SRC-587

Ionosphere/Microwave Beam Interaction Study, Final Report, NASA-CR-151517 (September 1977; NTRS 19770026445, STI accession N77-33389)

Commissioned by NASA (NAS9-15212). Who paid for a study is recorded because it bears on how its conclusions should be read, not because it makes them wrong.

Published claims resting on this source

• CLM-0043 The study the 1978 reference system cites put the level where the beam may start to disturb the ionosphere at about 20 milliwatts per square centimetre. A July 1978 follow-up predicted 12, give or take a factor of two, for runaway heating, and noted the beam affects the ionosphere less at the higher frequency.
• CLM-0045 The apparent conflict between 12 and 23 was not an error. The underlying study gave a range, and the figure adopted sits near the top of it.
• CLM-1094 The 1978 Rice report the archive holds is the follow-on to the 1977 one that the reference system cites, and the 1977 report, obtained the same day, gives about 20 milliwatts per square centimetre with no band and no derivation. The 12 milliwatts per square centimetre figure is worked out in the 1978 report from a simple heating-versus-cooling balance, and the authors say their simplifications make the real threshold higher, not lower, and that nobody had observed the effect.

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