51–60 of 118 posts
What I'd like to know is why the recording equipment kept functioning -- isn't an EMP supposed to wipe out sensitive electronics? At least that's what the movies tell me...
It's amazing how these men have went on to live such long lives. As someone who has only cursory knowledge of atomic explosions and radiation damage, I was always under the impression that standing under an explosion such as this would almost guarantee a death during or shortly after. I suppose it's a lot like HIV. Unprotected sex with an HIV positive person doesn't * guarantee* disease contraction, which is the impr…
If you read up on the history of the era and combine that with a study of the real effects of nuclear bombs, it becomes evident that there was an uncoordinated, but nevertheless systematic, effort to grossly overstate the dangers of nuclear war. A game of "Telephone" [1] was played, where at each step the nukes got more dangerous. If nukes were as dangerous to the world as popular culture today imagines, there would…
Needless to say, wartime use of nuclear weapons would not be underground.
> Some of you may have noticed the nuclear missile video says the explosion took place 10,000 feet above our group of soldiers. Apparently, the video is wrong. The Natural Resources Defense Council checked the numbers and says the explosion, part of Operation PLUMBBOB, was actually at 18,500 feet. Well, there's actually some pretty good proof here that the explosion was closer than that: I count the time between ligh…
Now we know why no one is afraid of the North Korean nuclear program.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. That's the part I learned from.
I'm remembering visiting the Nike Missile site just over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. http://www.nps.gov/goga/nike-missile-site.htm http://nikemissile.org/site_sf88.shtml It's both wonderful and creepy. They've restored some beautiful old mechanical computers which are works of art in my eyes, but they also point out that the missiles were capable of carrying nuclear warheads, "but they neither confirm…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. That's the part I learned from.
I'm remembering visiting the Nike Missile site just over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. http://www.nps.gov/goga/nike-missile-site.htm http://nikemissile.org/site_sf88.shtml It's both wonderful and creepy. They've restored some beautiful old mechanical computers which are works of art in my eyes, but they also point out that the missiles were capable of carrying nuclear warheads, "but they neither confirm…
I'm at bit of a loss. Just in case what? Sacramento declares secession? Berkeley radicals march on the capitol? Taken over by Russians? Austrians?
Operation Plumbbob, troops in front of an exploding nuclear bomb (@2:50): http://youtu.be/7mV0Lt2PUjI?t=2m50s Tactical nuclear artillery being fired (@0:50): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46GBjlUOROY&feature=relat...
Holy Hell. That second video really drives home the devastation caused in the blast wave. Paint on vehicles turned instantly to ash and blew away. Wooden structures instantly caught fire. What was unexpected to me (I saw this in the first video which made me aware of it) was the 'backwash' after the initial shock wave. Terrifying.
Then the fireball, being very hot and much less dense than the air around it, rises. Air is sucked towards ground zero, producing the backwash, and the characteristic mushroom cloud of any very large explosion.
> "Quite a few have died from cancer," he told reporter Bill Broad. "No doubt it was related to the testing." Is there really no doubt? I didn't see any more details in the article pertaining to the deaths, but for the sake of not implying that correlation == causation, I would point out that most cancer patients were never involved in nuclear testing (and, conversely, the cameraman who said the above also shows cont…
i'd also point out that it was the 50's and they were probably all smokers....
So were millions of other people, none of whom were subjected to that level of ionizing radiation. It's relatively easy to control for factors like that.
Operation Plumbbob, troops in front of an exploding nuclear bomb (@2:50): http://youtu.be/7mV0Lt2PUjI?t=2m50s Tactical nuclear artillery being fired (@0:50): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46GBjlUOROY&feature=relat...
Holy Hell. That second video really drives home the devastation caused in the blast wave. Paint on vehicles turned instantly to ash and blew away. Wooden structures instantly caught fire. What was unexpected to me (I saw this in the first video which made me aware of it) was the 'backwash' after the initial shock wave. Terrifying.