🚀 go-pugleaf

F.Baube x554 (flb@flb.optiplan.fi) wrote:
> Doug Mohney <sysmgr@king.eng.umd.edu> writes:
> > Actual use of a nuclear weapon .. would result in ..
> > EMP problems you'd cause for commercial sats and 
> > (possibly) electronics on the ground. 
> > It would be bad. And a waste of good fissionables 
> > for other purposes.
> 
> There could also be megabits of nugget-sized space 
> junk to ventilate any later space vehicles.  But also, 

Nope.  The warhead wouldn't be in orbit and its doubtful if any fragments
would attain orbital velocity of any kind during the explosion.

> if plutonium warheads are "destroyed" by Smart Pebbles 
> (or whatever they're being called now), couldn't the 
> atmosphere be filled with enough plutonium dust to 
> give every person on the planet bone cancer ?
> 
A lot of interception technology is based on giving the target enough of
a shock to disable the high-tech firing mechanisms and/or guidance systems.
Nuclear warheads don't explode when intercepted.  They just don't go off 
when they get to the target, if they get there at all.  You just wind up
with a lot of small, very dangerous impact craters on the ground.

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