Sixty-six years ago today, scientists at the Trinty test site in Alamagordo, NM, detonated the first nuclear weapon.
Its yield was estimated at 21 kilotons. It left a crater a half mile wide. The fused green glass created by 10,000,000 F temperatures is still radioactive today.
A year later on July 25, 1946, the second nuclear test ("Shot Baker") at the Bikini Atoll destroyed or damaged a 70 ship target flotilla. This second test was an underwater detonation that proved far more powerful than the previous Bikini Atoll aerial test ("Shot Alpha") earlier in the year. In this second Bikini test, ships of the target flotilla included the famed aircraft carrier USS Saratgoa (sunk - her bottom ripped out by the explosion) and the battleship USS Nevada (heavily damaged).
13 comments:
K-BOOM! Is this country great or what.
It is amazing to me that this technology has only been used twice, thus far, in war. And to think that was just the forerunner to what is available today.
I will always have questions about the creation of this weapon and it's progeny. No, I think it's use, since we had it, and considering the options, was fine. My problem, I think, is that it changed how men must conduct themselves as peoples. I am not sure men can do so. The option, even at this point, is quite possibly destruction, the end of man and very possibly our planet. God did suggest the world would end in fire. This might be His method, or not, only He knows.
It is odd to have one eye on earth and the other on heaven. I live of flesh and walk of spirit. So, which is which when I see something, feel something, do something? Never mind, I'll go be confused in the corner. :p
Odie - There's just no end to the big bang goodness this country produces. If you can't walk or drive around it, blow it up. As we are so fond of saying, bada bing, bada ...
Chris - I kinda wish we had used the neutron bomb technology somewhere. Then no need to worry about hearts and minds, etc. today. The Romans never did and they lasted a thousand years.
Doom - God will destroy everything and there will be a new Heaven and a new Earth. Hopefully His experiment with lima beans will also end.
My understanding is that Lima beans are NOT from Ohio; you may also rest assured that they are NOT, contrary to popular opinion, radioactive.
BZ
Ha! Lima beans! Way too funny.
Check out Tsar Bomba
The story is also on Wikipedia
The bomb was dropped with a parachute so the aircraft could get 28 miles away.
The shockwave went around the world three times.
Lot more info on wiki
A meteor hits the Earth with a lot more energy than all the worlds Atomic instruments combined. We are just small fries.
BZ - The Algonquin Indians were subjugated because of their insistence of combining the pure, sweet, natural essense of corn with lima beans - calling this foul concoction succotash. When properly prepared, it induces insanity.
What a great invention! And used only twice - what a shame. I wish we would have used the Big A on those dang terrorists.
It brings a tear to my eyes to think we could have nuked all those Soviet communists and didn't-- what a wasted opportunity. Not even the Vietnamese got nuked. How foolish to have these great weapons and not use them. With the Russians wiped out the world would have bowed before us like the true emperors of the planet that we should be.
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