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Iran categorically opposes nuclear weapons – Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif

Zarif: Iran categorically opposes nuclear arms,  Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, Oct 12, IRNA – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a message referred to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei’s remarks that nuclear weapons are immoral, saying Iran categorically opposes such weapons.

“#Iran’s Leader has long made it abundantly clear that nuclear weapons are immoral & contravene Islamic principles,” Zarif wrote on his Twitter account on Saturday.

“Their development, acquisition, stockpiling & use is thus forbidden,” he added.

Zarif noted: “We’re categorically opposed to nuclear arms as a religious/moral duty & strategic imperative.”

On Wednesday, Ayatollah Khamenei emphasized that making, keeping and utilizing nuclear weapons are banned according to the Islamic law, …….. https://en.irna.ir/news/83514156/Zarif-Iran-categorically-opposes-nuclear-arms

October 14, 2019 Posted by | Iran, weapons and war | Leave a comment

U.S. Congress ponders reckless decision to increase production of plutonium bomb cores or “pits.”

Expanding nuclear weapon production is reckless   https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/464904-expanding-nuclear-weapon-production-is-reckless?fbclid=IwAR2OYVMTWmvWeV-GxEZm4v8jXbLp1MePAtgBaFPwEpig31H5jui9vFuefHc

BY MARYLIA KELLEY AND JOSEPH RODGERS,  10/08/19Behind closed doors, Congress is in the process of making a decision that will have a profound impact on nuclear risk levels and global security. Hanging in the balance is a decision to recklessly increase production of plutonium bomb cores or “pits.” The NDAA conference committee must not make that mistake.

Pits are the triggers for thermonuclear weapons. Currently, the United States does not manufacture plutonium pits on an industrial scale. In its fiscal 2020 budget request the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) seeks authorization to produce at least 80 plutonium pits per year by 2030 at two facilities separated by some 1,500 miles. The Senate NDAA fully funds the request. The House instead authorizes 30 pits per year, all at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in NM. Los Alamos is presently authorized to produce 20 pits annually.

Plutonium pit production at such a large scale represents a major departure from our post-Cold War nuclear weapons policy. Since the Rocky Flats Plant in CO closed in 1989 following a raid by the FBI environmental crimes unit, the United States has produced pits at an annual rate of 11 or fewer. Further, there have been no orders for newly manufactured pits in nearly a decade.

Instead, the government has been utilizing some of the approximately 20,000 plutonium pits in storage at the Pantex Plant in Texas to conduct its ongoing warhead maintenance and refurbishment programs. These pits have very long lifetimes. JASON, a DOD organized group of independent scientific experts, estimated that plutonium pits will last 100 years or more.

Clearly, the Senate NDAA is not meant to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Instead, future production is intended to enable modified pit designs for new-design warheads, contrary to longstanding U.S. arms control objectives. Given the current moratorium on explosive testing of nuclear weapons, those pits cannot be full-scale tested or, alternatively, could prompt the United States to return to nuclear testing. This would have international proliferation consequences beyond anything we’ve seen since the most dangerous days of the Cold War.

As if to confirm that this is the ultimate plan, NNSA’s Lawrence Livermore National Lab has already begun to create a warhead, called the W87-1, that goes beyond previously-tested limits. The design that Livermore is pursuing contains a novel plutonium pit, unlike any pits in the stockpile or in storage at Pantex.  The W87-1 is slated go on top of a new-design intercontinental ballistic missile, the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent. It too is controversial due to unknowns regarding its pending cost, schedule, and significant integration challenges to accommodate the new warhead.

Further, the 80 pit per year capability will not be reachable in the time frame NNSA posits, and its facilities may not be able to operate properly at that production rate. A Pentagon-funded report by the Institute for Defense Analyses in 2019 concluded that 80 pits per year is not achievable “on the schedules or budgets currently forecasted” by the NNSA. This problem is compounded by the fact that the Savannah River Site in SC, NNSA’s proposed location to produce 50 of the 80 pits annually, has been plagued with decades of cost overruns and mismanagement. Additionally, Los Alamos’s pit production capability has been crippled by safety lapses, even at the lower rate.

Placing a novel warhead design in the active nuclear weapons stockpile with a substantially untested pit is irresponsible. Rapidly increasing production at sites with spotty records compounds that error with added safety hazards. Increasing plutonium pit production to a rate of 80 or more annually is both reckless and unnecessary.

