Russia worried, may destroy United States by mistake.

Blind and stupid?

Salimandr, I don´t suppose you´ve ever heard of Starfish Prime. Take my word for it: the effects of EMP have been greatly exaggerated in some quarters.

they worked just fine in the matrix

A test needs to be done on an unsuspecting middle east country ,too see what the effects actually are.

EMP strikes are a double edged sword my friend. What works on us can work against them too.

EMP effects are highly localized. You cannot detonate one bomb in orbit and it frys everything. That is not how the physics of the process work. It would take many bombs. The problem the Russians have in this day and age is reliable delivery systems.

this is bullshit. russians have supremacy in space. they have been doing tests recently and an OLD ROCKET which was in the bunker for 20 years managed to hit 5 meters target 10 000 km away in kamchatka. does it make sense?

I take it you get your "information" from "Pravda", AC 1441...or else you make it up yourself.

remeber the Kursk and their Navy tried to launch a SLBM that cartwheeled out of control....

DrP,
thank you for the idea of what to look up.

STARFISH PRIME, was one of the high-altitude nuclear tests in the Operation Fishbowl series conducted in the Pacific Proving Ground in 1962. It was launched in the Johnston Island area to an altitude of about 400 kilometers by a Thor rocket and had a yield of 1.4 megatons.

The test evaluated the capabilities of an antiballistic missile to operate in a nuclear environment and the vulnerability of a U.S. reentry vehicle to survive a nearby nuclear blast. It also provided information on the ability of a U.S. radar system to detect and track reentry vehicles. Another goal was to discern the effects of a high-altitude blast on command and control systems, which were shown to be vulnerable in earlier high-altitude tests. The final goal was to obtain information on the feasibility of testing in outer space.

BLUEGILL and STARFISH were high-altitude nuclear tests, part of Operation Fishbowl, conducted in the Johnston Island area of the Pacific Proving Ground in 1962. These tests produced auroral effects, a special feature of explosions where the extreme brightness of the fireball is visible at great distances. Within a second or two after the burst, a brilliant aurora appears from the bottom of the fireball.

The formation of the aurora is attributed to the motion, along the lines of the earth’s magnetic field, of beta particles emitted by the radioactive fission fragments. About a minute after the detonation, the aurora could be observed in the Samoan Islands, 2000 miles from the detonation. These auroras could be seen for approximately 20 minutes.
[link to www.osti.gov]

i do not understand how this will prevent russia from being worried they might destroy the United States.

i guess i should have added:

Operation Fishbowl was the high-altitude testing portion of a larger Operation Dominic I. This video is a compilation of footage of the five nuclear tests comprising Operation Fishbowl conducted in the Johnston Island area of the Pacific Proving Ground in 1962. A high-altitude burst is one occurring above 100,000 feet. The video does not identify the date, time or name of the tests.

When a nuclear weapon detonates at a high altitude, many of the effects are attenuated. Most of the x-ray energy is absorbed in the air, which decreases the fireball temperature. Absorption of thermal x-ray energy also decreases the energy available for a shock wave. This all results in the development of a toroidal or donut-shaped cloud instead of the usual mushroom shape of ground or near ground explosions.

This also shows the auroral effect of high-altitude explosions where the extreme brightness of the fireball is visible at great distances. Within a second or two after the burst, a brilliant aurora appears from the bottom of the fireball. The formation of the aurora is attributed to the motion, along the lines of the earth’s magnetic field, of beta particles emitted by the radioactive fission fragments. About a minute after the detonation, the aurora can be observed from as far away as 2000 miles.
These auroras can be seen for approximately 20 minutes.
In a high-altitude blast, many of the effects are attenuated, resulting in a toroidal or donut-shaped cloud instead of the mushroom cloud from a surface burst. These weapons-effects tests, launched by Strypi, Thor, and Nike Hercules rockets, were as follows:

STARFISH PRIME, July 9, 400-kilometer altitude, 1.4 megaton
CHECKMATE, October 20, tens of kilometers altitude, low (less than 20 kt)
BLUEGILL 3 PRIME, October 26, tens of kilometers altitude, submegaton (less than 1 Mt, but more than 200 kt)
KINGFISH, November 1, tens of kilometers altitude; submegaton (less than 1 Mt, but more than 200 kt)
TIGHTROPE, November 4, tens of kilometers altitude, low (less than 20 kt)
Two goals of these tests were to determine if radiation and blast and heat effects of high- altitude detonations were capable of neutralizing an enemy reentry vehicle and capable of determining the blackout effects on radar and communications of various yields and altitudes of bursts.

also from: [link to www.osti.gov]

Right you are Dr. P.

The EMP effect has been grossly exagerated.

