RE: Detonate Nuclear Bomb on Moon

["Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@aecl.ca>]

On a related subject,
The current issue of the bi-monthly UK periodical, Journal of the British
Interplanetary Society (JBIS), contains a very interesting article by
Johndale Solem of LANL, about the results of computer simulations of
disruptions & deflections of NEOAs (Near-Earth Orbiting Asteroids) by
nuclear explosives.
The point of the study was to address concerns that such NEOA interceptions
might be ineffective or even counter-productive, if instead of deflecting
them from their impact on earth, they merely succeeded in fracturing them
into large chunks which subsequently bombard the entire globe, in the way
that pieces of tidally-disrupted comet Shoemaker-Levy did on the planet
Jupiter a few years ago.
The interesting conclusion stemming from the various simulations (modeling
NEOAs as agglomerations of several objects with either elastic or inelastic
collision properties) was that the larger NEOAs ( one kilometer diam. &
larger) are relatively easy to deflect, because even if they are fragmented
initially, they re-assemble due to self-gravity of the components, on
time-scales of approximately 10,000 seconds. The bigger problem are the
smaller NEOAs, which lack the gravitational attraction to reassemble
following disruption. For these, the recommendation is a stand-off
detonation, rather than a surface explosion, so that the radiation from the
blast evenly heats the surface and the resulting rapid vaporization of a
thin surface layer gives the NEOA a rocket-style thrust that deflects it
from its trajectory (of course if the NEOA is known to be an object composed
of a single solid body - for example iron-nickel metal, as is not uncommon -
then a surface blast would work well also, and with greater energy-transfer
efficiency, thus requiring a lower-yield explosion ).
Also interesting is the observation, in a preceding article in the same JBIS
issue, that current funding for the NEOA search & tracking effort is much
less than the amount of money Hollywood made on the two disaster flicks,
Deep Impact and Armageddon. The authors note that evidently the public
considers the safety of planet Earth less important than their
entertainment. They also point out that it is not a question of "whether" a
NEOA will hit the earth, but "when" (the probability of getting hit within
the next two generations being 1 in 5000; they ask, "would you get on an
airplane that has a 1 in 5000 chance of crashing ?" ...they do not discuss
the likely opposition, particularly by antinukes, to any plans, and
especially tests, of non-impacting NEAO interceptions).

Jaro
frantaj@aecl.ca

> ----------
> From: 	Bob[SMTP:caspar@aecom.yu.edu]
> Reply To: 	radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu
> Sent: 	Tuesday May 16, 2000 9:27 AM
> To: 	Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: 	Detonate Nuclear Bomb on Moon
> 
> The NY Times is reporting that the US considered dropping a nuclear bomb
> on
> the moon as a show of technical superiority during the cold war after
> sputnik.
> 
> See the following site for details.
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/051600sci-us-nuke.html
> 
> Bob
> Robert Casparius, RSO
> AECOM
> 718-430-2243
> Department of Environmental Health & Safety
> 
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