The Conference Committee can follow the Senate approach that heedlessly increases our country’s risk levels. Alternatively, it can follow a more rational approach to nuclear security by supporting the House NDAA that restricts select funding for nuclear weapons production and deployment — including for expanded plutonium pit production.

Marylia Kelley is the executive director of the Livermore, CA-based Tri-Valley CAREs. For 36 years she has monitored the programs, capabilities and budgets of U.S. nuclear weapons complex, including at Livermore Lab. She has provided testimony on nuclear weapons design and production before the House Armed Services Committee of the U.S. Congress and the California State Legislature. In 2002, she was inducted into the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame.

October 12, 2019 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

North Korea threatens to resume nuclear, long-range missile tests

North Korea threatens to resume nuclear, long-range missile tests
Pyongyang’s warning follows the weekend breakdown of North Korea-US nuclear talks in Sweden.
Aljazeera, 10 Oct 2019 North Korea has called outside condemnation of its weapons launches a “grave provocation” and has threatened to resume nuclear and long-range missile tests.

The warning on Thursday by Pyongyang’s foreign ministry followed the weekend breakdown of North Korea-United States nuclear negotiations in Sweden, the first such talks between the two countries in more than seven months.

North Korea said the talks collapsed because the US didn’t have any new proposals, and whether it maintains its moratorium on major weapons tests was up to Washington………

US-led diplomacy aimed at stripping North Korea of its nuclear programme had been stalemated since the second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam in February ended without any agreement.

That summit fell apart after Trump rejected Kim’s demands for major sanctions relief in return for limited steps towards denuclearisation.  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/north-korea-threatens-resume-nuclear-long-range-missile-tests-191010091337349.html

October 12, 2019 Posted by | North Korea, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Submarine launched missiles in Israel’s probably 300 Nuclear Weapons

Israel May Have 300 Nuclear Weapons (Including Submarine-Launched Missiles) National Interest  Sébastien Roblin   11 Oct 19,  Israel has never officially admitted to possessing nuclear weapons.

Unofficially, Tel Aviv wants everyone to know it has them, and doesn’t hesitate to make thinly-veiled references to its willingness to use them if confronted by an existential threat. Estimates on the size of Tel Aviv’s nuclear stockpile range from 80 to 300 nuclear weapons, the latter number exceeding China’s arsenal.

Originally, Israel’s nuclear forces relied on air-dropped nuclear bombs and Jericho ballistic missiles. For example, when Egyptian and Syrian armies attacked Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, a squadron of eight Israeli F-4 Phantom jets loaded with nuclear bombs was placed on alert by Prime Minister Golda Meir, ready to unleash nuclear bombs on Cairo and Damascus should the Arab armies break through.
Though Israel is the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, Tel Aviv is preoccupied by the fear that an adversary might one day attempt a first strike to destroy its nuclear missiles and strike planes on the ground before they can retaliate. Currently, the only hostile states likely to acquire such a capability are Iran or Syria.

To forestall such a strategy, Israeli has aggressively targeted missile and nuclear technology programs in Iraq, Syria and Iran with air raids, sabotage and assassination campaigns. However, it also has developed a second-strike capability—that is, a survivable weapon which promises certain nuclear retaliation no matter how effective an enemy’s first strike.

Most nuclear powers operate nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines which can spend months quietly submerged deep underwater and at any moment unleash ocean-spanning ballistic missiles to rain apocalyptic destruction on an adversary’s major centers. Because there’s little chance of finding all of these subs before they fire, they serve as one hell of a disincentive to even think about a first strike.
But nuclear-powered submarines and SLBMs are prohibitively expensive for a country with the population of New Jersey—so Israeli found a more affordable alternative………https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/israel-may-have-300-nuclear-weapons-including-submarine-launched-missiles-87131

October 12, 2019 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Russia has a pointless, but scary Seaborne Nuclear Weapon

Russia Has a Terrifying Seaborne Nuclear Weapon, Sebastien Roblin

The National Interest•October 11, 2019  

Key point: Moscow’s deadly weapon is pointless but is still apart of mutually-assured-destruction.On May 22, 2018, the Russian submarine Yuri Dolgoruky slipped beneath the waves of the Arctic White Sea. Hatches along the submerged boat’s spine opened, flooding the capacious tubes beneath. Moments later, an undersea volcano seemingly erupted from the depths.

