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Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded

paleofuture.gizmodo.com

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Re: Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded

#3
my favorite detail is the evaporating (almost explosively converted into plasma by the sheer intensity of the energy being radiated) tower that the weapon was placed on top of and the cables which were keeping the tower vertical - the 5 spikes at the belly of the fireball

https://youtu.be/woR7j72zE0U?t=9

Re: Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded

#7
I was a child of the 1950's. Only 50 miles south of New York City, we little grade school kids were routinely drilled in cowering under our desks in case of a nuclear attack. Every time I heard an airplane, I was afraid it was going to drop bombs. Popular Science ran features about how to build your own fallout shelter, and how Dad could prepare his family for the coming nuclear apocalypse. The understated, tragic horror of _On the Beach_ was complemented but not countered by the mordant humor of Dr. Strangelove.

The clips here don't have the bizarre choreographic beauty of the Dr. Strangelove finale, but they bring back the all too keen anxiety and existential terror of being powerless, while deranged world leaders measure each other's manhood by "mine's bigger than yours." Fine, you proved that yours is big enough, it doesn't really matter whose is bigger any more than whose hair is dumber, now can we _please_ return to sanity?

Re: Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded

#8
post #5

Hard to really say the difference between a nuclear war and the U.S., Russia, UK France and others setting off vast numbers of atmospheric nuclear weapons in the 20th century.

Population density near the blast sites? Not that they all did the right thing, and real people were absolutely affected. But there is a significant difference.

Re: Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded

#9
There's a big scramble in the Department of Energy to preserve (and declassify, where possible) a lot of the data from the days of atmospheric testing, which is literally rotting. It's some of the only real world data we have on e.g. fallout dispersal, which is important for building the simulations that would allow emergency workers to safely operate in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. It's also of interest for nuclear forensics, which is highly relevant at the moment with the situation in Korea.

Re: Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded

#10
post #7

I was a child of the 1950's. Only 50 miles south of New York City, we little grade school kids were routinely drilled in cowering under our desks in case of a nuclear attack. Every time I heard an airplane, I was afraid it was going to drop bombs. Popular Science ran features about how to build your own fallout shelter, and how Dad could prepare his family for the coming nuclear apocalypse. The understated, tragic ho…

> while deranged world leaders measure each other's manhood by "mine's bigger than yours

Not much has changed in 70 years.

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