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Topic : "I have a stupid question for you guys." |
ambelamba
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 Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:39 pm |
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What will happen if someone detonates a hydrogen bomb on the far side of the moon?
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Freebooter
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:42 pm |
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| We'd have a bit bigger tides for a while. |
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balistic
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 4:12 pm |
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Not even the biggest thermonuclear bomb (~50 megatons) would do much of anything, compared to the mass of the moon. Look at the craters on its surface. Many of those impacts released far more energy than any bomb we've built.
And a lot of people don't realize that dozens of nuclear weapons have already been detonated in space. Aside from power blackouts caused by the electromagnetic pulse and a stronger than usual aurora over the poles, they don't do much. There's not a lot of matter for the explosion to couple with up there.
I highly recommend a documentary called "Nukes in Space: The Rainbow Bombs" that talks more about the subject.
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ambelamba
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 6:39 pm |
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Wouldn't EMP cause a permanent damage to electronic equipments?
I thought that detonating a nuclear device in space is like a third world country doing a military exercise in international water. That would attract...a lot of attentions, I guess. Maybe it can be interpreted as declaring war or something. Right? Right...
Anybody read 'The Sentinel' by Arthur C. Clark?
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balistic
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 7:09 pm |
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| ambelamba wrote: |
Wouldn't EMP cause a permanent damage to electronic equipments?
I thought that detonating a nuclear device in space is like a third world country doing a military exercise in international water. That would attract...a lot of attentions, I guess. Maybe it can be interpreted as declaring war or something. Right? Right...
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Damage to the electrical grid can be permanent, in that the EMP can burn out circuits. The disruption in radio communications is mostly temporary.
The first warhead detonated in space over the Pacific caused a blackout in Hawaii and interfered with radio transmissions all over the pacific rim.
I believe the nuclear test ban treaty put an end to space-based testing. There was a concern over the potential hazard to astronauts and orbiting satellites. We did accidenally fry a few (civilian) communications satellites during one or more tests.
It was a different political climate back then. Both Russia and the US were purposefully demonstrating their arsenals as a form of sabre rattling. Russia holds the distinction of detonating the biggest, dirtiest airburst ever. It was a 50 megaton bomb the size of a bus that had to be carried under their largest bomber. They set it off up above the arctic circle, after they'd agreed to the test ban. Something that size is completely cumbersome and unpractical in warfare . . . it was a purely political weapon.
And then in the 70s, the US conducted the largest underground test ever, on an island off the coast of Alaska (conveniently on Russia's doorstep). It was a 5 megaton device place 1 mile below the surface. It permanently raised the center of the island by 30 feet in elevation. The film of the test is by far the most jaw-dropping piece of test footage I've ever seen. All of the lakes and standing ground water are literally thrown into the air by the initial shock pulse.
I'm a bit of an atomic history fan. Probably comes from growing up in Nevada, not 40 miles from a nuclear test site.
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ambelamba
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 7:54 pm |
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Actually I was thinking about detonating nukes in space as a tool to attract any possible extraterrestrial intelligence.
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[Shizo]
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 8:36 pm |
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| ambelamba wrote: |
| Actually I was thinking about detonating nukes in space as a tool to attract any possible extraterrestrial intelligence. |
You can't be serious!
*Little green men floaing in space notice nuclear explosions coming from planet Earth*
a: "Hey look, the Earthlings are exploding sh*t in space.."
b: "Yeah. Lets f**k 'em!"
a: "Ok, i'll just shoot them with my 12 gekaton revolver."
b: "Hehe, ok. *lolz*" |
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balistic
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 10:09 pm |
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| ambelamba wrote: |
| Actually I was thinking about detonating nukes in space as a tool to attract any possible extraterrestrial intelligence. |
It's an interesting idea, but it doesn't really hold any benefit over the radio transmissions we're already sending out, since it's still limited by the speed of light. And you'd have to set them off like, constantly.
