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Operation Argus: How a Cold-War Secret Was Revealed

theatlantic.com

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Re: Operation Argus: How a Cold-War Secret Was Revealed

#11

Post by giardini »

akiselev wrote: post #3
CamperBob2 wrote: post #2

Admittedly I only read about half the article and skimmed the rest, but this seems like kind of a nothingburger, in the parlance of our times. So a couple of bombs were set off in space for research purposes, in an environment already permeated with radiation. Is this supposed to be morally worse than setting them off on the ground, where people actualy live? What's the actual controversy here? Please consider answer…

To reduce cutting edge nuclear weapons tests, at a time when the USA and USSR were neck deep in an arms race and at each other's throats, to a nothingburger about space radiation is... fantastic. How great is it that today we can live so ignorant of one of the scariest times in human civilization? The everythingburger had to do with the orbital EMP, not the radiation or even the secret tests. If the US had developed…

akiselev says>"it would have been the end of MAD and would have forced the Soviet Union into all out war ..."

I don't buy that extrapolation at all because:

- We'll never see the "end of MAD" - there's too much uncertainty around large-scale nuclear weapons and

- no one, including the Soviet Union, is in a rush to end the world.

Re: Operation Argus: How a Cold-War Secret Was Revealed

#12

Post by dylan604 »

akiselev wrote: post #3
CamperBob2 wrote: post #2

Admittedly I only read about half the article and skimmed the rest, but this seems like kind of a nothingburger, in the parlance of our times. So a couple of bombs were set off in space for research purposes, in an environment already permeated with radiation. Is this supposed to be morally worse than setting them off on the ground, where people actualy live? What's the actual controversy here? Please consider answer…

To reduce cutting edge nuclear weapons tests, at a time when the USA and USSR were neck deep in an arms race and at each other's throats, to a nothingburger about space radiation is... fantastic. How great is it that today we can live so ignorant of one of the scariest times in human civilization? The everythingburger had to do with the orbital EMP, not the radiation or even the secret tests. If the US had developed…

>The everythingburger had to do with the orbital EMP

How would an EMP in near space affect an ICBM? Once the warhead has separated, isn't it basically a dumb object on a Newtonian trajectory? Maybe mess up the electronics in the trigger to prevent the critical mass explosion rendering it just a man made meteor? Maybe a MIRV would have some electronics to separate. I can't remember if they separated after re-entry or not.

Re: Operation Argus: How a Cold-War Secret Was Revealed

#13

Post by haloux »

dylan604 wrote: post #12
akiselev wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To reduce cutting edge nuclear weapons tests, at a time when the USA and USSR were neck deep in an arms race and at each other's throats, to a nothingburger about space radiation is... fantastic. How great is it that today we can live so ignorant of one of the scariest times in human civilization? The everythingburger had to do with the orbital EMP, not the radiation or even the secret tests. If the US had developed…

>The everythingburger had to do with the orbital EMP How would an EMP in near space affect an ICBM? Once the warhead has separated, isn't it basically a dumb object on a Newtonian trajectory? Maybe mess up the electronics in the trigger to prevent the critical mass explosion rendering it just a man made meteor? Maybe a MIRV would have some electronics to separate. I can't remember if they separated after re-entry or…

short answer; it depends, but in general we are looking for holes in EM shielding to turn the RVs into paperweights.

As a former nuke maintainer, the way I think they would do it would be to launch a titan with a full MIRV payload of W53s or their predecessors out into an area for HAD (high altitude detonation). The understanding is that we were relying on the emp from nuclear blasts to make things drop from the sky. This is also a time when insensitive high exposives were not a thing and simple shock would begin a detonation for most weapons. The emp overloading electronics in either the launch vehicle (depending on altitude) or the reentry vehicle could cause the weapon to detonate (noncriticality, just a simple detonation). Aditionally consider that passing through the EM contaminated zone would likely render the same effects to the launch vehicle. The RV might not even separate and instead just continue into orbit. Lastly, the RV angle and positioning done by the RS (reentry system) is highly dependent on both explosives and electronics. Lots of room for EM to muck with that and cause a poor reentry angle or even an outright spin fault which would lead to detonation on reentry. Regardless, most RVs will not critically detonate unless all flight conditions are met. This means launch, RS positioning, proper spin, etc.

Side note : In the service I’ve heard rumors of the Russians having the same doctrine when under attack and defending key government areas, but at lower altitudes and being initiated with Tuplovs and gravity weapons (non rv, aircraft dropped). This inherently implies fratricidal consequences for pilots and civilians.

Re: Operation Argus: How a Cold-War Secret Was Revealed

#15

Post by toyg »

Waterluvian wrote: post #8
dmurray wrote: post #4

The fourth estate seems to have added disappointingly little here. If the government decided they would release details of the program, the NYT would "scoop" them by publishing it a day or two earlier. If the government decided not to release details, the NYT heard nothing, saw nothing, spoke nothing. Not exactly "all the news that's fit to print".

Consider it payment for doing their job. Without this journalism, the government would have probably never been compelled to bother telling anybody about Argus. So the fourth estate seemed to have performed its role perfectly.

“Perfectly”, no: if they had done it properly, the explosions would never had happened, our precious Universe would be a bit cleaner, and scientists wouldn’t have wasted time trying to understand the resulting “unexplicable” phenomena.

Re: Operation Argus: How a Cold-War Secret Was Revealed

#16

Post by toyg »

One thing that stuck out for me: the leak was never identified, but s/he also didn’t achieve what s/he wanted.

Imagine being someone so horrified by having to work on such a project that going to the press, risking career and livelihood, is the only resort. Then you spend a few months biting your lips, and... nothing happens, because reporters sit on it. What does that do to your trust in the free press? At that point, it would be perfectly reasonable to become completely paranoid: they are all complicit, and now they know me, do they think I’m a traitor? Am I under surveillance? Two men in a car over there, could they be...?

Re: Operation Argus: How a Cold-War Secret Was Revealed

#17

Post by Waterluvian »

toyg wrote: post #15
Waterluvian wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider it payment for doing their job. Without this journalism, the government would have probably never been compelled to bother telling anybody about Argus. So the fourth estate seemed to have performed its role perfectly.

“Perfectly”, no: if they had done it properly, the explosions would never had happened, our precious Universe would be a bit cleaner, and scientists wouldn’t have wasted time trying to understand the resulting “unexplicable” phenomena.

Cleaner? Source?

Re: Operation Argus: How a Cold-War Secret Was Revealed

#18

Post by simion314 »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #2

Admittedly I only read about half the article and skimmed the rest, but this seems like kind of a nothingburger, in the parlance of our times. So a couple of bombs were set off in space for research purposes, in an environment already permeated with radiation. Is this supposed to be morally worse than setting them off on the ground, where people actualy live? What's the actual controversy here? Please consider answer…

At least 3 satellites failed because of the radiations, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_nuclear_explosio...

I can relate with the scientists that worked on this satelites, send them in space to collect data and 2 weeks later the americans destroy them because they want to try nuclear bombs in every possible place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmCe0GeCwA0

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