Burn Space Down: The Starfish Prime Shot
6/26/20261 hr 57 min
On July 9th, 1962, the US Navy lit space on fire from Hawaii to New Zealand and fried a quarter of all active satellites in orbit. This week, we’re joined by engineer and friend of the show Ian to talk about Starfish Prime, the largest nuclear test ever conducted in space, and all the satellites that test killed.
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SOURCES:
- Burning the Sky, Mark Wolverton
- Dark Sun: Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, Richard Rhodes
FTL theme song by DJ Danarchy
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsIan· Guest0:00
[upbeat music] We hit a pretty large bank associated with the, uh, caution and warning now. Okay, so we have an apparent serious oxygen leak.
Quinn· Host0:11
Four, three, two, one.
Speaker 3· Soundbite0:14
Uh, Houston, we've had a problem.
Speaker 40:16
He's in a roll and he can't stop it.
Chris· Host0:21
Performing an evasive maneuver.
Speaker 40:25
Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here.
Ian· Guest0:31
I think we need to do a little more all-weather testing.
Speaker 40:40
Welcome to space. Space. Space. Space. Space. Space. Space. Space. Space Hello, listener, and welcome to Failure to Launch, the space history podcast where we take you through all the mistakes, failures, and explosions that made modern space exploration possible.
Quinn· Host1:03
We are your hosts, Quinn, he/him.
Speaker 41:05
Chris, he/him.
Ian· Guest1:06
Ian, co-host, he/him.
Quinn· Host1:08
And a name that Quinn cannot comment on, Chris, he/him. And today, we're talking about Starfish Prime, or that time the US nuked space and fried Britain's first satellite, and Canada's first satellite, and the first communications satellite, and a full third of all satellites, and also maybe some astronauts.