Nuclear Testing Intro "In the dim light of a hospital room, seven year old Jimmy was remembering the day on which he was told he had leukaemia. He remembered his mother's tears, his father's bewildered anger, the alien feeling of the hospital's environment. His mind replayed the nausea and the diarrhoea caused by radiation therapy and chemotherapy, his hair falling out and kids laughing at him... Jimmy died gently, utterly exhausted having lost so much blood. His tissue had broken down completely, and he was bleeding from every body opening. His bed looked like a battlefield." Jimmy: Hiroshima atomic bomb victim Why Nuclear Tests Are Carried Out? A Nuclear Test is an experiment involving the setting off of a nuclear warhead ("nuke"). All throughout the twentieth century almost every nation has developed and often tested nuclear weapons. Conducting nuclear tests provide scientists and military forces with information about how nukes work (known as "Weapons Related" testing), as well as how the weapons behave under a range of different conditions. Various structures and buildings are also subjected to nuclear explosions (known as the "Weapons Effects" testing). Additionally, nuclear tests are conducted to show a countries strength, many tests are openly conduct and political in their intention. Most states and countries publicly conduct nuclear tests to show their nuclear status and power. Nuclear weapons tests are generally classified as being either: "atmospheric" (in or above the atmosphere), "underground", or "underwater". Of the three, underground testing (conducted in deep shafts) poses the least health risk in terms of fallout. Atmospheric testing poses the highest risk, coming in contact with the ground and ... ... middle of paper ... .... The high yield tests in the 50s and 60s probably did cause significant depletion, but the ozone measurements made at the time were too limited to pick up the expected changes out of natural variations. Bibliography Books: · Angus M. Gunn, 2003, Unnatural Disasters, Greenwood Press, United States of America. Internet: · Carey Sublette, 15 May 1997, Nuclear Weapons Frequently Asked Questions Version 2.14 [On-line],http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq5.html, 9th of April. 2006 · Maria Hendrikaplein, 1991, For Mother Earth [On-line], http://www.motherearth.org/nuke/begin2.php, 9th of April. 2006 Internet/Encyclopedia: · Wikimedia, 2001, Wikipedia: The Free Online Encyclopedia [On-line], http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_testing, 6th of April. 2006
Although nuclear technology can be used for good, it can also be used for destruction. One example of this was the bombing of 2 Japanese cities using the a...
The Trinity Project was a project conducted to test the effects of a nuclear weapon. The Trinity nuclear device was detonated on a 100-foot tower on the Alamogordo Bombing Range in south-central New Mexico at 0530 hours on 16 July 1945. (Rohrer, 1995-2003). This project was organized by the Manhattan Engineer District (MED). This organization worked diligently planning and coordinating all of the logistics for the groundbreaking event. From 1945-1946 over 1000 personnel either worked or visited the test site. The United States was trying to gain nuclear proliferation throughout the world so this project was necessary for our enemies to see the devastation of a nuclear blast.
In 1949, the U.S. was shocked when the U.S.S.R. was able to successfully reproduce a nuclear missile, when, the U.S. had been carefully guarding the plans for the missiles. The missiles continued to improve when, in January of 1950 a German theoretical physicist named Klaus...
"Estimated Exposures and Thyroid Doses Received by the American People from Iodine-131 in Fallout Following Nevada Atmospheric Nuclear Bomb Tests National Cancer Institute (NCI). 2002. June 2004.
Eric Schollser argues in his paper “Today’s Nuclear Dilemma,” that the nuclear weapons in the world, and the issues that they are associated with, should be of major concern to today’s society. Nuclear Weapons were of world wide concern during the time of the Cold War. These weapons, and their ability to cause colossal devastation, brought nightmares into reality as the threat of nuclear war was a serious and imminent issue. The US and Russia both built up their inventories of these pieces of artillery, along with the rest of their arsenals, in an attempt to overpower the other. This past terror has become a renewed concern because many of the countries with these nuclear weapons in their control have started to update their collections. One
Nuclear Arms, as opposed to conventional arms, generate their destructive force from nuclear reactions. The issues that are related to the use of nuclear weapons is also far different than the issues generated by conventional bombs. The long term
The past century has unveiled many new revels in science and technology. Nuclear technology is one of the more recent brinks of discovery. Over the past 60 years or so, scientists have been on a gold rush for the nuclear power. New elements were being discovered and the potentials of their peculiar characteristics drew in more and more people. Highly radioactive substances were being tested for their potencies at the subatomic level. The gain in this scurry for answers was partially politically charged, if not totally for educational purposes. The United States was amid the throng of countries entering the World War II. If one of the most ...
