Chapter 602 - 590 Strike

Although there might have been pilot error involved in the incident, John immediately blew up and started ranting on social media, and as soon as day broke, he convened a press conference to furiously lambast Russia for being "unprofessional."

While the families of the deceased pilots were en route over land, as for the fearless expedition team that was having trouble identifying the bodies, their families couldn’t be located at the moment. However, John had already confirmed that he would use this incident to create international pressure.

John had barely finished a press conference filled with criticism when he immediately summoned his staff.

"Paul has just brought me the thoughts of the members of Congress, and we must surpass them!"

Paul referred to Paul Ryan, the current Speaker of the House, who had clearly conveyed to John the attitudes of the congressmen.

Congress’s agreement to the IAEA’s cleanup plan was largely due to the frustrations of the first half of the year when the competition between Artemis II and Dawn III to land on the moon had concluded just over a month ago. The congressmen were eager to show off their military power, which was why they had agreed to take the risk of deploying nuclear bombs.

Their attitude on the size of the bomb was also very clear: regardless of the cleaning effect, it had to be the biggest.

Most of the senators didn’t understand the difference between nuclear leakage contamination and explosion contamination. In their view, since there had been no significant incidents from the many nuclear tests of more than ten million tons last century, what impact would there be from deploying a "small thing" of a million tons, especially when it was over ten thousand kilometers away from their homeland?

Therefore, they could not tolerate Russia’s "betrayal" at all and directly put pressure on John.

Sullivan: "I’ve already consulted Sandis National Laboratory about the bomb size issue, and they have assured us that no modifications are needed. They can immediately provide a nuclear warhead with a yield of between 1.8 to 3.4 million tons. With minor adjustments, it can be mounted on a Trident."

"Tonight it can be flown to the Island Country, where the missile warhead on the nuclear submarine can be replaced. It could be ready for use as early as December 20th."

"Oh? They can do it that fast!"

John asked in surprise:

"Were they prepared in advance?"

Sullivan nodded and explained:

"Cleaning up radiation requires a two-stage thermonuclear weapon configuration. Our current active warheads are three-phase to save on size and weight, with yields concentrated between 500,000 and 1.5 million tons. Switching to a two-phase configuration would be troubling and greatly reduce the power.

Our two-stage thermonuclear bombs consist only of the B61, some early versions of which were too heavy and large and had been decommissioned. Their yield can be adjusted between 1.2 to 3.4 million tons, which also exceeds the requirements of Plan B.

But now these early B61 models are quite appropriate for the task. The decommissioned warheads are also in good condition. They were originally designed for the ’Dwarf’ missile warheads, and it’s not too troublesome to retrofit them for Trident use."

"Fantastic!"

John immediately instructed:

"Get the plane out as soon as possible, and as for the yield... um, what do you think is appropriate?"

This question also caused Sullivan some hesitation. After all, it wasn’t just about power—a yield that was too high or too low would not be appropriate. A value that everyone could accept had to be chosen.

Since the first hydrogen bomb had a yield of just over 300 thousand tons, if they detonated a 3 million ton bomb, it might actually backfire and lead to public opposition.

"It shouldn’t exceed 2 million tons. About 1.5 million tons would be about right. Just slightly higher than Russia’s should be sufficient."

"Alright, then let’s do it that way."

John made a decisive decision, as the current time was very sensitive, and hesitation would only increase the variables.

Although two hydrogen bombs had detonated consecutively, surprisingly little visual data from the scene had leaked out, and most of it was from the periphery.

Firstly, the electromagnetic pulse still affected the distance for tourists, and ordinary people, lacking professional equipment, had no capacity to record; common electronic devices might temporarily malfunction or be permanently damaged.

Secondly, the officials were also sorting through the data, selecting parts that could be broadcast while observing the public’s reaction.

It was now the morning in the Western Hemisphere, the time when the news would spread on a large scale; any unexpected development that caused public resistance to subsequent missions would complicate matters.

...

The reaction of the general public was still awaiting the fermentation and unification of public opinion, but the founders of two space enterprises on both sides of the Pacific were simultaneously howling in agony.

If there was any resistance to the nuclear cleanup operation using nuclear means beforehand, it probably came from satellite communications operators.

The large communication satellites in geostationary orbit were less affected, but the small satellites in low Earth orbit had suffered.

Low Earth orbit hosted either crewed spacecraft or small satellites; the larger ones could evade the blast window by changing orbits with fuel expenditure, but the small satellites lacked the refueling support of spaceships or space planes, especially those networks focused on low-orbit communication.

Since last year, SpaceX had launched over 800 first-generation Starlink satellites and more than 4,000 second-generation satellites; in the two nuclear blasts, over 40 satellites had lost contact, almost equivalent to the total number of a full Falcon 9 launch— even with low cost per unit, it caused Musk significant distress.

New Yuan’s Meridian satellite network had much fewer satellites, but they had funded domestic projects similar to Starlink, such as "Lingxi", "The Great Wall", and "Geely". The combined losses from these projects were not far off from SpaceX, and the process of replenishing the network was troublesome.

During construction, satellites were launched targeting a specific zone; replenishing the network couldn’t just blindly send them all to the same place again, requiring the use of individual small rockets, which would surely be more expensive than a single launch carrying multiple satellites.

Compared to Starlink, however, New Yuan’s losses were much smaller. In fact, the base was currently celebrating something, with Lin Ju in Beijing so delighted that he hid in his room, refusing to come out.

Several hours earlier, when the Iskander was launched, the base had used Thousand-Jun Stick No. 1 to target its missile tray for a shooting exercise.

According to publicly gathered data, the Iskander’s warhead tray would separate to serve as a decoy target, interfering with interception. However, advances in radar technology had made this ineffective, as trays could be differentiated by mainstream radars.

The prevailing decoys now were false reentry vehicles resembling the true warheads, even capable of maneuvering and simulating heat radiation.

These tray decoys would also reenter the atmosphere like warheads but lacked control, presenting a perfect opportunity for a genuine missile interception exercise.

The base had set an interception circle in the Honshu Island region for Thousand-Jun Stick No. 1, which automatically locked onto the tray after separation and executed a laser irradiation.

In the end, the experiment was quite successful; Thousand-Jun Stick No. 1 locked onto the target immediately after separation and performed a continuous 25-second tracking and irradiation. Satellite observation showed that after irradiation, the tray’s trajectory had an abnormal deviation, clearly indicating damage from ablation.

This was humanity’s first successful instance of terminal-phase space laser interception of a ballistic missile, fully proving the viability of this approach.

Even more exciting, thanks to the technology obtained from the refining satellite, Thousand-Jin Stick Two had overcome all technical challenges and would enter the prototype manufacturing stage.