Exoatmospheric nuclear testing and global warming?

[Sarge]

I just got done watching "Trinity and Beyond" on Nextflix. The United States exploded 331 Nuclear weapons in the atmosphere above the earth. We tested nuclear bombs until 1992. this is just the United States. USSR (largest nuclear bomb ever detonated), England and China also had extensive testing.

How can a 30 kiloton nuclear weapon exploded above the atmosphere not have affected our atmosphere, ripping a hole in the ozone?
It's crazy to think about. The damage done to the earth by exploding nuclear weapons above the atmosphere must have been huge!

It's done now, but you can't wonder if this had any effect on global warming?

[private parts]

I just got done watching "Trinity and Beyond" on Nextflix. The United States exploded 331 Nuclear weapons in the atmosphere above the earth. We tested nuclear bombs until 1992. this is just the United States. USSR (largest nuclear bomb ever detonated), England and China also had extensive testing.

How can a 30 kiloton nuclear weapon exploded above the atmosphere not have affected our atmosphere, ripping a hole in the ozone?
It's crazy to think about. The damage done to the earth by exploding nuclear weapons above the atmosphere must have been huge!

It's done now, but you can't wonder if this had any effect on global warming?

Gotta agree with you Sarge. I think the Bikini Atoll is still "cooking" after all these years.

[jhale667]

Good point... Isn't damage to the ozone one of the contributing factors as to why the planet is having more trouble than usual regulating its temperature? Isn't that why CFCs are so bad? Stands to reason....

[conmee]

The documentary needed more time spent on some graphics to illustrate the huge differences in yield from the first Trinity shot to the 57-megaton (5,700 times more powerful than Hiroshima - EDIT: Actually Hiroshima was a 16-kiloton yield so the largest-ever atmospheric detonation by USSR "only" 356 times more powerful - also of note was that the 57-megaton device was a smaller version of a 100-megaton device the Soviets designed. Wikipedia says it was only 50-megatons not 57.) to give better context, even though the video was impressive. And if you trot out President Kennedy and talk about limited atmospheric testing, I feel at least a scientific discussion of the above-atmosphere rocket shots was warranted instead of just stock video of fallout/bomb raid sirens and public service announcements from back in the day. Most disappointing was that the "Beyond" basically ends with China's test in 1964 or so. No mention of anything past that excluding the 70s-80s arms race, ICBM development, etc. on Hulu+ it rated three stars mainly because of the ending no doubt. Many questions, few answers/discussion.

Regarding Bikini and Eniwetok, in one of the atolls they bulldozed all the contaminated vegetation and debris from years of testing, filled a huge 500ft diameterX37ft deep crater from a previous shot and capped it with a huge concrete dome to keep it "stable." Not to mention only about 60seconds devoted to the nearby natives and fishing vessels that were radiated because one shot surprisingly exceeded its expected yield by a couple kilotons enlarging the blast radius. All told, of 93 minutes documentary, maybe 5 min total dedicated to fallout. There's this one guy talking as if he has no dog in the fight, some news bureau Walter Cronkite type, "Some say this, others say that, we'll leave it to your own moral code" BS very McCarthy-era propaganda style garbage. Long story short, the footage was great, Shatner narration was cool, but this documentary could have been so much more informative and thought-provoking.

Thanks for the recommendation, Sarge. Still worth watching...

Icon©®™

[conmee]

P.S. The U.S. government referred to the atoll as "Eniwetok" until 1974, when it changed its official spelling to "Enewetak" (along with many other Marshall Islands place names) to more properly reflect their pronunciation by the Marshall Islanders. In the years 1977-1980 a concrete dome was built on Runit Island to deposit radioactive soil and debris.

[FORD]

Never did seem to make a lot of sense that all the ozone damage was from spray cans - though all the big hair of the 80's might have been inconveniently timed with Ronnie's arms race.

[ELVIS]

It's done now, but you can't wonder if this had any effect on global warming?

No, it's SUVs...

[ELVIS]

Never did seem to make a lot of sense that all the ozone damage was from spray cans

But the government said so...

[Sarge]

The documentary needed more time spent on some graphics to illustrate the huge differences in yield from the first Trinity shot to the 57-megaton (5,700 times more powerful than Hiroshima - EDIT: Actually Hiroshima was a 16-kiloton yield so the largest-ever atmospheric detonation by USSR "only" 356 times more powerful - also of note was that the 57-megaton device was a smaller version of a 100-megaton device the Soviets designed. Wikipedia says it was only 50-megatons not 57.) to give better context, even though the video was impressive. And if you trot out President Kennedy and talk about limited atmospheric testing, I feel at least a scientific discussion of the above-atmosphere rocket shots was warranted instead of just stock video of fallout/bomb raid sirens and public service announcements from back in the day. Most disappointing was that the "Beyond" basically ends with China's test in 1964 or so. No mention of anything past that excluding the 70s-80s arms race, ICBM development, etc. on Hulu+ it rated three stars mainly because of the ending no doubt. Many questions, few answers/discussion.

