[Familyop: Such an attack may be months or years ahead of us, but this is a good time to think and plan for the future. The following should clear up some of the sponsored oinking from anti-American, special interests needing cheap freight fuel.]
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.
[Excerpt:]
STATEMENT OF DR. GARY L. SMITH, DIRECTOR, APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
[...]
Dr. SMITH.
[...]
The Applied Physics Lab operates under about a dozen task order contracts with a number of major sponsors, covering between 200 and 300 separate tasks in any given year. All of our funding is derived from programs. We have no line-item support. About 80 percent of our funding comes from sponsors within the Department of Defense, and about 15 percent from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
[...]
Note that a burst on the order of 500 kilometers in altitude can cover the entire continental United States.
Mr. WELDON. What strength burst would that be?
Dr. SMITH. It is not terribly burst-strength dependent; almost any burst will produce that kind of radiation. The strength of the field will change at the various radii from the burst point, but it will cover the same area regardless of the strength of the burst.
Yeppers! That’s the real threat. An Iranian low earth orbit/ polar-inclined orbit, satellite on a peaceful scientific mission begins to have a decaying orbit.
The “peaceful” satellite’s gamma intensive warhead detonates over St. Louis when its altitude is ‘just right’.
No more life as you knew it.
One second after ...