Committee urges UK government to take space nuclear threat more seriously

UK MPs have warned that the government needed to take the threat of a nuclear weapon being exploded in space by a rogue state more seriously.

According to the Defence Select Committee, the resulting radiation pulse could disrupt power as also water supplies, UK defence and satellite navigation systems.

The committee chairman, Tory MP James Arbuthnot, said an attack was "quite likely".

The committee considered the threat to the UK's technological infrastructure from "electromagnetic pulse" (EMP) events in space, which could also include the eruption of solar flares.

The committee found the government had a ''somewhat complacent" attitutude about the risks to technology, including the destruction of computer chips, which could knock out defense systems.

Arbuthnot told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The defence really is to build up the resilience of the electronic infrastructure by, over a period of time, replacing the incredibly delicate and vulnerable systems and chips and connections that we now have with the more hardened chips and connections and systems that are available at a not very expensive price, as you're doing your routine maintenance."

On the possibility of a nuclear missile being fired into space and exploded, he said: "I personally believe that it's quite likely to happen. It's a comparatively easy way of using a small number of nuclear weapons to cause devastating damage.

Arbuthnot  said it would actually have a far more devastating effect to explode a nuclear weapon in space, as it would cover a much wider area, take out things like the National Grid, the water system and sewage systems than to explode a bomb in or on a city.