Regarding Bikini and Eniwetok, in one of the atolls they bulldozed all the contaminated vegetation and debris from years of testing, filled a huge 500ft diameterX37ft deep crater from a previous shot and capped it with a huge concrete dome to keep it "stable." Not to mention only about 60seconds devoted to the nearby natives and fishing vessels that were radiated because one shot surprisingly exceeded its expected yield by a couple kilotons enlarging the blast radius. All told, of 93 minutes documentary, maybe 5 min total dedicated to fallout. There's this one guy talking as if he has no dog in the fight, some news bureau Walter Cronkite type, "Some say this, others say that, we'll leave it to your own moral code" BS very McCarthy-era propaganda style garbage. Long story short, the footage was great, Shatner narration was cool, but this documentary could have been so much more informative and thought-provoking.

Thanks for the recommendation, Sarge. Still worth watching...

Icon©®™

Damm! You actually watched it!
I thought it was good, but posed many new questions in my head. My wife and I were astounded at all the testing, especially when several nations were doing this. I would have liked to seen more talk about the fallout.
Those poor islanders. WTF! Imagine sitting in a hut and some dickhead blows up the neighboring island!
We provide free health care to the Marshall Islands because of the bomb testing we did back in the day. When I was stationed in Hawaii we would perform their surgeries (an rightfully so).
I understand CFC's and cow farts contribute to global warming, but no need to feel guilty over anything. I can't imagine the damage 331 or so nuclear weapons in the atmosphere did to the ozone and the fragile conditions that this earth needs to support life.
I wonder why this isn't discussed more?

[Sarge]

Thanks for looking up those stats Conmee.
I wondered how much more powerful those megaton bombs were than on Hiroshima.


Also on netflix is Hiroshima ; Which talks about the Manhattan project.
It was also interesting. I understood it was a big project, but I didn't realize it employed 130,000 people and 140 thousand acres of land on three sites.
Interesting of note, was they made it sound like Leslie Groves got to decide on what city should be bombed.
I always wondered why they didn't pick Tokyo.
It's worth a watch if you have the time...

[Anonymous]

Well, this makes a whole shit of a lot of sense.

When I was a teenager, I was all about recycling, saving the Earth, etc. Don't laff people, you were retarded when you were a teenager too.

But since I never accept the status quo, I began informing myself about all the waste, where does the stuff we recycle go & a million other things.

Basically, it was all a waste of time. Among many other things, putting a 50 oz plastic water bottle in your toilet tank or reducing your bathing time were practically useless efforts since I think - I don't remember very well, it was years ago - somewhat around over 90% of the wasted water was in irrigating crops that were controlled by or being sold to the large corporations.

I never really bought into this man made climate change because I don't think that, for all this pollution, man would have this large an effect on the planet.

Of course, if you throw hundreds, possibly thousands of NUCLEAR WEAPONS in the FUCKIN' ATMOSPHERE, well... I can buy that.

But of course that would NEVER be what they'd tell us.

Just like saving water with a fucking bottle in your tank, they entertain us with fucking spray cans & exhaust pipes just to make us believe we're making a difference & feeding our pathetic little egos while the governmanets & mammoth corporations do all the damage & laff at the retarded little people wasting their time sorting their trash & killing themselves over a plastic bag.

Wake up, assholes. You're all being played. Stop judging & fighting your neighbour, dammit. He is NOT to blame for all this.

Cheers!

[Sarge]

Well, this makes a whole shit of a lot of sense.

When I was a teenager, I was all about recycling, saving the Earth, etc. Don't laff people, you were retarded when you were a teenager too.

But since I never accept the status quo, I began informing myself about all the waste, where does the stuff we recycle go & a million other things.

Basically, it was all a waste of time. Among many other things, putting a 50 oz plastic water bottle in your toilet tank or reducing your bathing time were practically useless efforts since I think - I don't remember very well, it was years ago - somewhat around over 90% of the wasted water was in irrigating crops that were controlled by or being sold to the large corporations.

I never really bought into this man made climate change because I don't think that, for all this pollution, man would have this large an effect on the planet.

Of course, if you throw hundreds, possibly thousands of NUCLEAR WEAPONS in the FUCKIN' ATMOSPHERE, well... I can buy that.

But of course that would NEVER be what they'd tell us.

Just like saving water with a fucking bottle in your tank, they entertain us with fucking spray cans & exhaust pipes just to make us believe we're making a difference & feeding our pathetic little egos while the governmanets & mammoth corporations do all the damage & laff at the retarded little people wasting their time sorting their trash & killing themselves over a plastic bag.

Wake up, assholes. You're all being played. Stop judging & fighting your neighbour, dammit. He is NOT to blame for all this.

Cheers!

