Watching Zimmerman.......but meanwhile in the middle east

[KestrelBike]

I worry about a freighter off the coast shooting a missile into our outer atmosphere and EMPing us back to the stone ages. Can't tell you why on that one either, but the relationship between North korea and Iran has been in the news in the past.

I thought the EMP scenario like in One Second After would take a ridiculous number of nukes in LEO to achieve the same effect. Or are you talking about a single nuke taking out some geostationary satellites?

[SA Friday]

I thought the EMP scenario like in One Second After would take a ridiculous number of nukes in LEO to achieve the same effect. Or are you talking about a single nuke taking out some geostationary satellites?

One in the right place (outside the atmosphere) would take out 1/3 to 1/2 the country. We no longer make industrial size transformers and these would most definitely blow from the strike. Last I read, 6 months minimum to replace them.

Three in the right places and the country, most of Canada, and some of Mexico are done...

Ultimately, nobody really knows for sure except for some obscure information from an "accident" that occurred in Russia back in the 80's (or was it the 70s). Most of that info is under lock and key in Russia.

[HoneyBadger]

I thought the EMP scenario like in One Second After would take a ridiculous number of nukes in LEO to achieve the same effect. Or are you talking about a single nuke taking out some geostationary satellites?

Nope. As SA Friday said, one in LEO would send about 1/3 to 1/2 of the continental US back to the 1800s. if a nuke went off in orbit our geo satellites would be the last thing we'd worry about... 60% of all satellites would be instantly turned into space junk, and none of the rest would be able to communicate for a while because of something called scintillation.