It wouldn't be very bright outside the solar system, though using the back side of the moon like a big reflector might get somebody's attention, if they happened to be looking our way. It'd be an interesting effect, anyway. The moon is so reflective . . . it might act like the soft box bounce lights that portrait photographers use.
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Ranath
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 11:00 pm |
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I heard from somewhere that humankind will never be able to make contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. Possibly suitable planets for even a bit more advanced life forms (other than Earth) are just too rare and distances grow too long. It would take 10,000 years for the radio message to travel from Earth to their planet.. and another 10,000 years for their answer to arrive. Go figure what kind of conversation that would be. And travelling such distance is just absurd..
Anyway, blastin nuclear weapons to space is just plain stupid IMO, what would happen if something goes wrong and that nuke does challengers and blows up on it's way? All the radioactive stuff spreads all over the world.. that's why they don't send nuclear waste to space either. |
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Impaler
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 11:42 pm |
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I think there's this humanistic misconception about how powerful nukular bombs actually are. Your average hurricane has more destructive force, although it's obviously done in a much different way. Even blowing them up on the moon is basically like spitting in the ocean compared to the amount of energy/radiation our sun produces every second. balistic is right, radio is better.
| Quote: |
| Anyway, blastin nuclear weapons to space is just plain stupid IMO, what would happen if something goes wrong and that nuke does challengers and blows up on it's way? All the radioactive stuff spreads all over the world.. that's why they don't send nuclear waste to space either. |
Actually, there's already quite a bit of controversy over this. Most space probes that NASA sends out are nuclear-powered. Batteries simply don't last long enough, and solar power is out of the question once you get past Mars. I guess the basic conclusion has been that even if a probe/bomb did explode in the atmosphere, the resulting radiation dose would be far less than what you get every year from sitting in front of your computer, or from ONE cross-country flight, or from a carton of cigarettes.
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Sukhoi
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 2:19 am |
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I believe NASA hasn't lauched any nuclear powered propes since cassini.
The question...I'd say: Nothing at all. I mean we've tested an insane amount of hydrogen and nuclear bombs through the ages. The planet's not shifting orbit or anything. |
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Gort
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 3:05 am |
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| Quote: |
| I'm a bit of an atomic history fan. Probably comes from growing up in Nevada, not 40 miles from a nuclear test site. |
Then you've no doubt seen one of my favorite dark comedy documentaries (if you can call it that), The Atomic Cafe
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balistic
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| Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 7:08 am |
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Nasa goes to great lengths to harden any nuclear devices it sends into space, so that a container holding any radioactive material will withstand an explosion and re-entry.
The Voyager probes are still chirping away, 9 billion miles from Earth and thirty years after launch, thanks to their radiothermic batteries.
Small reactors are essential to the space program.
| Gort wrote: |
| Quote: |
| I'm a bit of an atomic history fan. Probably comes from growing up in Nevada, not 40 miles from a nuclear test site. |
Then you've no doubt seen one of my favorite dark comedy documentaries (if you can call it that), The Atomic Cafe |
Actually I haven't seen that one yet, though I've definitely heard of it. It's been on my list for a while.
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Impaler
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| Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2005 12:24 pm |
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balistic: yeah, don't get me wrong. I'm all for RTG's in space. My point.. well.. re-reading my post, I can't even understand my point. Meh.
Edit: Oh yeah! If you're a fan of the atomic age, you should definitely make a trip over here to New Mexico. We've got the National Atomic Museum here in Albuquerque, as well as the Trinity test site down south in Alamogordo. You can buy souvenir chunks of "Trinitite" (essentially, sand melted into glass from the atomtic blast) for pretty cheeeep, too. Supposedly, there's a huge stockpile of nuclear warheads and such in a big underground vault on the air force base 5 miles west of me. There's also Los Alamos, an entire TOWN based around the national lab (Los Alamos...) that developed the atomic bomb. It's the most educated county in the United States (something like, 75% of the county has a doctorate), and probably the inspiration for Half-Life.
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