to determine the effect of the explosion on the Van Allen Belts.

Typical of Robert Krulwich, and NPR in general, is to find some arcane piece of interesting news, ask some insightful questions, then only use and report on the facts that ultimately align with their opinion.

We never do find out if it was harmful to the belts, the atmosphere, or anything else. How many tests were performed by both sides, or what the effect of a missile malfunction might have been. No matter, he proffered his opinion. And that's what really counts.

apsec112• 16 years ago

For the record, the blast was harmful to orbiting satellites, since the belt of high-energy electrons it released fried their electronics. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime#After_effects

anigbrowl2• 16 years ago

That's how media in general works: columnists and special correspondents are mini-celebrities, so everyone expects a statement about where they 'stand' on the issue, and of course such statements are largely tailored to the prevailing views among the audience. I think this trend is a bit more pronounced in the US, but not by much.

It's a terrible paradigm. I want information and really am not interested in the views or artificial pieties of the person who is delivering it. One reason I look forward to the Economist every week is the lack of bylines - one does become familiar with the voices of particular writers, but as they're anonymous they have no incentive to honor readers' shibboleths.

code_duck2• 16 years ago

A lot of the time, NPR (let alone other media) seem to miss the crucial points of a story, as if they didn't notice.

sprout2• 16 years ago

Maybe you should do more than just skim the article:

>When the bomb burst, people told of blackouts and strange electrical malfunctions, like garage doors opening and closing on their own. But the big show was in the sky.

They're a little lighter on details vis-a-vis the heady scientific mumbo jumbo (that most people won't get anyway) but they did provide some evidence that the detonation was not a benign event.

dbz• 16 years ago

One of the scientists from this adventure spoke at my school.

Apparently, one rocket fell, and the plutonium came crashing back down and landed a few feet from the island in the water.

water = absorb radiation

Or something like that.

jsean• 16 years ago

"The plan was [...] to see: a) If a bomb's radiation would make it harder to see what was up there (like incoming Russian missiles!); b) If an explosion would do any damage to objects nearby; c) If the Van Allen belts would move a blast down the bands to an earthly target (Moscow! for example); and — most peculiar — d) if a man-made explosion might "alter" the natural shape of the belts."

Well... what did they learn then? I find it very insatisfactory when articles only state an hypothesis or the how of an experiment. Surely people are interested in the results too?

A Very Scary Fireworks Show: Exploding H-Bombs In Space

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