As far as I know, the big damage from Nuclear Weapons planetside is the massive blastwave that can pretty much scour the earth, with radiation and thermal damage bringing up the rear.

But in space there is no atmosphere to create a huge concussive and scouring blast wave, which means a nuclear weapon would have to rely on its all-directional thermal and radiation to do damage… but is that enough to actually be usful as a weapon in space, considering ships in space would be designed to handle radiation and extreme thermals due to the lack of any insulative atmosphere?

I know a lot of this might be supposition based on imaginary future tech and assumptions made about materials science and starship creation, but surely at least some rough guess could be made with regards to a thernonuclear detonation without the focusing effects of an atmosphere?

  • DontTreadOnBigfoot@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    From a NASA paper on this very subject:

    If a nuclear weapon is exploded in a vacuum-i. e., in space-the complexion of weapon effects changes drastically:

    First, in the absence of an atmosphere, blast disappears completely.

    Second, thermal radiation, as usually defined, also disappears. There is no longer any air for the blast wave to heat and much higher frequency radiation is emitted from the weapon itself.

    Third, in the absence of the atmosphere, nuclear radiation will suffer no physical attenuation and the only degradation in intensity will arise from reduction with distance. As a result the range of significant dosages will be many times greater than is the case at sea level.

    Sounds like you’d end up with just a big blast of radiation

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      I spent 20 minutes searching for an answer to this, and all my searches turned up nothing but video games and short stories.

      Appreciate you posting that, and honestly a little frustrated on why that didnt come up for me.

        • MeatsOfRage@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I’ve completely switched over to using ChatGPT as my basic question search engine now. Like I get that it’s confidently wrong at times and I wouldn’t go there for legal advice but for silly curiosities I’ve got a better chance at finding an answer to satisfy my query.

          • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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            11 months ago

            I beta tested Bard and have used ChatGPT and the number of times they responded with completely wrong answers was stunning. Confidently wrong is a greatvway to put it.

            I switched to DuckDuckGo a few years back and it’s been better than Google for a bit. At this rate, I expect Encyclopedia Britannica to make a strong comeback.

            • AmidFuror@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              What if you can’t afford the whole encyclopedia set and can only buy the sample volume?

              And speaking of volcanoes, man are they a violent igneous rock formation!

              • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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                11 months ago

                Jokes aside, the future of paywalled curated knowledge is already here. With the current assault on public libraries, I expect that fairly soon, knowledge will once again be a privileged of wealth.

            • ɔiƚoxɘup
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              10 months ago

              I’ve had good luck with that and using GPT4. Both have their strengths. They’re both great at tldr-ing, If you prompt well.

      • Anarch157a@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        That’s because it detonated in orbit, so it interacted with Earth magnetic field. Far from the planet, I think there wouldn’t be an EMP, unless the targeted ship has it’s own magnetosphere. But I’m not a nuclear physicist, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

        • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          If I’m not mistaken the EMP wave is really just a part of the high intensity wave of photons of various frequencies emitted by the explosion, which also includes the so-called “bright flash”.

          Some of those photons will have wavelengths that put them in the radio part of the spectrum so they can transverse materials which are not transparent to visible light frequency photons and have the right wavelengths to induce strong electrical currents in electronic circuits and even integrated circuits (which is what burns them) - depending on the length of a conductive line of material there often is a perfect radiowave wavelength to induce a current in it (though I confess that over the years I forgot the formulas to calculate this stuff)

          I’m not a Nuclear Physicist but I have 1 year of University level Physics training and an EE degree (though focused on digital systems rather than telecomms).

      • General_Shenanigans@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        The massive EMPs that blasted the Pacific back in the day were generated with upper-atmospheric testing. The way it interacted with the upper atmosphere was special. If you set off the charge higher in space with no atmosphere, the EMP effect is lessened.

        • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          the EMP effect is lessened.

          on the ground. without a medium to dissipate the pulse, it still carries a tremendous amount of risk.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime

          Yeah that’s my biggest note - radiation is a threat to people long term, but EMP destroying their spacecraft’s computers are the larger threat at longer range. ISS and other spacecraft routinely harden many systems for the increased radiation present outside the magnetosphere, but this kind of attack could easily overload those protections. Honestly this aspect terrifies me because it only takes a few EMP blasts in LEO to start a kessler syndrome situation of debris and dead orbital vehicles whizzing around at orbital speeds. That’s how we ‘lose’ space.

          the EMP effect is lessened.

    • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      That’s true in a vacuum, but a weapon would presumably detonate on the surface or inside of a hostile ship, in which case the ship goes bye-bye.

  • ShaggyBlarney@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    Others have answered you question about non-directed nuclear blasts in space already. They don’t work the same way as in atmosphere; lack the blast or the thermal heat, etc. Enter the Casaba-Howitzer, a theoretical nuclear shaped charge that shoots a directed plasma stream at near light speed. This idea came about in the 60s along with nuclear blast propulsion.

    • PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      ah, you beat me to it

      To everyone else ☝️ Kurzgesagt made a good video about nuking the moon which fits pretty well with ops question. The moon has no atmosphere to speak of and the video explores the effect on terrain

  • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    If you made direct impact wouldn’t the fuselage of the ship and the atmosphere inside it still allow for the traditional blast to propagate?

    • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Chances are there isnt enough air to make a significant difference and any ship large enough to have enough air would have air lock systems as a safety net.

      • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Right, but the ship itself would allow the shockwave, metal is still matter for vibrations to follow.

        • Hereforpron2@lemmynsfw.com
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          11 months ago

          The shock wave needs a medium (air) to travel through. So if the bomb was touching a ship, it would certainly transfer kinetic energy, but if there was any space (not air) between them, there is still no shockwave for the ship to feel.

          • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            A railgun would be far more effective for transfering kinetic energy and it’s munitions would likely be cheaper

            • awwwyissss@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              How about a railgun with a nuclear payload? Breach the hull and the nuke would work again

              • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                With a hull breach the atmosphere within leaks out and I doubt there would be enough oxygen in the ship to really help with detonation. Maybe some self sealing projectile with a nuclear tip but really any traditional explosive would work fine in that case as the ship would act as a sealed canister

                • Fubber Nuckin'@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  I think you overestimate how fast the atmosphere would leak out, or underestimate how fast a nuclear blast goes off. You could detonate the nuke before air really has a chance to start leaving behind the wake of the projectile moving at Mach 12 or whatever. The hole left behind i don’t think would change how the explosion worked inside the ship.

                • Ashy@lemmy.wtf
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                  11 months ago

                  I doubt there would be enough oxygen in the ship to really help with detonation.

                  How would oxygen help with a nuclear detonation?

          • ZephrC@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            A shockwave can travel along the solid structure itself as the medium. Any ship that is actually directly hit would be vaporized. It’s just the whole point of nuke is not needing a direct hit. I doubt any realistic space vessel with anything even remotely similar to plausible near future technology could survive a direct hit from even a moderately sized conventional explosive.

            • awwwyissss@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              Yeah, it takes incredible amounts of energy just to move unarmored ships slowly around our own solar system.

              Seems like adding armor would make them so heavy and slow that they wouldn’t be worth using.

              • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                Yeah that’s why any reasonable hard sci-fi has to rely on highly advanced fusion or speculative energy technologies

        • piecat@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          That would have to be a big ship to feel a shock wave without being consumed by the ball of plasma

          • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Where would that come from? According to a posted article in this thread thermal energy can’t transfer either unless by direct connection and radiation would be the biggest factor, with increasing size compared to on the surface due to lack of atmosphere “attenuating” the distance it travels.

  • bouh@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    That is largely true, but there are still 2 things : first, the plasma is still a super hot ball of matter with very high kinetic energy. Second, the radiations are still deadly at short range, unless you have specific protections, and radiation protections are heavy and bulky. At worse, the plasma can violently accelerate the target ship and damage it with this sudden acceleration.

    But you can also easily turn your atomic bomb into a more refined atomic shell. The you can have projectiles propelled by the explosion (so it’s now an atomic frag bomb), or a penetring shell with a delayed explosion so the explosion occur inside the target ship.

    • luluApples@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I always thought the initial explosion was so hot it vapourised everything in a certain radius. Would an atomic frag work?

      • bouh@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Nasal developed a reactor, orion iirc, that was basically nuclear pulse propulsion: a directed nuclear explosion would propel a jet of plasma on a shield on the back of the ship to propel it, and the ship would use regular explosion for propulsion.

        I don’t know the exact dynamic of the nuclear explosion. The temperature turns a lot of things into plasma indeed. But I suspect some construction of the bomb (specific layers with specific materials) could make some kind of frag work.

        At the very least you can have an efficient plasma bomb anyway. Your frag is simply plasma in this case. Plasma is still matter that can have high kinetic energy, but it’s very hot too and with specific electromagnetic properties.

        In this case, the atomic explosion replaces your powder, and what matters is everything around it.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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    10 months ago

    The electromagnetic pulse may not cause physical destruction, but it would likely disable any spacecraft in the blast. Which could result in death and destruction when the passengers can’t breathe or get warmth and the craft loses control.

    • T156@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Wouldn’t a spacecraft have a Faraday cage anyway, to protect the electronics from stellar winds?

      That might reduce the impact of a given EMP.

  • No_Eponym@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    If I’ve learned anything from watching nuclear blasts in space on sci-fi shows, it’s that hasshak, dal shakka mel!

  • Red_October@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    This Video will tell you everything you could possibly want to know on the subject, answering your question exactly and in extensive detail. The long and short of it is, not really, no, but they could be made to be very exceptionally effective anyway.

  • Ashy@lemmy.wtf
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    11 months ago

    You probably need to wrap the nuke in multiple layers of material. Some inner layer to absord as much energy as possible and transfers it as kinetic energy to an outer high-density layer to create extremly fast shrapnel.