The Deadly Miscalculation at Castle Bravo.

Castle Bravo was one of the largest nuclear tests in history. It was also the first US test of a dry fuel hydrogen bomb. It's remembered as a stunning display of power in the atomic age. It's also noted in the books as a record breaker in many ways.

Did you know it was also the biggest nuclear testing accident in US history? It was a 15 Megaton Yield. It wasn't supposed to be. It was intended to be a mere 6 Megatons.



That goes just a touch beyond 'oops'. Sometimes I wonder how the world survived that period. Between the US and Russians with the ever growing race to build the biggest, it really is a wonder.

This video is a Department of Defense report of the test and miscalculation, as well as a description of the consequences and aftermath. A lot to get in under 5 minutes, but they seemed good at that back then. The blast is incredible. I never fail to feel awed by the sheer force of these, but this one had quite a visual impact to it as well.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I hear what you're saying and I agree it is somewhat of a miracle we survived as a civilization what was to me the beginning of an era, I don't know that we have yet survived to see its conclusion. Yes currently testing is arguably safer yet implementation is still in full effect and watching North Korea among others attempt to stumble along it isn't too hard to imagine that the final outcome is still well in doubt.

It is a concern. Tiny little miscalculation. The "I didn't think that would happen!" moment.

Now we play with CERN and Particle Beam weapons, without fully understanding what they can do!

The next oops moment could be much more devastating.

Great thread. S&F

P

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


MEH! - better living through reckless experimentation

reply to post by ignorant_ape

Oh yeah.... They just have to test and tinker with everything to find out what makes it tick. One of these days, they'll tinker with something that ticks too hard when played with.


While on the truck I had rented a 20+ hour audio book on the Manhattan Project and development at Los Alamos. It was basically the dry and boring version of the movie about the same thing. Dry, because it went through the whole thing in detail fit for a text book. One of the harder books I struggled through listening, but it was worth it for a solid understanding of what these do and don't do.

Anyway... what is important is that before Trinity, they were planning out different device designs and what would yield how much and so on. 'Weapon type' 'Size' 'Yield' and 'Delivery System' were the columns on the chalk board as I recall by memory.

The final column is all that matters because while most had 'Bomb' or some other easily recognizable thing to get it from 'here' to 'there', one had a totally different designation by the book's information. Delivery system was simply "Backyard". The reason being, that device was presumed so powerful that location on Earth wouldn't matter. Detonation would kill our people AND "them", whoever or wherever "them" was. No need to move it from your backyard to deploy though, since range ..well...planetary. Isn't that a warm and fuzzy thought?

Scientists and Mathematicians need adult supervision sometimes. I think it was lacking there and General Groves sure wasn't mature oversight. He read more like a kid who couldn't wait for Christmas to open the new toy.

Never mind the mistakes, what about the things that were said to be safe?

Thalidomide, IUDs (the birth control ones), and even cigarettes (when my parents were young).
So if the things classified safe were anything but, what about the unclassified and the experimental?

reply to post by cuckooold

New threads... I'd love to see you make one?

They sound like interesting topics.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Flagged!!

What a great vid for how short it is

Even though I know how destructive that was, it looks so beautiful to watch.

reply to post by Kurokage


My family used to go camping a lot when I was a kid. I used to like sitting around the campfire at night and talking and telling stories and stuff. Now, I'm not a pyro or anything, but I used to stare into the fire and just watch the flames dance around. It's just mesmerizing. And a lot cheaper and safer than a nuke hehe...

But anyway, yeah, there is much beauty in fiery scenes, like watching the surface of the sun. Same goes for the pristine, motionless scenes of ice and snow that lie on the other end of the spectrum...

I wonder which high ranking officers got thrown in prison for life for destroying all those livesand causing so many birth defects and deformities....oh wait I forgot that we live on Planet Fu-Q where up is down, day is night, and right is wrong...

Read up on the Tsar Bomb that thing scares the Crap out of me even though it was never developed in to a weapon!

It had a 50 MT yeild though it was limited from a 100mt as the Russian thought 100mt excessive.

Just knowing a weapon like that is possible scares me. If Iran, North Korea or some rouge nation built one its game over for who its used on.

Yep the cold war and money for new technologies was a time of almost "one step to far". Someone else posted the Russians had a 50 MT but I was told they actually developed a 75 MT..... thankfully it was never tested.

Chemical weapons testing also got out of hand a few times right here in the good ole USA with many a rancher's sheep moving on to that great green pasture in the sky..

There was a movie many years ago with George C. Scott called "Rage" if my memory serves me that had his son die and he become infected with a bio or chemical agent; he also died but took a few government types with him.

The movie.... well was a movie,,,, but.... I actually flew with someone who did some of the areal applications once upon a time. The paper in the next few days had a story about 100 if not 1000s of sheep mysteriously dead (do not remember the exact number). Not a mystery to him due to winds blowing above acceptable limits yet the mission was flown anyway do to some commander's orders.... sheep were down wind of the test sight....Yep those were the days..

reply to post by 727Sky


It just the fact hiroshima has more in comon yeild wise to conventional bom than it does to the tsar bomb

As for chemical and biological weapon. I got some first hand storys of people who worked at Porten down in the 60's and 70's (British MOD R&D site). Basicaly there was a case of a lead scientist infecting themselfs with marburg fever (basicaly like ebola) and numerous accidents in the VX and sarin production and testing sites.