Amidst roiling smoke, four stubby-looking missiles measuring twelve-meters in length emerged one by one. Momentarily, they seemed on the verge of faltering backward into the sea before their solid-fuel rockets ignited, propelling them high into the stratosphere. The four missiles soared across Russia to land in a missile test range on the Kamchatka peninsula, roughly 3,500 miles away.

You can see the launch sequence in this video.

Like the nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) operated by United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, and India, the primary purpose of Borei-class submarines is almost unimaginably grim: to bring ruin to an adversary’s cities, even should other nuclear forces be wiped out in a first strike.

Each of the submarine’s sixteen R-30 Bulava (“Mace”) missiles typically carries six 150-kiloton nuclear warheads designed to split apart to hit separate targets. This means one Borei can rain seventy-two nuclear warheads ten times more destructive than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima on cities and military bases over 5,800 miles away.

The Borei is the most advanced SSBN in the Russian Navy, and is designed to replace its seven Soviet-era Delta-class SSBNs. Throughout most of the Cold War, Soviets submarines were noisier than their Western counterparts, and thus vulnerable to detection and attack by Western attack submarines. …….

The Bulava has an unusually shallow flight trajectory, making it harder to intercept, and can be fired while the Borei is moving. The 40-ton missiles can deploy up to forty decoys to try to divert defensive missiles fire by anti-ballistic missiles systems like the Alaska-based

October 12, 2019 Posted by | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

A-bomb survivor Toshiki Fujimori urges nuclear haves and have-nots to join hands on abolition  

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/10/11/national/atomic-bomb-toshiki-fujimori-nuclear-haves-have-nots/#.XaDl-0YzbIUJIJI  NEW YORK – Hibakusha Toshiki Fujimori called for nuclear states and non-nuclear states to cooperate on abolishing atomic weapons as a meeting on the subject was held at U.N. headquarters in New York on Thursday.

Fujimori, 75, assistant secretary-general at the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo), urged both sides to join forces to bring about a peaceful world.

Fujimori was exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, while his mother was carrying him on her back to a hospital. After the bombing, six of his 12 family members died, Fujimori said.

Three days after, the second U.S. atomic bomb devastated Nagasaki.

NEW YORK – Hibakusha Toshiki Fujimori called for nuclear states and non-nuclear states to cooperate on abolishing atomic weapons as a meeting on the subject was held at U.N. headquarters in New York on Thursday.

Fujimori, 75, assistant secretary-general at the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo), urged both sides to join forces to bring about a peaceful world.

Fujimori was exposed to radiation from the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, while his mother was carrying him on her back to a hospital. After the bombing, six of his 12 family members died, Fujimori said.

Three days after, the second U.S. atomic bomb devastated Nagasaki.

October 12, 2019 Posted by | Japan, opposition to nuclear, weapons and war | Leave a comment

India and Pakistan sliding toward potential nuclear war

Kashmir crackdown: A warning of nuclear war between India and Pakistan, Axios, Dave Lawler  $ Oct 19, India and Pakistan are sliding toward potential nuclear war, according to the president of Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. The warning comes as Pakistan attempts to rally global outrage against its neighbor and rival.

Catch up quick: On Aug. 5, India revoked the constitutional autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir — the state it controls within the disputed Himalayan territory — while instituting a communications blackout and a curfew enforced by hundreds of thousands of troops.

  • Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir, partially control it and have gone to war to defend their claims. The sudden move to fundamentally change the status of Indian-controlled Kashmir enraged Pakistan.
  • Where things stand: Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center tells Axios that while conditions vary across the state, “you still have a lockdown in effect, you still have a communications blackout in effect and you still have a number of people detained, including local political leaders.”

Masood Khan, the president of Azad Kashmir and a longtime Pakistani diplomat, told Axios this week in Washington that India’s actions constitute a “declaration of war,” not just against the local population but also against Pakistan.

  • He echoed claims by Imran Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister, that there will be “massacres” of civilians once the lockdown is lifted. But he went a step further, warning the ensuing escalation could result in a nuclear exchange.

The other side: Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar last week said the special status of Jammu and Kashmir — India’s only Muslim-majority state — “was meant as a bridge that became a barrier.”

  • He argued that the state’s autonomy cut it off economically and politically, limiting development and thus spurring alienation and separatism.
  • Jaishankar accused Pakistan of exacerbating that separatism by creating “an entire industry of terrorism for dealing with the Kashmir issue.”
  • As for the lockdown, Jaishankar said he’d rather Kashmiris go without internet than lose their lives in potential unrest.

