Asri-unix.1008 net.space utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:C70:sri-unix!JPM@SU-AI Sat Mar 13 19:19:17 1982 That 3 meg weapon in Science I'll have to read the article, but it sounds like a crock. A nuclear weapon is NOT very good at distributing energy throughout a wide area (ie it wastes a lot of energy at ground zero), space is not a good medium for the transmission of any left over energy in a manner that will deliver a deadly dose far away (and 1000km to 20000km is FAR away), and the form of energy in this particular place would be KE of high speed particles, which seems to be very similar to cosmic rays and solar flares, which any station would have to guard against anyway (and which is relatively easy to guard against, as many SPS and Space Colony studies have made clear). They may be correct, but I have not been impressed with stories in Science I have read in the past (ie whenever they talked about things I knew about they were usually wrong in significant ways). Anyone interested in high energy atmospheric physics out there who could crunch some rough numbers? Jim ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.