🚀 go-pugleaf

dpalmer@csulb.edu (David Palmer) writes:


>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.


>YIKES!!! Let's HOPE she heard this wrong. A nuclear explosion in space
...
>Haven't heard a peep about this anywhere else, so I think it just may be
>another one of those cases where scientifically-illiterate reporters
>tried to report on something beyond their comprehension. But THAT'S
>flamage for another forum...
>-- 
>              Dave Palmer             dpalmer@csulb.edu

There is a plan to orbit a Russian nuclear REACTOR.  This can cause trouble
for satellites because the charged particle radiation is trapped in the
Earth's magnetic field (so the inverse square law provides little
protection.)

It can also severely screw up measurements of natural radiation,
such as those made by the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (the second
of NASAs 'Great Observatories', which is currently producing very
exciting results.)


BTW, I am not the same David Palmer as the person who posted the message
this is a reply to.


-- 
		David M. Palmer		palmer@alumni.caltech.edu
					palmer@tgrs.gsfc.nasa.gov