While Jaishankar downplayed the severity of the lockdown and insisted it was being gradually loosened, Masood Khan accused India of “brutalizing” Kashmiris.

  • He predicted “asymmetric resistance” from the local population and warned that many on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control (LoC) were anxious to join the fight.
  • Khan said the government had “no intention” of sending fighters across the LoC, but warned that the anger would be “difficult to control.” He said direct intervention by the Pakistani military could also not be ruled out.

The big picture: Pakistan is attempting to focus the eyes of the world on Kashmir in part by framing it not just as a human rights issue, Kugelman says, but also a global security threat………https://www.axios.com/kashmir-crackdown-india-pakistan-nuclear-war-3624ea97-8252-4d25-8b56-4056740524c7.html

October 5, 2019 Posted by | India, Pakistan, weapons and war | 1 Comment

North Korea launches missile into waters near Japan days before nuclear talks set to resume with U.S.

LA Times By VICTORIA KIM, STAFF WRITER OCT. 1, 2019, SEOUL —   North Korea fired a ballistic missile Wednesday that landed in the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, less than 200 miles from the Japanese coast, according to the South Korean military and the Japanese coast guard.

The launch came a day after North Korea said it would resume nuclear talks with the U.S. this weekend. The last time a North Korean missile landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone was LA Times November 2017……. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-10-01/north-korea-launches-missile-into-waters-near-japan-days-before-nuclear-talks-set-to-resume-with-u-s

October 4, 2019 Posted by | North Korea, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear weapons an unacceptable danger to humanity – U.N.Secretary-General António Guterres

September 30, 2019 Posted by | 2 WORLD, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Weapons proliferation risk of nuclear power in space

Push for nuclear power in space sets off proliferation debate, Politico, By JACQUELINE FELDSCHER , 09/27/2019    NASA could place human missions to the moon or Mars in political jeopardy if it opts to use highly-enriched uranium as a power source in space, warns a leading specialist on nuclear proliferation.Astronauts living off of Earth for months at a time will need a reliable energy source for life support and to conduct experiments. But nuclear reactors using highly-enriched uranium, which is used in atomic bombs, will present a host of safety risks and diplomatic obstacles, says Alan Kuperman, the founding coordinator of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the University of Texas at Austin.Kuperman is convening stakeholders on the issue next month, including Jeffrey Sheehy, the chief engineer in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, and Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.), who serves on the committee that oversees NASA. The House-passed fiscal 2020 appropriations bill for NASA includes an amendment from Foster that directs NASA to focus its research on low-enriched uranium reactors.

“There’s a lot of opposition in Congress and in nonprofit groups to any further use of highly-enriched uranium,” Kuperman tells us. “So if NASA wants to use highly-enriched uranium for this space reactor, it might provoke opposition to space reactors in general.

“NASA is introducing political risks to its plan by going this highly-enriched uranium route,” he adds.

The Trump administration ordered NASA in August to craft guidelines for safely using nuclear reactors on Mars or the moon. NASA is also moving ahead with its nuclear power ambitions under it’s Kilopower project to build a highly-enriched uranium reactor that could deliver 10 kilowatts of electrical power continuously for at least 10 years. The space agency launched a study in fiscal 2019 with the Department of Energy to determine how both low and highly-enriched uranium could meet different needs. But the agency “has not made a final decision on highly-enriched uranium versus low-enriched uranium for surface power,” according to NASA spokeswoman Clare Skelly………  https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/27/nuclear-power-nasa-mars-alan-kuperman-q-and-a-1510896

September 28, 2019 Posted by | 2 WORLD, space travel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

A rude concrete sign indicates a deadly truth about nuclear radiation and cancer

 

September 24, 2019 Posted by | health, OCEANIA, USA, wastes, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Corporate greed, fighting over America’s extravagant $85 billion nuclear missile program

Boeing, Northrop spar over $85 billion nuclear missile program  With Northrop poised to become the Defense Department’s primary provider of ballistic missiles, Boeing has launched an aggressive lobbying campaign, 

There was an $85 billion elephant in the room at this year’s Air Force Association conference, an annual trade show where thousands of uniformed airmen rub shoulders with suit-clad defense contractors hawking the latest advanced weaponry.

Those entering the conference hotel in National Harbor, Md., were welcomed by an enormous blue banner splashed with the Northrop Grumman logo and the words “LEGENDARY DETERRENCE” ― a not-so-subtle reference to the company’s ballistic missile ambitions.