I would guess that the only thing susceptible would be the power grid and everything plugged into it. Cars, radios, all off grid electronics and local generators would not be affected. Its sort of like a massive lightning strike. Chances are it might take out the internet through the power grid. But, the movie, The Day After, in which all cars stopped on the interstate after the blast is just poppycock.

Dr.P,
perhaps this was more along your lines? i don´t mind learning more but i still wonder how any of this will effect the russian fear that they may accidently destroy the United States??

that is the thread heading...russia is worried. but thank you for more learning today, i do appreciate you and your ideas.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The 1962 test series that included the Starfish
space test also included several high-altitude atmospheric tests.

>Argus 1 1-2 KT 480 km 8/27/58 38S, 12W
>Argus 2 1-2 KT 480 km 8/30/58 50S, 8W
>Argus 3 1-2 KT 480 km 9/6/58 50S, 10W

The Argus tests were 1kT bombs at varying altitudes, in fact. They were
quite secret at the time, and were done for a specific purpose: testing
how well nuclear bombs could pump electrons into the magnetosphere, and
whether the electrons would persist. If you could pump up the Van Allen
belts well enough, they would fry any nuclear warhead passing through
them, and this would make a very effective defence against long-range
ballistic missiles. Fortunately or unfortunately, the conclusion of the
tests was that it wouldn´t work well enough to be practical.

>Starfish 1.4 MT (!) 400 km 7/9/62 Johnston I.

Technically this was Starfish Prime; the original Starfish had a launch
failure. Missiles were not too reliable then; one of the other tests in
the same series succeeded on the fourth try.
--
Americans proved to be more bureaucratic | Henry Spencer
than I ever thought. --Valery Ryumin, RKK Energia

from: [link to www.yarchive.net]

If they try, they will commit suicide by mistake.

Salimandr, my point was that we have quite a lot of data on the effects of nuclear explosions in space, and these data show that the effects of EMP and of trapping of energetic particles in the radiation belts are far less spectacular than many people have claimed. This is not to say that there is no such thing as an EMP, or that energetic particles from nuclear explosions cannot be trapped in the radiation belts for long periods of time. But the numbers do matter...and many of the numbers one sees in the popular press are wildly wrong.

"Russia worried, may destroy United States by mistake."



Oops, watch ass America. ;)

By the way, Salimandr, I wasn´t sneering at you when I said, "I don´t suppose you´ve ever heard of Starfish Prime." Very, very few people have.

DrP,
i understand. people can get excited about modern emp´s and other things. i guess it was interesting to see that even congress is/was looking into it with a different view on the effects of emp´s.

to me, this is a long but very interesting read from our own Committee on Nat´l Security (i know this is older but perhaps there is newer info out there?? lots of testimony on these pages.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THREAT POSED BY ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP) TO U.S. MILITARY SYSTEMS AND CIVIL INFRASTRUCTURE

House of Representatives,

Committee on National Security,

Military Research and Development Subcommittee,

Washington, DC, Wednesday, July 16, 1997.

EMP can be generated in several ways, but the widest effects are caused by a high-altitude nuclear blast, although we will ask questions about other than nuclear blasts causing EMP. All of us here understand that the threats posed to our military systems and civilian infrastructure by high-altitude EMP are not new. Atmospheric nuclear tests in the 1950´s and 1960´s revealed a number of then unanticipated results, including electrical and communications disruptions hundreds of miles from the test sites.

There may be, however, new dimensions in vulnerabilities that we need to look at more carefully. In the 1950´s, electronic systems used vacuum tubes, not very sophisticated, but resistant to EMP. Today, computers with more and more microcircuits packed into smaller and smaller chips are key to the efficiency of virtually all commerce in the United States. These have much more computing power, but are also much more sensitive to disruption and more easily disabled by EMP. As our reliance grows, so does our potential vulnerability.

from: [link to www.fas.org]

Dr P,
oh, not to worry, i didn´t take it as you sneering at me in the least. like i said, i enjoy learning and you have given me things to read up on! no problem, really.

i hope i didn´t say anything that offended you, as i haven´t meant to.

7949 Have you though this statement through, about cars NOT being stopped by EMP ?

Are there ANY cars made now that DON´T have computer chips in them?

You can figure out the next question, I presume.

Not at all, Salimandr. This is a very real problem, but it isn´t anywhere near as big a problem as some people think.

whoa!! further down on the page.....


Mr. Weldon says: "In short, we have found that the phenomenon is very real, as you have already stated, and is well understood by the nuclear weapons effects community; that our strategic systems and their command, control and communications infrastructure have been designed and built to survive and operate effectively in such an environment; that there would likely be pronounced effects on the civilian infrastructure from such a pulse; that the magnitude and extent of these effects is difficult even to estimate; and that it is probably not feasible to completely protect the entire infrastructure from the effects of such a pulse."

so that means there may be a problem on the civilian infrastructure...hmmmm. at least the military infrastructure has been built better. he then goes on.....

