Posted on 08/09/2009 1:36:16 AM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in October 1957, the United States feared that nuclear missiles would soon follow. How could we stop them? In the Dr. Strangelove era, no idea was too absurd, and Nicholas Christofilos, an elevator engineer turned nuclear physicist, had a doozy.
Christofilos had only undergraduate degrees in electrical and mechanical engineering, but he had become a top military scientist at California's Livermore Laboratory with a reputation for audacious creativity. He suggested that an atomic explosion in space could generate a vast flux of electrons, which would form a shell of energy over Earth, a phenomenon that became known as the "Christofilos effect." The result, Christofilos suggested, might fry Soviet warheads.
A recent high-altitude test had already demonstrated how a nuclear blast could disrupt ground-based electronics, but the Christofilos effect, it was theorized, could create a defense: The speeding electrons trapped in Earth's magnetic field would produce radiation that might disrupt the arming and fusing mechanisms of enemy warheads. When the first U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, detected the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding Earth in January 1958, Christofilos' ideas seemed even more plausible.
The Atomic Energy Commission put together a plan to detonate small atomic weapons above the atmosphere to create the Christofilos effect for study. Time was crucial, because in the fall of 1958 a potential moratorium on atomic testing loomed. Argus was up and running in only five months, and by early August 1958, the nine ships of the U.S. Navy's Task Force 88 were heading for various points in the Atlantic Ocean.
(Excerpt) Read more at airspacemag.com ...
The Bluegill nuclear test of 1962 also proved his theories. Also, an Air Force officer and a Navy officer, sustained retinal burns at a slant range of about 50 km.
As our society becomes more dependent on satellites for communications, data, navigation, news, etc so does our vulnerability to rogue states using nuclear weapons to destroy our satellite systems.
Forget hitting a major US city, take out several satellites and disrupt our economy for a decade.
With on EMP burst over the center of our country, it can knock out anything that uses a transistor or microprocessor.
BTTT
The speeding electrons trapped in Earth's magnetic field would produce radiation that might disrupt the arming and fusing mechanisms of enemy warheads. When the first U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, detected the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding Earth in January 1958, Christofilos' ideas seemed even more plausible.Wowzo.
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I think it can work today by using an EMP bomb. He did propose more things but those are still classified
Thanks sosl.
Any questions about radiation and protecting yourself from it please do not hesitate to ask. I should know because I have exposed to it in may ways.
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