From: tkoenig@netcologne.de   
      
   On 2018-02-21, nuny@bid.nes  wrote:   
      
   > In space there's no atmosphere to generate and propagate a   
   > blast/shock wave, so mechanical shock is pretty much off the   
   > table except for near-contact detonation. Then all you have to   
   > deal with the "intrinsic" fireball created from the remains of   
   > the bomb itself being heated to in the neighborhood of a million   
   > K and expanding very rapidly (and cooling),   
      
   Not cooling very much. The energy will still be there.   
      
   > much feebler than the   
   > atmospheric version. If you don't have point defenses capable of   
   > preventing that, you should probably stay home. Theoretically your   
   > hull *will* eventually catch some of that (including decay products   
   > and unreacted fissiles AKA fallout)but the farther away the less.   
      
   >   That leaves the prompt ionizing radiation (gammas and neutrons   
   >   mostly) and thermal radiation to worry about.   
      
   You're going to absorb all the energy that the bomb sends in your   
   direction, be it gamma rays, neutrons, electrons or high-velocity atoms.   
      
   So, consider the fraction of a sphere that your spaceship occupies   
   viewed from the point of the explosion, and you'll have the fraction   
   of energy that will deposited on your ship, one way or another.   
      
   Of course, there are other ways.  Casaba Howitzers (basically   
   nuclear shaped charges) apparently can be focused quite well,   
   and can be devastating from quite a long way.   
      
   https://toughsf.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-nuclear-spear-casaba-howitzer.html   
   has some interesting figures, which I don't want to repeat here.   
   Let's just say that a really large warhead could punch through a   
   thick layer of armor even at 10000km.   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)