Mr. Weldon says: "The area of the Earth´s surface directly illuminated by EMP is determined entirely by the height of burst. All points on the Earth´s surface within the horizon, as seen from the burst point, will experience EMP effects as depicted in figure 2, which is on page 3 of your handout. Note that a burst on the order of 500 kilometers in altitude can cover the entire continental United States."
[link to www.fas.org]

get that? cover the whole united states??

Dr P,
you said: "But the numbers do matter...and many of the numbers one sees in the popular press are wildly wrong."

is there somewhere where i can find out how the numbers are wildly wrong? where i can find something that counters what i´ve posted?

(this stuff is interesting! sorry if it´s not interesting to others though...hmmmm.)

My guess is that the Argus and Starfish Prime test series were intended to determine whether a high altitude nudet would be able to act as a shield against nuclear missile attack by pumping up the Van Allen belts and frying enemy warheads as they came through. Starfish was around the time of the Cuban Missile crisis. My understanding is that it fried a number of the satellites that were in orbit.

The key concern with a nuke detonated at high altitude - say bin Laden got a Pakistani nuke, is that it could fry most of the satellites in low earth orbit - these would be spy sats and certain comsats. GPS, which is farther out and nuclear hardened would probably be fine, and it might fry some comsats out at geostationary orbit that were line of sight from the blast. In other words we might lose our eyes in space and your Direct TV, but our troops would still know where they were and could use hardened communications links like MILSTAR to pass e-mail - but forget large batches of data.

Space war can get very complicated. What if the russians clandestinely put nukes in satellites to take out GPS and leave GLONASS operational. Do you demand inspection of the Russian payloads (or Chinese). Do you establish "keep out" boundaries. Do you have "sniffer" robot sats with rad detectors checking other sats. Or you use the ham fisted approach and just shoot down anything that attempts to launch into space from anywhere.

What if a LOE nudet does occur. Would you be better off paying the commercial contracters to radiation harden the satellites so those that are not line of sight survive? Or just launch spares?

Oh, and a couple of years back an article appeaed in Janes Defense about a Navy program that would place a large number of HAARP like installations all over the globe. The ostensible purpose? To de-energize the Van Allen belts after a nudet.

Salimandr, it´s not so much that the numbers you´ve seen are wrong, as that they are often misunderstood. For example, Weldon is quite correct in saying that the EMP from one big bomb at the right altitude could "cover the United States". But "cover the United States" doesn´t mean "permanently disable every microprocessor and every RAM chip in the United States". There´s a big difference between transient upsets (such as might occur in a geomagnetic storm) and electronic Doomsday.

Salimandr, it´s not so much that the numbers you´ve seen are wrong, as that they are often misunderstood. For example, Weldon is quite correct in saying that the EMP from one big bomb at the right altitude could "cover the United States". But "cover the United States" doesn´t mean "permanently disable every microprocessor and every RAM chip in the United States". There´s a big difference between transient upsets (such as might occur in a geomagnetic storm) and electronic Doomsday.

DrP,
guess i should correct the post but don´t think i can as it was Dr. Smith that was saying those things. but, yep, i understand there would/could be variables. i understand too that not all is completely understood (the variables) and therefore it´s hard to say how long things would stay out or if they´d even be out.

commie joe,
could you explain please what a LOE nudet is? thank you in advance.

Monique,
sounds like we´ve been watching all along...

commie joe,
gee...i don´t see how something like this (the country wide for example) wouldn´t have an effect on highway traffic/stop lights etc. can you imagine no lights in every city and town? hmmmm. might be great star seeing though.

wouldn´t this have some effect on other places though too? or not?

commie joe,

you said: "My guess is that the Argus and Starfish Prime test series were intended to determine whether a high altitude nudet would be able to act as a shield against nuclear missile attack by pumping up the Van Allen belts and frying enemy warheads as they came through."

good, then i must have understood it correctly as i got the same thing from those testings. either that or we´re both wrong!

it is nice that russia is worried, isn´t it?

Salimandr, I hate to admit it, but the Federation of American Scientists is an excellent source for data on military technology. They have a strong tendency to take political positions with which I don´t sympathize, but if you´re careful to separate objective information from political opinion, you´ll find their Internet site very useful.

Dr P,
thank you, i will be looking into that site now as well. appreciate your help.

commie joe,
you had said that it wouldn´t stop cars like in the movie...

Dr Wood said: "the first comparatively modest one very unexpectedly turned off the lights over a few million square miles in the mid-Pacific. This EMP also shut down radio stations, turned off cars, burned out telephone systems, and wreaked other mischief throughout the Hawaiian Islands nearly 1,000 miles distant from ground zero."

see, he says "turned off cars...and that was before they were so all fired computerized.