🚀 go-pugleaf

fretts@willee.enet.dec.com (Carole Fretts) writes:

>I'm not sure that this is the right forum for my question, but I need to
>ask this.  Has anyone else heard a news report that the U.S. is planning
>on detonating a nuclear device in space?  I heard it this weekend on
>a Boston morning radio news broadcast but cannot track it down for any
>further information.  What I caught was that a planned nuclear detonation
>in space was being postponed for a few months to make sure that no
>satellites are damaged in the explosion.

No doubt what you heard was a garbled version of the recent dust-up
over the U.S. military (forget what branch) planning to orbit a Topaz
nuclear REACTOR, which they bought from the Russians not too long ago.
Not a bomb.  Also, don't think of the Topaz as a reactor in the utility
power plant sense, because it's not at all like that (I have this funny
mental image of boosting a building-size maze of concrete and ductwork
into orbit).

Astronomers are pissed off because the Topaz is not particularly shielded
and the stray radiation from the reactor will screw up the Compton Gamma
Ray Observatory, the ROSAT x-ray satellite, and probably a bunch of other
things I've forgotten.  The Topaz was planned to go into low Earth orbit
which would really mess those satellites up; they are now talking about
putting it into higher orbit as a concession to the astronomers (and, I
hope, as a concession to people who don't want it to fall on their heads -
remember Cosmos nnn, that sprayed across Canada?)  There have been at
least two articles in recent issues of the New York Times about this.

In my highly personal opinion, the whole Topaz test is unnecessary, as the
military is being very coy about what they want - I have a feeling this
is related to SDI, The Program That Just Won't Die.  They really haven't
given any good reason for putting another piece of radioactive crap in
space other than "testing."  There is an element of playing with the new
toy they got at a going-out-of-business sale to the whole affair.  Maybe
I'll write my Congresspersons to bitch.