(Compiler's note: The questions and the discussion prove to a long but most interesting read. rca)
In the early 1960s, engineers in nuclear weapons testing programs in the United States and the Soviet Union noticed an unexpected phenomenon when warheads were exploded high above the Earth's surface. The electromagnetic fields produced by the detonations often resulted in damage to electrical systems on the ground. One test 400 kilometers above Johnston Island in the South Pacific destroyed a commercial telecommunications system in the Hawaiian Islands 1,400 kilometers away.
