#operation argus

Https://malagabay.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/murder-on-the-oriental-jet-stream.pdf

1958- Tensions escalated between the United States and the Soviet Union over their respective nuclear weapons reserves, both sides desperate for a solution to the threat of the massive, instant destruction the one could cause on the other.In the midst of this rising tension, Nicholas Christofilos, an eccentric Greek-American physicist, brought forth an outlandish, albeit ingenious, idea to defend the US from a Soviet attack: launching atomic bombs from the South Atlantic Ocean, about 1,100 miles from Cape Town, to detonate in outer space to fry incoming Soviet ICBMs with an artificial radiation belt. Known as Project Argus, this plan is the biggest, most secret, and riskiest scientific experiment in history, and classified details of this operation have been long obscured. In Burning the Sky, Mark Wolverton tells the unknown and controversial story of this scheme to reveal a fascinating narrative almost completely forgotten by history—one that still has powerful resonances today. Drawing from recently declassified sources, Burning the Sky chronicles Christofilos’s unconventional idea from its inception to execution—when the so-called mad scientist persuaded the military to carry out the most grandiose scientific experiment ever conceived, using the entire Earth’s atmosphere as a laboratory. 

This film is about Operation Argus, a series of three high-altitude nuclear tests conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission in the South Atlantic Ocean in August and September 1958. The results of Operation Argus proved the validity of the Christofilos theory. This theory proposed that a radiation belt is created in the upper regions of the Earth’s atmosphere by high-altitude detonations. The radiation belt affects radio and radar transmissions, damages or destroys the arming and fuzing mechanisms of Intercontinental Ballistic Missile warheads, and endangers crews of orbiting space vehicles that might enter the belt. The tests, conducted in complete secrecy, were not announced until the following year. Low-yield devices were carried to an altitude of approximately 300 miles by rockets before being detonated. More than 4,500 military personnel and civilian scientists participated in the test operation. The tests comprising 1958 Operation Argus were as follows: ARGUS I, August 27, South 38.5 degrees, West 11.5 degrees, South Atlantic, rocket, weapons effects, 1-2 kt ARGUS II, August 30, South 49.5 degrees, West 8.2 degrees, South Atlantic, rocket, weapons effects, 1-2 kt ARGUS III, September 6, South 48.5 degrees, West 9.7 degrees, South Atlantic, rocket, weapons effects, 1-2 kt

sign on Tristan da Cunha.  Remote AF.

Operation ARGUS, Science and motivations behind high altitude nuclear tests 1958 via /r/space http://ift.tt/2ogsurg

(by Nuclear Vault)