Almost 40 years ago...Starfish Prime!

[M.D. Holloway]

Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States of America on July 9, 1962, a joint effort of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the Defense Atomic Support Agency (which became the Defense Nuclear Agency in 1971). Launched via a Thor rocket and carrying a W49 thermonuclear warhead (manufactured by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) and a Mk. 4 reentry vehicle, the explosion took place 250 miles (400 kilometers) above a point 19 miles (31 kilometers) southwest of Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. It was one of five tests conducted by the USA in outer space as defined by the FAI. It produced a yield equivalent to 1.4 megatons of TNT.






Starfish Prime caused an electromagnetic pulse which was far larger than expected, so much larger that it drove much of the instrumentation off scale, causing great difficulty in getting accurate measurements. The Starfish Prime electromagnetic pulse also made those effects known to the public by causing electrical damage in Hawaii, about 1,445 kilometres (898 mi) away from the detonation point, knocking out about 300 streetlights, setting off numerous burglar alarms and damaging a telephone company microwave link. The EMP-damaged microwave link shut down telephone calls from Kauai to the other Hawaiian islands.

After the Starfish Prime detonation, bright auroras were observed in the detonation area as well as in the southern conjugate region on the other side of the equator from the detonation. According to one of the first technical reports, "The visible phenomena due to the burst were widespread and quite intense; a very large area of the Pacific was illuminated by the auroral phenomena, from far south of the south magnetic conjugate area (Tongatapu) through the burst area to far north of the north conjugate area (French Frigate Shoals). . . . At twilight after the burst, resonant scattering of light from lithium and other debris was observed at Johnston and French Frigate Shoals for many days confirming the long time presence of debris in the atmosphere. An interesting side effect was that the Royal New Zealand Air Force was aided in anti-submarine maneuvers by the light from the bomb."[6]

In part, these auroral effects were predicted by Nicholas Christofilos, a scientist who had earlier worked on the Operation Argus high-altitude nuclear shots.

According to U.S. atomic veteran Cecil R. Coale, some hotels in Hawaii offered "rainbow bomb" parties on their roofs for Starfish Prime, contradicting some reports that the artificial aurora was unexpected.

Pages 19–21 of "A 'Quick Look' at the Technical Results of Starfish Prime", August 1962 states [8]:

"At Kwajalein, 1,400 [nautical] miles [2,600 km; 1,600 mi] to the west, a dense overcast extended the length of the eastern horizon to a height of 5 or 8 degrees. At 0900 GMT a brilliant white flash burned through the clouds rapidly changing to an expanding green ball of irradiance extending into the clear sky above the overcast. From its surface extruded great white fingers, resembling cirro-stratus clouds, which rose to 40 degrees above the horizon in sweeping arcs turning downward toward the poles and disappearing in seconds to be replaced by spectacular concentric cirrus like rings moving out from the blast at tremendous initial velocity, finally stopping when the outermost ring was 50 degrees overhead. They did not disappear but persisted in a state of frozen stillness. All this occurred, I would judge, within 45 seconds. As the greenish light turned to purple and began to fade at the point of burst, a bright red glow began to develop on the horizon at a direction 50 degrees north of east and simultaneously 50 degrees south of east expanding inward and upward until the whole eastern sky was a dull burning red semicircle 100 degrees north to south and halfway to the zenith obliterating some of the lesser stars. This condition, interspersed with tremendous white rainbows, persisted no less than seven minutes."

"At zero time at Johnston, a white flash occurred, but as soon as one could remove his goggles, no intense light was present. A second after shot time a mottled red disc was observed directly overhead and covered the sky down to about 45 degrees from the zenith. Generally, the red mottled region was more intense on the eastern portions. Along the magnetic north-south line through the burst, a white-yellow streak extended and grew to the north from near zenith. The width of the white streaked region grew from a few degrees at a few seconds to about 5-10 degrees in 30 seconds. Growth of the auroral region to the north was by addition of new lines developing from west to east. The white-yellow auroral streamers receded upward from the horizon to the north and grew to the south and at about 2 minutes the white-yellow bands were still about 10 degrees wide and extended mainly from near zenith to the south. By about two minutes, the red disc region had completed disappearance in the west and was rapidly fading on the eastern portion of the overhead disc. At 400 seconds essentially all major visible phenomena had disappeared except for possibly some faint red glow along the north-south line and on the horizon to the north. No sounds were heard at Johnston Island that could be definitely attributed to the detonation."

"Strong electromagnetic signals were observed from the burst, as were significant magnetic field disturbances and earth currents."
In 2006, Palmer Dyal described the particle and field measurements of the Starfish diamagnetic cavity and the injected beta flux into the artificial radiation belt in the Journal of Geophysical Research. His measurements describe the explosion from 0.1 milliseconds to 16 minutes after the detonation.