Northrop is poised to take over a massive Air Force nuclear weapons program called Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, or GBSD, which will call on a team of contractors to replace the U.S. military’s aging stock of Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles. But Boeing’s Arlington-based defense business, which has handled the Minuteman program since 1958, has launched an aggressive lobbying campaign in defense of its interests.

Northrop “is on a path to a sole-source opportunity,” Boeing GBSD Program Manager Frank McCall warned in an interview Wednesday on the floor of the trade show.

“There has never been a time in the history of the Minuteman when the Air Force wasn’t supported by both companies,” he said, adding that he thinks the Pentagon is taking “a winner-take-all approach” that is “unprecedented in the history of intercontinental ballistic missiles.”

The ground-based missiles make up one leg of the U.S. nuclear triad, which aims to be ready to deliver warheads at a moment’s notice from air, land or sea. They are meant to deter other countries from launching a nuclear strike by sending a message that any first-mover will be destroyed immediately.

The different components of the triad are extremely expensive to build and keep at the ready. For the new ground-based missiles, the Pentagon faces a difficult dilemma as it tries to get the best solution for the best price.

The Air Force had hoped to evaluate multiple competing options. But Boeing, thought to be the only viable competitor aside from Northrop, says it won’t participate unless the Air Force changes its approach.

With Boeing out, the Northrop-led team appears to be the Pentagon’s only option, something that could make it hard for the government to negotiate a fair price.

It is a common dilemma facing Defense Department weapons buyers, who have the impossible task of running a competitive marketplace when there are, at best, two or three potential suppliers for the most expensive weapons systems. The U.S. defense industry has consolidated to a worrying degree in the decades since the Cold War, officials and analysts say, with a handful of dominant suppliers exerting tremendous influence.

A White House report released last year found 300 cases in which important defense products are produced by just a single company, a “fragile” supplier, or a foreign supplier.

There is big money at stake for Boeing and Northrop: Defense Department estimates for the long-term cost of the program range between $62 billion and $100 billion. Both companies have formidable lobbying operations, spending $7.2 million and $8.3 million, respectively, on Washington lobbyists in 2019.

Boeing’s stewardship of the Minuteman program brought it roughly 600 defense contracts totaling $8 billion in the first 30 years of the programs, according to estimates provided by the company. Northrop has traditionally taken a secondary role handling complex systems integration.

In 2017, Northrop and Boeing were awarded contracts worth $349.2 million and $328.6 million, respectively, to develop their own version of a next-generation replacement for the Minuteman. In July, the Air Force asked each company to submit a proposal, hoping to compare the two missile designs and negotiate a fair price.

Boeing quickly threw a wrench into that plan, announcing July 25 that it would walk away from the competition because the Air Force’s request for proposals allegedly favored Northrop.

Boeing’s concerns stem from Northrop Grumman’s 2017 acquisition of a company called Orbital ATK for $7.8 billion. Orbital ATK ― which operates as a Northrop Grumman business unit called Innovation Systems ― is a dominant producer of rocket motors that power ballistic missiles. Aerojet Rocketdyne, the other U.S. manufacturer of rocket motors, also is working with Northrop.

Boeing has taken its case to the Pentagon, as well as to the Federal Trade Commission, but has failed to block the deal.

“We continue to stand ready to support this important program,” wrote Leanne Caret, president of Boeing’s Arlington-based defense business, in a July 23 letter seen by The Washington Post. “As we have discussed, we believe there are other procurement structures that could provide this capability more rapidly at less cost, and we will look for ways to leverage the work … to help support this critical national security mission.”

Boeing later approached Northrop about the possibility of teaming up but was rejected, a Boeing official said. So it came as little surprise Monday when Northrop released the list of companies it is teaming up with, and Boeing isn’t on it.

Air Force officials stood by their approach but declined to comment on how they will proceed.

“We are very open to a variety of proposals. … We are open to teaming relationships. We just don’t want to dictate,” Will Roper, the Air Force’s assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, told reporters Monday. “We think it should be decided by industry and what they think is best value.”

Soon afterward, Boeing countered that it is pursuing a multifaceted advocacy and lobbying campaign asking the government to force Northrop to collaborate.

“We believe it is a path to a better weapons system solution that will allow us to field the solution more quickly than either company could handle on its own,” said McCall, the Boeing official.

Analysts expressed concern over the current arrangement, in which Northrop will almost certainly be the only bidder. Whether Boeing’s proposal will resolve the problem is less clear.

