Nuclear Bomb Test in Space: Operation Fishbowl

The nuclear bombs, which brought the end of World War II, brought about a great disaster, but when we consider the bombs that followed, we see that these bombs are actually very weak. The Tsar Bomb of the Soviet Union is a very good example of this. However, not only the size of the bomb is important, but also where it is thrown.

On the night of July 9, 1962, much of the Pacific Ocean was illuminated, from Hawaii to New Zealand. It wasn’t a meteor or some other natural event that did it. This flare, which was a result of the USA’s high-altitude nuclear bomb test called Starfish Prime, brought many problems with it. Known as Operation Fishbowl, this event also forced the US government to make a choice.

Operation Fishbowl was initiated by the United States, which wanted to respond to the USSR’s tests.

czar bomb images

After the use of nuclear bombs in World War II, both the USA and the Soviet Union remained silent on this issue until the 1960s. Although atmospheric nuclear weapons tests were carried out at first, the tests were interrupted for a long time. This changed in 1961 with the testing of the Tsar Bomb, which still remains the USSR’s most powerful nuclear weapon to this day.

Seeing that the USSR was ahead in nuclear armament, the USA started some nuclear test projects. Operation Fishbowl was one of them. In this test, the United States would explode a nuclear bomb in space and create an artificial radiation belt.

Radiation belts around the Earth had just been discovered.

By 1958, a physicist named James A. Van Allen had discovered the radiation belts that are now accepted as the “Van Allen Belt”. The US Department of Defense thought that a nuclear bomb to be sent to this region could also provide military defense by creating an artificial radiation belt.

There were opponents before the explosion, but the US Department of Defense stated that the controls were carried out.

The bomb’s area of ​​effect would be very large, so the project was not hidden. In fact, it was the most watched experiment in history until that time. This explosion, which was introduced as the “Rainbow Bomb” in the media, was criticized by the famous mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell, but few people took what Russell said seriously.

In fact, during this process, the US Department of Defense stated that they were doing a risk analysis of the situation, that there was nothing to worry about, and that the magnetic belts would return to normal “in a few days or a few weeks”.

The Starfish Prime Nuclear Explosion did occur, but the results were different from what was predicted.

The launch took place on Johnston Island, 1287 kilometers west of Hawaii. Starfish Prime was launched at around 11 PM, and exploded approximately 13 minutes later, approximately 400 kilometers above the Pacific Ocean.

When the 1.45-megaton bomb exploded, the clouds first experienced a great illumination. There was no sound, only light at this point. When the particles from the bomb began to enter the atmosphere, green and red light beams began to form in the sky. These were the expected effects, but there were also effects that turned out to be different from what was planned.

The explosion caused serious material damage to the area.

After the explosion, Hawaii’s power grid came under electromagnetic pulse. In this wave, which spread in waves, the fuses in the electricity poles of the region blew, and the burglar alarms began to sound. While telephone lines were disabled, electrical devices such as television and radio did not work.

It also caused serious damage in space.

The explosion caused damage not only on the Earth’s surface, but also in outer space. Seven of the 21 satellites in orbit at that time were out of order, and the Earth’s magnetic field deviated 1/3 degree for 30 minutes.

The claim of the US Department of Defense that “it will take a few days for the area to return to normal” was different from the estimates. It took months for this area to return to normal, and the radiation belt formed as a result of the explosion continued for 10 years. This generation was even stronger than the Van Allen generations.

The USA realized that this was a mistake and made a choice.

The US government would either continue to test nuclear bombs in space or continue to develop satellite technology. There was no way they could do both at the same time. For this reason, President John F. Kennedy signed the “Partial Nuclear Test Prevention Agreement” with the Soviet Union in 1963.

If we try to drop a new bomb in this region, we will lose many important satellites in orbit, including TV, telephone, GPS, weather forecast, internet. This will cause very difficult wounds in the global economy.