Thesis: Despite both the reported advanced state of USSR nuclear physics and the scientific achievement by USSR scientists prior to World War II, evidence found suggests that the Soviet spies played an important role in the development of the Soviet Bomb. The Soviets did not truly develop their own bomb, but instead copied American nuclear information obtained by Soviet spies in order to develop their plutonium bomb.
In the years following World War II, The Limited Test Ban Treaty was developed to curtail the destructive testing of nuclear weapons by countries around the world. In this paper the history of the Limited Test Ban Treaty will be reviewed as well as the current and future status of this treaty, which remains in flux to this day.
When we talk about nuclear weapons technology, we need to talk about the Arms Race since World War II in order to be able to understand how this technology begins. The Arms Race is a continuous race among many nations to make and improve weapons in a struggle to maintain and/or gain power. The United States and the Soviet Union are two key players in this race. These two major nuclear weapons nations see one another as a reason and a justification for spending an enormo...
In 1945 after achieving victory over Japan in the Pacific Ocean, the United States conducted the first of many atomic bomb testing on the island of Bikini Atoll from 1946 to 1958. This was to measure the effects of the atomic bombs on naval vessels. The first series of testing was called Operation Crossroads which consisted of dropping two atomic bombs at different times and locations on ninety decommissioned naval vessels. Bikini Atoll was chosen as the ideal place for this testing due to its austere location, weather, and climate. Although Operation Crossroads was deemed necessary by the United States Navy to measure the effects of Nuclear weapons on Navy vessels the tests resulted in the dislocation of the native population, failed to achieve the desired results due to human error, and resulted in long term radiation contamination. In order to prove this, I will discuss the operating environment, the nuclear tests, and the continued contamination of Bikini Atoll.
United States. Defense Nuclear Agency. Operation Dominic I - 1962. Vol. DNA 6040F. L. Berkhouse, 1962. T24298. U.S. Department of Defense - Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Web. 10 Feb. 2012. .
Nuclear weapons are categorized into two types of weapons, which are nuclear fission, and fission induced reactions that trigger a fusion reaction. A nuclear fission bomb is also referred as an Atomic Bomb, a fission-induced nuclear weapon is referred to as a thermonuclear weapons and a hydrogen bomb (Union of Concerned Scientists [UCSUSA], 2009, p. 1). Thermonuclear weapons are able to create larger explosions than fission weapons by using fission and fusion instead of deriving their energy solely from fission (UCSUSA, 2009, p. 2). In the “Physics of Nuclear Weapons” the design of thermonuclear weapons is explained by two basic components, which are the “primary” and the “secondary” (“The Physics of Nuclear Weapons, p. 6). These two basic components are also called the Teller-Ulam design, which is a “two-stage bomb”, the basic design for all thermonuclear weapons (Fusion Weapon Physics 2.0 section, para. 1). This report will examine the beginning and development of thermonuclear weapons. Which involves the first thermonuclear weapon detonation in 1952 (“Race for the Superbomb”, para. 1). Also the development from the first thermonuclear weapon to the present day “Boosted” (UCSUSA, 2009, p. 2) and “Neutron” thermonuclear bombs (Nuclear Weapons section, para. 1...
From the creation of nuclear weapons at the start of the Cold War to today, the world has experienced struggles fueled by the want of nuclear power. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Iran’s nuclear weapon program are some of the most important conflicts over nuclear weapons. Thanks to the use of nuclear weapons in 1945 to end World War II, the world has come extremely close to a nuclear war, and more countries have began developing nuclear power. Unmistakably, many conflicts since the start of the Cold War have been caused by nuclear weapons, and there are many more to come.
In June, French President Jacques Chirac revealed that nuclear tests would be conducted in the Pacific at the Mururoa coral atoll. These tests, Chirac, stated, would consist of eight nuclear explosions in a tunnel 1,800 to 3,000 feet below Mururoa beginning in September up until May 96. Chirac declares that these tests are necessary for computer simulation in the future.