That is not a soft romantic glow from a beautiful sunset. That my friends is the radioactive glow from a nuclear weapon we fired into the sky decades ago because safety is for mothers and babies. Starfish Prime was a way for us to look god in the face and give him the finger. Now why exactly would we go around firing nuclear weapons into the sky?
“On July 9, 1962, at 09:00:09 Coordinated Universal Time the Starfish Prime test was successfully detonated at an altitude of 400 kilometers (250 mi). The coordinates of the detonation were 16 degrees, 28 minutes North latitude, 169 degrees, 38 minutes West longitude. The actual weapon yield was very close to the design yield, which has been described by various sources at different values in the range of 1.4 to 1.45 megatons.”
Now why was this really done? I'm still not sure. I know I never learned about this in school though. And probably for good reason. It was bad enough that every February I had to be shown pictures and watch films about how Black people got their shit jacked up during slavery. I'm sure that learning that our own government was exploding nuclear weapons above the sea would have pushed my crazy little ass over the edge. My brain is equipped for a certain amount of lunacy. This is outside of my range of comprehension.
"Starfish Prime caused an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) 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 kilometers (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 damage to the microwave link shut down telephone calls from Kauai to the other Hawaiian islands."
Larger than expected. I wonder how big a pulse they thought they'd get. What is the acceptable amount of fucked up? And don't think that because you haven't heard of this that the only damage occurred on that poor damned island. You have to give it to our government for being able to keep things on the down low when they really need to. Like bathing the public in death rays.
"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."
I think I'm gonna stop leaving the house.
5 comments:
When I read this on your other blog, I was completely shocked, a rare thing for me. I honestly wondered for a few seconds if I was reading a fiction piece by you.
First, I had never heard of this, and I'm a reasonably well-informed person. Why is this the first time I had heard of this? This shit needs to be very, very public. I mean, I know there's no cover up or anything but why are people not more outraged about this? Why is this not mentioned every so often like Bikini Island, the Mai Lai massacre,
Second, this HAPPENED? Don't get me wrong, I love useless scientific endeavour. I always read the article about the latest pointless species of beetle that's been discovered. I love finding out about tiny microscopic amoeba that live around the hot vents at the bottom of the sea. I want to tickle the tummy of the latest monkey species to be discovered (they have such philosophical little faces...awww). Hell, I get excited by NASA's Mars rovers. But this Starfish Prime business - I mean, it's basically shitting in your own home, isn't it?
I don't care what the scientific value of this experiment was, it shouldn't have happened. I'm not being all hippydippy when I say that this planet is our home, it's a fucking fact, this blue ball is all we've got. And someone decides to take a dump in the sky to see what happens? Fuck fuck fuck. We're so fucking stupid.
I'm embarrassed to be getting so heated up about this but seriously...what the fuck is wrong with us as a species?
When I first heard about this I thought it was fake because of the name. It sounds like a terrible film from the 70's. But it was real and this was just one of the experiments done.
I don't want shit like this done because we don't know. Meaning, you can do a study and gather all your scientists and say "If we do this then this has a 99% chance of happening." Next thing you know you've turned our sky green because your weapon configuration was off by .0001 percent. Its not worth it.
Everyone that has talked to me for more than half an hour knows I am not a fan of this planet and nature, but come on. Stop blowing shit up in the air. There are parts of the planet that are worthless because of toxic waste there. Its not like it'll be fine next year. It will never be fine again.
I would love if this kind of stuff was taught in schools. Its all honked up and not a secret. Its just not talked about. Its like dating someone and having them say "Well, you never ASKED me if I was arrested for rape so I never brought it up."
I agree, these type of experiments have such potentially huge consequences, they should not have happened. I mean, we're messing up things badly enough just through carelessness and ignorance, which is kind of understandable. Who knew fossil fuels were going to heat up the world? Who knew that there would be so many soda bottles thrown away that there would be a giant garbage patch in the Pacific ocean the size of Texas or whatever? These things are awful but not deliberate. Blowing up the sky is deliberate, and really really stupid.
One thing that annoys me about conspiracy theorists is that there is so much shit in the public domain that we SHOULD be worried about, like this, and they're distracting themselves and other people by wanting half-baked bullshit like Obama's birth cert and the third 9/11 tower to be real. This Starfish Prime nonsense is what we need to be screaming about. And as for the name, yeah, a bad 70s movie describes it perfectly. I bet some dumb project manager came up with this name because he thought it sounded cool.
With crazy experiments like this one, if something had gone wrong (allow me to put on my foil hat) someone else would have been blamed for it. This is the kind of story parents should have talked to kids about growing up. "When I was a child the government blew up nuclear weapons in the sky!" No child would believe that. Why? Because it is insane.
I heard about that giant garbage patch and some are saying the size is being exaggerated, which is hurting the efforts to do something about it. I mean, its still huge, but not Texas huge. Either way, it goes back to how much fucked up is acceptable.
I'm a total conspiracy theorists when it comes to a lot of shit. But not the popular things like you mentioned. To me that's nonsense. I still want to know what is going to happen when all this biodegradable stuff falls apart years from now.
I don't think you were having a tinfoil hat moment, I'm sure if something had gone wrong, blame would have been deflected. That is unfortunately the way things really do work. I bet this Starfish Prime business was only publicised after the thirty year rule period ran out and the government figures nobody's going to care about what happened in the 1960s anymore.
But there are conspiracy theories and there are conspiracy theories. The problem with the nuttier ones is that they distract from the real issues. A healthy scepticism about government activity is important. A crazy scepticism about things that are (a) highly unlikely and (b) pointless anyway is just dumb.
Huh? I have to start worrying about biodegradable stuff now?
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