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Hate to spoil a touch of nuclear scaremongering, but the old nuclear test sites have been open to tourists for decades.

http://www.atomictourist.com/nts.htm
http://www.bikiniatoll.com/

http://www.bikiniatoll.com/ "*Sigh* Factual grammer is so hard to find these days." Yes it is....and so is grammar.

Bikini Atoll might argue otherwise.

Seriously, if there are any Nuke-E guys out there [who would know what they're talking about] - what would be the effect of outer space detonation? Within the atmosphere, much of the damage to structures is caused by the shock wave travelling through the atmosphere - but, of course, in outer space, there is no atmosphere.

If you were to detonate on an asteroid, would [the 50% of the total] radiation that heads toward the asteroid be sufficient to rip apart the crystalline infrastructure of the rock?

Look at the midwest here during 1850's. MUCH more desertlike and much less water. And the earth took that area FROM less livable to more livable.

Sure it was. (I guess the Great Lakes don't qualify as "water.") Do you have any evidence to back up this assertion? Besides, didn't you say in another post that we only have 80 years of temperature data?

The natural forces are more destructive than most things we can make.

This is precisely why we need to be careful what we do to the climate.

VOLCANOES (1 spew=100 years of 'pollutants)

Wrong. Volcanoes contribute an insignificant amount of carbon dioxide compared to human activities.

The only thing more destructive than most of those are nuclear warheads.. And even 50 years cures most of those problems. Look at Bikini atoll.

The Bikinians are still trying to get the money to clean up their atoll. Like the carbon we're spewing into the atmosphere, the radioactive contamination didn't just go away.

The sahara was a wonderful wilderness. Now its sand. And LOTS of it. The "americans" sure as hell didnt do it. Nature CHANGES weather patters naturally. Whether it be good or bad for us, I dont know.

Nice logical fallacy. Past changes occurred independently of human activities; therefore nothing we do now will affect the climate.

The human race wont die out, but most will. Darn.

The extent of your compassion is quite touching. I'd rather avoid fighting an endless global war over dwindling resources if possible.

I did say "It sucked to be there in the 50s". OK, so it also sucked to be a primate, as well a coral-secreting organism :-)

> One minute with Google would have disclosed plenty of information to rebut that ridiculous claim.

Yeah, he's trolling.

But for those who might have fallen for his troll, sure. Just enter bikini atoll diving into Google.

You get back dozens of sites, not the least of which include www.bikiniatoll.com and Pacific Island Travel, specifically touting the former nuclear test site as one of the world's premier dive locations.

Unfortunately, it's getting the reaction to generate more energy than it consumes, is the problem.

Actually, they solved that problem in the 50's. It's controlling that reaction that is rather more difficult...

We (the U.S.) learned this from the natural restoration at Bikini, which was well underway years before Chernobyl.

For more information about Bikini, visit here: http://www.bikiniatoll.com/home.html

I cannot find the information on the terrestrial information, as I originally learned of it in 1980's National Geographic, and only re-heard of it in the past couple years with a Nova episode.

Why don't we just turn the rest of the stars on their flag black? After all, what's another half a $billion?

Why don't we just turn the rest of the stars on their flag black? After all, what's another half a $billion?

If this island gets big enough we should give it to the people of Bikini Atoll. We nuked their island really well in the 1950's and as a result, those people have been displace from their home for all that time.

Check out the website here

How crazy was Project Chariot? Consider the fact that Bikini Atoll is now one of the best sites for skin diving and sport fishing on the planet. (Read that as "lots of shipwrecks in pristine condition" and a nearly-undisturbed environment for the past 40 years.) The most serious radiological contaminant on Bikini is Cs-137, and the main reason it's a problem is because the local vegetation picks it up in place of potassium. It's a land problem, not a sea problem. Since a putative Alaskan harbor isn't a likely site for crop-growing, and since it would have been excavated with high-yielding thermonuclear devices designed to maximize explosive yield and minimize heavy radionuclide production, the residual radiation levels around the site would have dropped to habitable levels relatively quickly. (Of course, whether it would have cooled off in time to be economically viable compared to conventional construction, or even whether or not a harbor would have benefited the Alaskan economy is a question for economists, not physicists :)

IMHO the best use for nuclear explosions would have been Project Orion; a nuclear pulse engine. Another cool project killed by the ignorance of the public when it comes to things nuclear.

Teller has every right to be bitter. It appears from the article that many people are unable to separate the man from the device he helped build. In an age in which the public is so frightened of the word "nuclear" that they argue to ban space probes like Cassini due to their RTGs, and in which people prefer the cyanide in apricot pits to chemotherapy "because it's the natural way to fight caner", it's not surprising that Teller's vision of the application of technology to build a better world is viewed as hubris, and his contributions are held in low esteem.

Back to nukes. Anyone interested in the history of atomic weaponry should consider a visit to the National Atomic Museum in New Mexico. The timing is great - the first weekend of October also marks the date on which White Sands Missile Range opens up the Trinity Site to the general public, allowing tours of the site of the first fission explosion.

Finally - whatever your opinions on the horror of the bomb's use - the physics behind it was still beautiful. Anyone wanting more detailed information on the design is highly encouraged to read Carey Sublette's Nuclear Weapons FAQ - a 14-part document also available at the FAS High Energy Weapons archive.