[M.D. Holloway]

While some of the energetic beta particles followed the Earth's magnetic field and illuminated the sky, other high-energy electrons became trapped and formed radiation belts around the earth. There was much uncertainty and debate about the composition, magnitude and potential adverse effects from this trapped radiation after the detonation. The weaponeers became quite worried when three satellites in low earth orbit were disabled. These man-made radiation belts eventually crippled one-third of all satellites in low earth orbit. Seven satellites were destroyed as radiation knocked out their solar arrays or electronics, including the first commercial relay communication satellite ever, Telstar. Detectors on Telstar, TRAAC, Injun, and Ariel 1 were used to measure distribution of the radiation produced by the tests.

In 1963, Brown et al. reported in the Journal of Geophysical Research that Starfish Prime had created a belt of MeV electrons, and Wilmot Hess reported in 1968 that some Starfish electrons remained for five years. Others reported that radioactive particles from Starfish Prime descended to earth seasonally and accumulated in terrestrial organisms such as fungi and lichens.[

[M.D. Holloway]

just cuz you can do sump'n don't mean ya should...

[Pazuzu]

50 years ago.

The airbursts like that were what eventually triggered the astronomical research in X-ray and gamma rays. The Vela constellation of satellites in the late 60s was designed to watch for illegal nuclear bursts around the planet, but instead discovered the high energy regime of the Universe.

[Jim Richards]

see, it's all good.

[vash]

what about that other little known experiement gone wrong...? i think it was called chocolate starfish. sorry feeling lowbrow today.

[mossguy]

Originally Posted by vash

what about that other little known experiement gone wrong...? i think it was called chocolate starfish. sorry feeling lowbrow today.

Never heard the term. Googled it. Learn something new every day!

Best,
Tom

[Jim Richards]

sometimes it's better not to learn new things.

[mossguy]

Originally Posted by Jim Richards

sometimes it's better not to learn new things.

Agreed!

[ODDJOB UNO]

aint NUKLAR FISH-ONN(fission) FUN?



"atomic cafe" is a good video to watch. ask me how i know having had clearance into white sands/los alamos/sandia/project mercury nevada. (yes as a matter of fact i did machine radiated parts, nuklar bomb triggers and icbm missile nose cones)



please look up where john wayne was filming(hurricane,utah) and the dates. funny how a nuklar explosion occurred and spent fallout drifted towards ..........you guessed it........hurricane , utah. also during late 50's early 60's a number of "oh POO, that was a BIG JUAN(one)! got away from DOE with ensuent fallout/radiation hitting phx,az and other southwestern cities to the north east/east/south east of project mercury. prevailing winds westerlies.


this stuff is BIG MAN! i have personally seen the holes (craters) created. if you fell in one(juan) you would be a dead man because of the DEPTH! hundreds and hundreds of feet DEEP!



nothing better than watching these 50/60's tests on youtube and realizing they didnt have a clue what they were playing with. and that kiddies is how scientists understand SCIENCE! by creating EXPERIMENTS in their LA-BOR-RA-TORIES!


anyone else been into PROJECT MERCURY?

[mjohnson]

If you're able to get into the real history of this stuff -- it's amazing the scale of what they did during the cold war. This was crazy-big engineering, done at an incredible pace. Things were done in months that today would take a decade, if it were even possible at all.

I spent a few days last month at the Nevada Test Site with some of the old-timers. Half of what we saw was inspiring, the other half was depressing in that much of the technology was lost, and we couldn't recreate it even if we threw the treaties to the wind and had presidential "motivation".

What it must be like to be one of our old designers - walk up to a big hole in the desert and say "I thought that up"...

(born a generation too soon...)
mike

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by LubeMaster77

just cuz you can do sump'n don't mean ya should...

Dr. van Allen is the only known scientist to have discovered something (the belts) and then immediately plan to blow it up.

[ODDJOB UNO]

obviously with security being insane tight,we could have no cameras. but it is THE BIGGEST GOPHER FARM I or YOU WILL EVER SEE IN YER LIFE! unfathomable size craters. not some piss ant MOAB(mutha of all bombs) crater, but really really really BIG CRATERS! it looked like a MOONSCAPE no other way to ID it.


the horizontal bores going into the mesas(rampart mesa was one of them) were big enough for 2,3,4 diesel locomotives side by side. white trailers with a/c everywhere. horizontal bores easier to build blast doors and contain shots instead of falling in on itself(vertical shot underground) and destroying test equipment.


flat out told us as we left if we left road we would be SHOT! if we picked anything up we would BE SHOT! go to 1st machine shop, when leaving they call 2nd machine shop. when done at 2nd they call third machine shop. when leaving 3rd machine shop they call guards and we head back 50 something miles. out by 5pm no ifs and or butts. vehicle searched and us searched on way in and on the wayy out. ask NO QUESTIONS just present tooling material and literature PERIOD!


those dumbass iranians and dumbass north koreans dont have a CLUE who they are playing with (U.S.A.). playing with nuklar fish-onn is not for the stoo-pid.



most BIZZARRO THING I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE and my radiological badge DID NOT pick up any RADS! now that was a hell of a relief.

