[eak3]

Im confused at those alititude numbers.. its approx only 60 miles from sea level to space.. so these would be detonated from outer space??

[ctdonath2]

Yes.

Hence the US being rather wound up about 3rd-world psychopaths making viable attempts at putting nukes in orbit: they succeed once, we’re toast.

[ClearCase_guy]

LEO is between 160–2,000 km (100–1,240 miles) above the Earth's surface. The space station is approx. 200 miles up.

Iran just announced that they plan to put a man into orbit. I don't know the altitude. So, we have Iran building a nuke and also a vehicle that can put a payload of some size into LEO. And North Korea is following a similar line.

The day may come when we all gather around our TVs to watch a third world country put a man into space.
We see the man.
We see the man wave.
We see the rocket lift off.
Everyone cheers.
What we don't see is that the man didn't get on the missle. He's still on the launching pad.
And then the EMP goes off. At 50 miles up? 100 miles up? 150 miles? Whatever altitude it is, it could be real bad for us.