Nukes

[BattleFrost]

I wonder why does the President stress over finding a way to stop a Nuclear Missle from hiting America.
I say come on. If we do find a way to stop the missle the missle will explode and radeation will still kill us. The Nuclear Missle is not the threat radiation is. Radiation is what kills us not the Nuke. The Nuke will get only what is near it.

[Gigafrost]

Well, the radiation might be a problem, but actually the explosion of a nuke will spread the radiation over a greater area, so if you destroy the missle before it explodes itself then the affected area is much much smaller...

[TerraFrost]

that's a good point, giga!

also, depending on the location, the explosion alone may kill several hundred thousand people instantly. people with radiation poisoning may not have much of a chance for surviving, but they sure have a better chance then those killed immediatly.

also, intercepting a nuclear missle allots you more control over where it's gonna blow up, so... you may be able to blow it up over the ocean, or somewhere that just isn't over a major city...

[Javafrost]

Truly a Pandora's Box, dontcha think? And one of several our species has opened...

[Some Unreg Punk]

if you explode a nuke while it in way up in the sky, would that cause an emp pulse and drop the the planes from the sky?

if it blows up over an ocean wouldn't that cause a tidal wave?
Hey! if say Bush actually gets a missle defense thing working and if it does works, wouldn't it then be easier for any enemy to launch a nuke toward our coast? Out defnese will hit and then a tidal wave will be formed.

Or couldn't you just float a boat toward the coastline and then drop something with the close to the power of the MOAB into the ocean, letting it drop a feet feet before exploding it?

[TerraFrost]

as giga said, if you prematurely explode the nuclear missle, it may well be that you're not going to get a full fledged nuclear explosion - ie. no emp, and no huge shockwave.

i'd have to do more reading, though, to figure that out...

[Gigafrost]

I don't think it'd really form any really big tidal waves if exploded over or in the ocean...there have been numerous tests of nuclear bombs in the ocean, and they certainly didn't create any significant tidal waves. Nature still produces the most dangerous tidal waves...

And a nuke exploding in the air...well, an electromagnetic pulse would disable lots of the airplane's systems, but not the physical ones so some would be able to glide down I'd imagine. Yeah, I'd think the explosion itself would be more dangerous...capable of blinding the pilots or simply throwing the planes around like toys...

That raises an interesting question...exactly how far is the electromagnetic pulse of a nuclear bomb? How does it compare to the distance of the shock-wave? Hmmm...

[Dracofrost]

Well, considering what little I know of nuclear weapons and how you have to get all the chemical explosives to go off just right in order to get a nuclear reaction, I'm pretty sure that a warhead being blown apart wouldn't initiate a nuclear chain reaction, so it wouldn't detonate, you'd just have to find the dangerously high radiation materials that are left from it....