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How do exposives react in space?

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Treehorn | 09:45 Thu 22nd Nov 2012 | Science
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On earth the explosives use the air to carry their force so in space what would happen if you exploded a grenade or nuclear device? If they wouldn't work in the vacuum then what would happen if the device was placed in a small oxygenated tent with human mannequin markers at 10 feet increments to 50 miles to gauge explosive force?
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Hopkirk Indiana Jones - he survived the blast by hiding in the fridge! Now I would like mythbusters to try that one out.
A couple of years ago the Chinese objected to be spied on by an American satellite. They sent their own rocket up and shot it to smithereens. Now there are over 20,000 fragments spinning around in space which have to be monitored to protect other satellites in orbit.
@pdq.

I must be missing something in your story. Firstly, you allege that the chinese targeted and destroyed an american spy satellite. Your second post says that the americans claim it was a weather satellite. You further talk about "20.000 bits of debris need to be tracked".

Then you link to an article that one supposes is a source of this original claim of yours - but it isnt, unless I am missing something.

1. The Washington Post article talks about the Chinese conducting a ballistic missile exercise in which they destroyed one of their own,chinese weather sateliites. No hint in the story that this might in fact be an american spy satellite. So. what evidence are you basing your allegation on?

2.There also seems to be some confusion over the amount of debris left by this missile strike. You mention tracking 20,000 pieces - But I cannot find any mention of this figure in the article which actually talks about computer modelling posits up to 300,000 bits of debris from the strike - a claim lacking any error bars but hey, its just a press article, and they speculate I suppose. Actually, from a separate source, I found this comment

A statement from the US Space Surveillance Network would suggest that the number of pieces of debris worthwhile enough to track would in in the hundreds, not thousands.
"As of today, the U.S. military's Space Surveillance Network has cataloged nearly 600 debris fragments, according to NASA's Nicholas Johnson, Chief Scientist for Orbital Debris at the space agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

However, more than 300 additional fragments are also being tracked, bringing it to a total of more than 900 bits of clutter. "These will be cataloged in due course," Johnson added.

"The total count of tracked objects could go even higher. Based upon the mass of Fengyun-1C and the conditions of the breakup, the standard NASA model for estimating the number of objects greater than 4 inches (10 centimeters) in size predicts a total about 950 such debris," Johnson advised SPACE.com."

Tracking small pieces of debris numbering in the 100s seems a lot more believable than tracking 20,000 or so, which just seems really unlikely.

http://www.space.com/3415-china-anti-satellite-test-worrisome-debris-cloud-circles-earth.html

There has, separately, been an allegation of the laser targeting of an american satellite by the chinese, and the americans have lodged a formal complaint, but although a serious breach of international conventions, it is not in the same league as a missile strike on a US satellite.

Laser imaging itself might be considered a weapon, inasmuch as the laser itself has the potential to interfere with satellite imaging systems, but the critical analysis of such ground based systems currently used suggests that this probability is low, and the damage such lasers could do unlikely to be permanent.
http://www.princeton.edu/sgs/publications/sgs/archive/17-1-Butt-Effects-of-Chinese.pdf

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