what happened to telstar?

Whatever happened to Telstar? The first communications satellite (COMSAT) to relay television signals launched from Cape Canaveral on July 10, 1962. A video of the launch can be viewed here. Telstar's Wikipedia entry reveals the COMSAT was a victim of the cold war. "The day before Telstar 1 was launched, the United States had tested a high-altitude nuclear bomb (called Starfish Prime) which energized the Earth's Van Allen Belt where Telstar 1 went into orbit. This vast increase in radiation, combined with subsequent high-altitude blasts, including a Soviet test in October, overwhelmed Telstar's fragile transistors..." The satellite went out of service permanently on February 21, 1963. The AT&T-owned satellite inspired The Tornados to a number one hit in the UK and the US also named after the satellite, 'Telstar'.

related update: 3 russian satellites crash in pacific near hawaii

the emp threat

"EMP Threat: fact, fiction and response", an article by Yousaf Butt at The Space Review, examines the threat of a catastrophic electromagnetic pulse. The present writer finds, in recent years, attention to this issue noteworthy. "Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagntic Pulse (EMP) Attack", published in 2004, provides the recommendations of an EMP Commission. Butt's Space Review article addresses the commission's concerns about damage to the infrastructure, electronics and reviews results of high altitude nuclear explosions from 1955-62. The US series of tests called Starfish Prime and Russian series, which includedTest 184, are specifically reviewed.

Butt breaks down three properties of a gamma ray burst from nuclear detonation and resultant pulse: E(1-3). E-1 and E-3 are most damaging to electronics, while properties of E-2 resemble lightning. A terrorist group could detonate a low yield nuclear device at an altitude of 40 to 100 km, which would be crippling to a nation's infrastructure and electronics. A low yield device would result in a pulse low in E-3 but still deliver sufficient E-1 energy to prove damaging. Today's electronics based on integrated circuits are one million times more vulnerable to pulse damage than the vacuum tubes used in the cold war era at the time of the high altitude nuclear detonations.