The Solar flare event in 1983 was a massive solar eruption leading to a fast travelling wave of high-energy electromagnetic radiation that subsequently hit Earth and the Moon, putting everyone out of Earth's protecting atmosphere in danger.[1]
History[]
Detection[]
On May 21, 1983, Irish ESA astronaut Doreen Campbell aboard the US space station Skylab in Earth's orbit started with their routinely solar coronographW observation, reporting the data to Mission Control in Houston. While observing the Sun throuth the station's ATM panel, she discovered a very large prominence extending out into the corona that looked like a solar flare but was bigger than anything she had ever seen before. The prominence was at least 100,000 km long already. Flight director Irene Hendricks ordered to announce the FCC as a solar flare that size would most probably have interference across the broadcast spectrum. At the same moment, JPL reported to Houston that they lost contact with their Mariner-14 probe after a surge in proton radioation. Bill Strausser mentioned that Mariner-14 is just inside the orbit of Mercury and Irene concluded that it cannot be related to the event then, as plasma clouds don't travel that fast, but Bill responded that maybe they would have just never seen it moving that fast before. Irene ordered to inform management.
On the Moon, everbody except Jamestown comander Ellen Wilson was outside the base to observe the lunar sunriseW. In Houston, JSC director Margo Madison, NASA administrator Thomas Paine, chief astronaut Ed Baldwin, and General Bradford had joined the control room when Skylab again confirmed the coronal mass ejectionW, an event bigger than anything ever recorded before, as Margo noticed. People on Earth would be safe, but everybody outside Earth's atmosphere would potentially be on risk to be hit by hard radiation. They ordered all crew in orbiting shuttles as well as on Skylab to move to more heavily shielded parts of their crafts. They also ordered everybody on the Moon to get into the base' storm shelter immediately, and to follow emergency power protocols, meaning to shut down the nuclear reactor and switch to battery power.[1]
On the Moon[]
From the data collected, Houston calculated that the wave of hard proton radiation was travelling with 30% of the speed of light, which left everybody less than 27 minutes to seek shelter.[note 1] At Jamestown, Ellen Wilson ordered all astronauts to get back to the base immediately, or, if too far away, find shelter as deep as possible in a lava tubeW. Everybody was moving to the rovers, but Molly Cobb and Wubbo Ockels were too far off to make it to Jamestown in time, so Molly ordered her Dutch colleague to return to their base camp where she knew of a fitting lava tube. However, on his way back to Molly, Wubbo crashed his rover, leaving him injured and unconscious laying on the lunar surface. When he didn't arrive at the lava tube, Molly discovered his crashed vehicle through her telescope, as the storm already started to hit the Moon.
Despite the radiation had alredy reached a life threatening level, Molly decided to rescue Wubbo, leaving her dosimeter watch in the cave. By doing so, she was exposed to heavy radiation for a long time, but she managed to free Wubbo from the rover and drag him back to the lava tube.[1]
After the storm was over, Molly returned with Wubbo to Jamestown and they were examined by the station's doctor, Dr. Kouri. Molly didn't report her rescue of Wubbo and instead lied to Ellen and the doctor that she was waiting all the time inside the lava tube. Since she left it in the cave, her dosimeter badge was still green, while Wubbo's was red. Dr. Kouri reported that his dosimeter measured 200 rems, more than the maximum dose any person should get in a lifetime. Nevertheless, Ellen ordered that they both would return with her to Earth the next day with the Space Shuttle Columbia, that was waiting in lunar orbit.[2]
Political implications[]
Due to the solar storm, NORAD was worried to loose their early-warning satellites over the Soviet Union. This made also Bradford worry about a possible undetected first strike by the Soviets, taking advantage of the Americans loosing eyes on their ICBMs. He called the Pentagon and recommended going to DEFCON 3. Joint chiefsW decided to get President Reagan into Air Force OneW.[1] It also led to the 4th Bomber Wings deployment near Soviet airspace.[2]
The next day, Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov criticized the actions as provocative, while the Reagan administration defended its decision and claimed that it was simply a cautionary measure. However, many critics in the US were questioning the actions. Senator and presidental candidate Gary Hart asked on national television why if that was true they rushed the President into Air Force One, and stated, that "a solar flare brought us to the brink of war, thanks to the saber-rattling policies of this administration".[2]
Aftermath[]
As a result of his radioactive contamination, ESA astronaut Wubbo Ockels left the program and headed back to the Netherlands to spend more time with his family, just in case he would have only some more years left.[2]
Molly stayed with NASA but experienced increasing issues with her visual acuity. Four month after the event, in September 1983, her ophthalmologist Dr. Mitchell diagnosed her with normal-tension glaucomaW, a rare and uncurable condition whose cause was still unknown, and told her that she would experience a progressive loss of vision from now on, ultimately leading to blindness.[3]
On the political side, President Reagan proposed a handshake in space between the two nation's space programs to ease the tensions with the Soviets.[2]
Gallery[]
Notes[]
- ↑ There is an apparent mistake made by the show on the amount of time the astronauts would have had to take cover from the solar storm. The figure provided by Mission Control is that the storm would reach the astronauts in 27 minutes, as the protons emitted from the flare are measured to travel at 30% the speed of light. While it is correct that the protons would take 27 minutes to reach Earth (and the Moon) at that speed, the show forgets to account that information may only travel up to the speed of light. Therefore, the absolute earliest the flare could have been observed on Earth would have been 8 minutes after it erupted on the Sun, which is the amount of time required for light to travel from the Sun to Earth. Therefore, the astronauts would have had less than 19 minutes to find cover from the point of detection, and actually even much less, as it took several minutes from that point until everything was confirmed and everybody got informed.
See also[]
External links[]
Solar storm on Wikipedia- Solar flare on Wikipedia
- Coronal mass ejection on Wikipedia
- Solar particle event on Wikipedia
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 For All Mankind TV series, season 2, episode 1, "Every Little Thing"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 For All Mankind TV series, season 2, episode 2, "The Bleeding Edge"
- ↑ For All Mankind TV series, season 2, episode 8, "And Here's to You"