A Look Back At Bombing the Van Allen Belts 237
An anonymous reader points out a recent story at NPR describing one of the greatest lightshows in history — a US hydrogen bomb test 250 miles above the Pacific Ocean in 1962. The mission came about after James Van Allen confirmed the existence of radiation belts around the earth that now bear his name. As it turns out, the same day Van Allen announced his findings at a press conference, he "agreed with the military to get involved with a project to set off atomic bombs in the magnetosphere to see if they could disrupt it." According to NPR, "The plan was to send rockets hundreds of miles up, higher than the Earth's atmosphere, and then detonate nuclear weapons 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." The article is accompanied by a podcast and a video with recently declassified views of the test. They also explain how the different colors of light in the sky were produced.
Azimov story... (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to be in favour of nuclear deterent (Score:4, Interesting)
... but the more I read about what some of these scientists got up to the more I begin to wonder if some of them weren't borderline insane or at least so totally absorbed in the narrow science they were persuing that they didn't think about or didn't care about the potential consequences if things went wrong.
Re:Hypocrasy (Score:4, Interesting)
It is NOT clear that the US gave nukes to Israel. Note, I'm not denying that the US gave nukes to Israel, I am merely stating that it isn't clear that they did so.
What IS most definitely clear is, A: Israelis spies stole a lot of data B: Israel bribed some scientists and technicians C: The US pretended not to notice that Israel wanted nukes really badly D: A lot of politicians would have committed treason to ensure that Israel did get nukes. E: Israel put a lot of money into R&D in the years before and after they "acquired" nuclear weapons.
You are free to draw your own conslusions, of course, but I don't believe that we "gave" them nukes. I think that a lot of loose cannons in government and in the military enabled Israel to develop their own nukes.
Re:Hypocrasy (Score:5, Interesting)
I prefer this version of the very same thing:
This famous poem, written by Britain's imperial poet, was a response to the American take over of the Phillipines after the Spanish-American War.
Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.
Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.
Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"
Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.
Take up the White Man's burden--
Have done with childish days--
The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!
Re:It began earlier (Score:3, Interesting)
It is a crying shame that you roll over whenever somebody tries to stop you from trying to correct articles like that in the first place. There certainly are a bunch of cyber bullies on Wikipedia, and there is an attempt to be a check on their actions, but it does take some effort and standing up to those bullies in the first place.
Re:Azimov story... (Score:2, Interesting)
I saw a documentary once about a native american who was the last survivor of a little known tribe in the early 1900's. When he saw San Fransisco for the first time, with gas lamps, trams, etc., he said:
The white man is very clever, but not very wise.
Was that foresight, or are we modern people really so blinded by our cleverness that we fail to see our lack of wisdom?
Re:I can't see the tags... (Score:3, Interesting)
Certainly don't want to do that today... (Score:5, Interesting)
Those radiation belts are composed of trapped electron and proton particles, bouncing back and forth along those magnetic field lines. There are several numerical models that predict what the population of these particles based on their location, and general behavior under different conditions (solar cycle variations, solar flares, etc).
Anyone building a satellite will use those models to determine what levels of radiation levels the satellite will encounter along its orbit, and add on the appropriate level of shielding to protect the electronics.
A nuclear bomb will never be able to alter the shape of the belts. All it will do is add a spectacular amount of electron and proton particles to the radiation belt, potentially frying the electronics of most of the low to medium orbit satellite (geosynchronous ones will probably be ok). Depending on the size of the bomb, the radiation belt may take weeks or even months to return to a 'natural' state.
There are some experiments in the works to 'tweak' the radiation belts by beaming low frequency EM waves, to change the energy of the existing particle populations. In theory, that will enable some of the particles to become 'untrapped', thereby reducing the overall population.
Re:Hypocrasy (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, when something happens. You know who has the nukes, no matter what treaty you sign up for.
It's interesting how many people come out to defent the second ammendment and their right to bear arms, but they don't think it's right for other governments to have the same defense mechanisms in the event of a country who wanted to take advantage of their nuclear power. I'm not saying it's going to happen soon, or that everyone should be allowed, but it scares me not being part of the bunch with the nuclear arsenal.
Re:Hypocrasy (Score:2, Interesting)
I always thought that the western world didn't want Iran to have nukes because their president and their ayatollahs frequently pass judgement on Israel, saying that they should be bombed out of existence.
Part of the reason for that is because the war criminal Ariel Sharon decreed that the Palestinians were "not human" and should be "exterminated". You may not be able to look this up online if you live in the US, because of your country's censorship filters.
Let's get this straight - the previous (and fortunately to a rather lesser extent, the current) Israeli government want to wipe the Palestinians off the face of the world. The Palestinians have been herded into a ghetto and denied basic human rights like food, clean water and medical supplies. Do you think the Israelis would like it if that happened to them?