why cant nuclear bomb,once launched, be stopped?

Question

there are anti missile weapons e.g patriot missile or special heat lasers which melt missiles
so suppose X launches nukes on Y why cant they be intercepted in air
question 2) if intercepted in air (my physics teacher professor told me) that it will be 10 times more hazardous then exploding in ground..why?

3) can a nuke explosion be seen from a man on moon..mars?

Answer 1

Nuclear missiles don't explode on the ground - they are set to go off a good distance off the ground so that they destroy as much as possible.

If they explode too high (like in your example), you end up getting fallout across a much bigger area (killing everyone anyway) plus you get a magnetic pulse that destroys all digital electronics - everything except old tube amps would be totally dead.

The idea of shooting down a nuclear missile is feasible - since they don't just explode when they hit the ground, and if you blow it up - the nuclear device itself usually won't be triggered, so no big kaboom.

The problem would be if we had a whole bunch of them coming at us at once - we could try to shoot them all down, but only a few would need to get through - one would be a disaster. The other problem is that a missile mounted nuke isn't this countries biggest danger - one coming in a shipping crate into one of our ports due to the lax security and refusal of this administration to do anything about it (hell, they wanted to let the UAE take over port security!!!).

You might be able to see a nuke blast from the moon if you were aligned correctly when it happened.

Mars - probably not, unless you had a really powerful telescope on mars with you.

Answer 2

There are several weapons that are designed to intercept missiles. There is the Patriot PAC-3, the Navy's SM-3 missile and National Missile Defense.

Any damage to a nuclear warhead will probably prevent it from exploding (or if it explodes, it will only be the conventional explosives and not a nuclear explosion).

In order for a nuclear weapon to detonate there are a lot of things that have to happen in a precise manner at precise times (measured in nanoseconds) just about any damage to the warhead will cause it to fail.

Answer 3

Bombs are different than missiles.

A bomb is either planted directly on the target, or dropped (or driven) by a plane (or vehicle) very close to the target. Much more difficult to intercept using the methods you describe.

A missile or rocket flies on a trajectory, often over long distances, and may be intercepted. Which brings us to your second point.

If a nuclear bomb detonates, it causes blast and shock damage, in addition to radiation, in a broad area. But if a nuclear payload is scattered (such as a "dirty bomb", which isn't nuclear) it spreads radioactive material over the broad area, even if the physical blast is much less. A detonation in the air spreads the material over a much farther radius than a ground detonation.

Answer 4

1. It can be intercepted, but difficult.
2. If intercepted theres a high probability of non-detonation.
3. Probably.
4. Dont think about it too much. When it happens it,ll be that quick you wont notice...!