Well said. I do think we should do our best to make this a good place for future generations, but let's not feel guilty if you are too busy to recycle or if you flush a turd down the toilet with a full flush.
I can't imagine all the sea damage the underwater testing did.

[Anonymous]

Yup. I'm all for doing what we can, but excuse me for not going out of my way to throw a plastic bottle in the recycling bin. They'll only take the cap & throw the bottle in a landfill, anyway.

If it makes a difference - like dead batteries - I'll do it, but most people are just wasting their time with all that make believe "green" crap.

Cheers!

[BITEYOASS]

Actually the hot air coming out of Alex Jone's mouth when he screams is the reason we have global warming.

[Seshmeister]

There were a lot of crazy fucks around in those days.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2000/may/14/spaceexploration.theobserver

US planned one big nuclear blast for mankind

Antony Barnett, Public Affairs Editor

The Observer, Sunday 14 May 2000 01.30 BST
The US Air Force developed a top-secret plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on the moon as a display of military might at the height of the Cold War.

In an exclusive interview with The Observer, Dr Leonard Reiffel, 73, the physicist who fronted the project in the late Fifties at the US military-backed Armour Research Foundation, revealed America's extraordinary lunar plan.

'It was clear the main aim of the proposed detonation was a PR exercise and a show of one-upmanship. The Air Force wanted a mushroom cloud so large it would be visible on earth,' he said yesterday. 'The US was lagging behind in the space race.'

'The explosion would obviously be best on the dark side of the moon and the theory was that if the bomb exploded on the edge of the moon, the mushroom cloud would be illuminated by the sun.' The bomb would have been at least as large as the one used on Hiroshima at the end of World War II.

'I made it clear at the time there would be a huge cost to science of destroying a pristine lunar environment, but the US Air Force were mainly concerned about how the nuclear explosion would play on earth,' said Reiffel.

Although he believes the blast would have had little environmental impact on Earth, its crater may have ruined the face of the 'man in the moon'.

Reiffel would not reveal how the explosion would have taken place. But he confirmed it was 'certainly technically feasible' and that at the time an intercontinental ballistic nuclear missile would have been capable of hitting a target on the moon with an accuracy of within two miles.

Reiffel was approached by senior US Air Force officers in 1958, who asked him to 'fast-track' a project to investigate the visibility and effects of a nuclear explosion on the moon. The top-secret Project A119, was entitled 'A Study of Lunar Research Flights'.

'Had the project been made public there would have been an outcry,' said Reiffel.

Many Cold War documents are still classified in the US, but details of Project A119 emerged after a biography of celebrated US scientist and astronomer Carl Sagan was published there last year.

Sagan, who died in 1996, was famous for popularising science in the US and pioneering the study of potential life on other planets. At the Armour Foundation in Chicago - now called the Illinois Institute of Technology Research - he was hired by Reiffel to undertake mathematical modelling on the expansion of an exploding dust cloud in the space around the moon. This was key to calculating the visibility of such a cloud from the Earth.

At the time scientists still believed there might be microbial life on the moon and Sagan had suggested a nuclear explosion might be used to detect organisms.

Despite the highly classified nature of the work, Sagan's biographer, Keay Davidson, discovered that he had disclosed details of it when he applied for the prestigious Miller Institute graduate fellowship to Berkeley.

Yet, until today, the full nature of Project A119 has never been revealed. Friends of Sagan believe he never would have wilfully revealed classified information, but Reiffel has come forward to put the 'historical record straight'.

Reiffel continued: 'It was well known that the existence of this project was top secret. Had Sagan wanted to make any disclosures to any party, as his boss at the time, I would have had to take forward any such request and Air Force permission would have been extremely unlikely in those very tense times.'

In a letter to the science magazine Nature, Reiffel said: 'Fortunately for the future of lunar science, a one or two horse race to detonate a nuclear explosion never occurred. But in my opinion Sagan breached security in March, 1959.'

Reiffel produced eight reports between May 1958 and January 1959 on the feasibility of the plan, all of which were destroyed in 1987 by the foundation. Reiffel would not discuss details of these reports, believing they were still classified, but it was clear the conclusion was that the explosion would have been visible from Earth

He does not know why the plans were scrapped, but said: 'Thankfully, the thinking changed. I am horrified that such a gesture to sway public opinion was ever considered.'

Dr David Lowry, a British nuclear historian, said: 'It is obscene. To think that the first contact human beings would have had with another world would have been to explode a nuclear bomb. Had they gone ahead, we would never have had the romantic image of Neil Armstrong taking "one giant step for mankind".'

Lowry believes Project A119 has relevance today with the US proposing a missile defence system in space. He said: 'The US has always wanted to militarise space and some of the fanciful ideas currently being put forward will seem as incredible as the idea of nuking the moon in the Fifties seems today.'

A Pentagon spokesman would not confirm or deny the plans.