[Jim Richards]

you were issued the placebo badge. the scientists got the real ones.

[ODDJOB UNO]

Originally Posted by Jim Richards

you were issued the placebo badge. the scientists got the real ones.

well im still alive thats all i'll say. when i signed my life away at los alamos doing radiated parts on a cnc behind lead filled walls that one had me AFEARED. saw a radiated cnc mill on a flatbed trailer guarded by DOE w/M-16's going down the hill from los alamos one trip. giant ass wrapped coffin around it. saw some bizzaro stuff.



all i can say is theres enough nukes on this planet to vaporize it many times over.

[mjohnson]

Originally Posted by ODDJOB UNO

obviously with security being insane tight,we could have no cameras. but it is THE BIGGEST GOPHER FARM I or YOU WILL EVER SEE IN YER LIFE! unfathomable size craters. not some piss ant MOAB(mutha of all bombs) crater, but really really really BIG CRATERS! it looked like a MOONSCAPE no other way to ID it.


the horizontal bores going into the mesas(rampart mesa was one of them) were big enough for 2,3,4 diesel locomotives side by side. white trailers with a/c everywhere. horizontal bores easier to build blast doors and contain shots instead of falling in on itself(vertical shot underground) and destroying test equipment.

I had a chance to get a camera in, but didn't have enough time to arrange the paperwork. OJU does not exaggerate much on the size of the tunnels. We saw the huge explosive-driven doors they used to seal off the bores. Huge 10' diameter, football field long vacuum chambers, all sorts of crazy things.

At the time, we (AEC/DOE) were the best in the world at tunnel and shaft boring. Half mile deep holes 12' in diameter and straight to within inches. All the drilling equipment is still there, ready to use again - even though the guys who knew the tricks are retiring and dieing off.

There was a shot almost ready when Clinton ended our testing. The experimental rack for that shot is still hanging over the hole. Half a million pounds and you could push it (slowly) back and forth.

The subsidence craters? We drove a tour bus down into the bottom of one of them, to give you a sense of scale.

[ODDJOB UNO]

seeing yer from los alamos and yer adventures ya have to admit the most awe inspiring thing i have ever seen. kind of like the 1st time ya see the grande canon(grand canyon) except man made and with an inwhizable(invisible) twist to it CALLED RADIATION!


i also got to go to TRINITY SITE! another place that we really did change the PLANET FOREVER! have always drifted towards reading about all these tests. interesting as hell what they were trying to prove/understand.


if i EVER make it to bimini atoll and go diving on the ABLE/BAKER test ships i will be able to say i was at project mercury/los alamos/sandia/trinity site and bimini island for whatever the hell thats worth. but it would be some cool bragging rights. and if i ever make it to nagasaki/hiroshima i will have hit the jackpot of NUKLAR TOURIZM!

[mjohnson]

For more nuclear tourism, you can go to the Plowshare sites.



I'm not sure what there's to see, but there were a number of tests outside of the NTS.

There are rumblings of doing something like that again just south of Louisiana. Ed Teller's smiling somewhere...

[ODDJOB UNO]

my score off road racing amigo is the flight test eng. for grumman/rolls royce bmw engines for the new "green" corporate grumman jet in savannah. they also cold weather test at eglin a.f.b.

i was jerking his chain since we have known each other since we were 18 working at garrett corp here and i was remarking how there is a LOST NUKLAR BOMB buried somewhere in the TYBEE ISLAND area, after being lost due to a mid air collision years back. this made history channel i think.


yep lets pray when it decays it doesnt go KA-FEEKING-BOOM!


yep savannah is fer sure NOT on my list of places to live with that damn thing buried there.

[M.D. Holloway]

I was at the Sedan crater not long ago - impressive. The guys I was with work through out all of the areas including 51 (which is prolly more hype than anything IMO) - told about such things as build 1/4 scale nuke subs in sides of mountains and blowing them up to understand the effects. Sounded like they could spend money like trust fund kids and have more fun doing it. Huh, the good ol Republican days...