“I would much rather see a direct competition between Northrop and Boeing,” said Dan Grazier, a former Marine Corps captain working at the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group. “The best practice for any acquisition system would be a solid, honest, competitive prototyping, where the government can weigh competing options and get a competitive price.”

September 22, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, politics, Reference, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Nuclear watchdog groups warn legal action over environmental impact of plutonium pit production

September 20, 2019 Posted by | environment, legal, weapons and war | Leave a comment

America’s 1,032 Nuclear Weapons Tests, and the tons of problems they caused

Little-Known Fact: America Tested 1,032 Nuclear Weapons on Its Own Soil   https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/little-known-fact-america-tested-1032-nuclear-weapons-its-own-soil-81706  

That’s a lot of nukes.

by Kyle Mizokami  20 Sept 19,   Key point: A high number of tests were common during the Cold War, but also caused a ton of problems.
Nuclear weapons have a mysterious quality. Their power is measured in plainly visible blast pressure and thermal energy common to many weapons, but also invisible yet equally destructive radiation and electromagnetic pulse. Between 1945 and 1992, the United States conducted 1,032 nuclear tests seeking to get the measure of these enigmatic weapons. Many of these tests would be today be considered unnecessary, overly dangerous and just plain bizarre. These tests, undertaken on the atomic frontier, gathered much information about these weapons—enough to cease actual use testing—yet scarred the land and left many Americans with long-term health problems.
The majority of U.S. nuclear tests occurred in the middle of the Western desert, at the Nevada Test Site. The NTS hosted 699 nuclear tests, utilizing both above-ground and later underground nuclear devices. The average yield for these tests was 8.6 kilotons. Atmospheric tests could be seen from nearby Las Vegas, sixty-five miles southeast of the Nevada Test site, and even became a tourist draw until the Limited Test Ban Treaty banned them in 1963. Today the craters and pockmarks from underground tests are still visible in satellite map imagery.
The bulk of the remaining nuclear tests took place in Pacific, at the islands of Bikini, Enewetak, Johnson Island and Christmas Island. The second nuclear test, after 1945’s Trinity Test, took place at Bikini Atoll. The Pacific tests were notable not only for their stunning visuals, the most compelling imagery of nuclear weapons since Hiroshima, but also the forced relocation of native islanders. Others that were near tests were exposed to dangerous levels of radioactive fallout and forced to fleet. In 1954, the crew of the Japanese fishing boat Daigo Fukuryu Maru accidentally sailed through fallout from the nearby fifteen-megaton Castle Bravo test. Contaminated with nuclear fallout, one crew member died, and the rest were sickened by radiation.
The first test of a thermonuclear, or fusion, bomb took place on November 1952 at Enewetak Island. Nicknamed Ivy Mike, the huge eighty-two-ton device was more of a building than a usable nuclear device. The device registered a yield of 10.4 megatons, or the equivalent of 10,400,000 tons of TNT. (Hiroshima, by contrast, was roughly eighteen thousand tons of TNT.) Ivy Mike was the biggest test by far, creating a fireball 1.8 miles wide and a mushroom cloud that rose to an altitude of 135,000 feet.
One of the strangest atmospheric tests occurred in 1962 at the NTS, with the testing of the Davy Crockett battlefield nuclear weapon. Davy Crockett was a cartoonish-looking recoilless rifle that lobbed a nuclear warhead with an explosive yield of just ten to twenty tons of TNT. The test, code-named Little Feller I, took place on July 17, 1962, with attorney general and presidential adviser Robert. F. Kennedy in attendance. Although hard to believe, Davy Crockett was issued at the battalion level in both Germany and North Korea.

September 20, 2019 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

New nuclear weapons that could make continents uninhabitable

Russia’s New Nuclear Weapon Could Make America Uninhabitable, The National Interest•September 20, 2019  

Can’t lose if we all lose.

by Sebastien Roblin  –Key point: This is a weapon of last resort. Total overkill  
“…….Like the nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) operated by United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, and India, the primary purpose of Borei-class submarines is almost unimaginably grim: to bring ruin to an adversary’s cities, even should other nuclear forces be wiped out in a first strike.

Each of the submarine’s sixteen R-30 Bulava (“Mace”) missiles typically carries six 150-kiloton nuclear warheads designed to split apart to hit separate targets. This means one Borei can rain seventy-two nuclear warheads ten times more destructive than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima on cities and military bases over 5,800 miles away. ……..

September 20, 2019 Posted by | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment