So imagine that you are a scientist, and there are no nuclear proliferation or testing bans in place yet. What�s the next thing you would do? Perhaps you would launch a nuclear bomb into space and try blowing up the belts, just to see what would happen. That, in essence, was the Starfish Prime project, which is described in vivid detail in the following video:

Starfish Prime is, by far, my favorite nuclear shot. It's the most (maybe only) well-known instance of the entire nuclear physics community, both East and West, muttering a collective 'Oh F***' when witnessing the effects (the Russians had _several_ ships in the area taking readings).