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I'm sure most people here have heard about the Documentaries made by Peter Kuran, but in case you have not, I suggest watching this movie http://www.vce.com/nuc911.html (Nuclear 911) about nuclear weapons accidents, and also the other films from the same director. All of them have superb scenes and music.

I, for one, don't think that rockets are very good. I've been waiting for someone to build a nuclear powered engine, but the bright boys haven't come through yet. Once we have a safe engine, we need to know what to use for reaction mass - do we boil rocks? Iron and other metals could get terribly expensive, real fast.

Done and...

Oh yeah - I'm waiting for the TV series: NOOKS IN SPACE!

done.

Nuclear rockets have been around for 40-50 years. We just never used them. And any time you have the guy who did the SFX for Star Wars doing documentaries about nukes, you get something pretty damn cool.

I fail to see how this is news, it has been known for a while that the Soviets wanted to try a 100 megaton device. I would recommend to check Trinity and Beyond http://www.vce.com/trinity.html/, a real good documentary on the initial tests and further developments up to the very last test not so long ago.

600 feet is a sweet spot Iran used for much of its placement of enrichment program.

600 feet is indeed hard to penetrate even with a low yield configured w87 or a SDAM, and only devastated by a genuine 1 Mt EPW.

Heat increases 5 degrees Fahrenheit every hundred feet in most mining.

600 feet could be as hot as 30 degree warmer than topside.... barely tolerable heat on equipment (capacitors on circuit boards) and human personell, but such situations are airconditioned.

a crater is formed if the fireball is within 1/10th of its radius above ground. No need to penetrate the earth, though effectivity does increase dramatically if as close as possible, and infact if a few meters into the earth. Our current earth-penetrating weapon (EPW) is a W83 warhead in a modern EPW delivery mechanism that can burrow a few meters into the ground before it explodes. In fact, the physical effect is astonishing. Penetration of a few meters increases the underground destructive effects by more than a factor of twenty.

2,000 % more destructive yield.

Amusingly... a 1.2 megaton B83 in its EPW delivery shell can crush underground bunkers to a depth of about 1000 feet.

Notice that a 1.2 megaton burst obviously does very little to military grade extreme depth bunkers!

A micro nuke SDAM is 1Kt to 8 kt and designed to burn clean.

Here is a photo of the fury of a mere 8 kiloton explosion (placed below waterlevel)

http://www.vce.com/cgi-bin/Images/AtomicArt/umbrel la.jpg

stunning... eh?

but 8kt would barely cause true damage to properly designed installation 600 feet below surface.

But any yield can be configured. Any yield is possible in hbombs, is all based on how much lithium-6 deuteride is placed at the other end of the foam spacer-shaper on the side opposing the fission core primer..

Imagin a yield of 64.0 kt per kg of lithium-6 deuteride !!!

fission of ANY material known is less than 17.8 kt per kg. Fusion is pretty sweet! For tinier masses, dusion of pure deuterium yields 82.2 kt/kg, but costs more for the materials.

Imagine.. a true SDAM is possible to be in briefcase configured with up to 400 kt yield... but never is designed for that or configured as such, nor trusted in a human ported format.

For all the fury and power of "small nukes" in pretty explosive photos such as the link i provided above of a 0.008 megaton blast... 0.008 megatons would rock a bunker but not devastate the hardware within.

The amount of heat-exchange for air conditioning (typically using covert heat exchange coils buried close to surface) would be huge if tunneling deeper than 600 feet.

The side of a granite mountain reduces the heat issue of regular mining depth, but increases creation costs greatly too.

600 feet is actually infuriating... its a pesky "Ha Ha Ha" to anyone who wants to attack it.

But Iran WILL eventually be dealt with. Despite it being 10 times mightier than Iraq. The reason... the USA is foolishly on Israels side of this unwinnable Jihad.

In fact 911 was 100% caused only due to us hardware (US helicopters flown by israel) used in weekly mass murders in paestine in July and August of 2001. There would have been no war if we were not pals with Israel, or at a minimum... gave them money to buy non-USA military hardware.

After two delays for the first ever launch? Heck no. This is not at all unusual. Did people buy Titans?

I'll see you those three books and raise you one museum.

The next time you're in Las Vegas, go to the Atomic Testing Museum. Unlike Trinity Site (and unlike the Nevada Test Site), the museum is open to the public at all times. No prior arrangements are necessary to visit.

Admission is the geekiest $10 you'll spend in Vegas. There's also an incredible bookstore (which has all three of the books mentioned, plus the entire set of Peter Kuran DVDs) on the way out.

The pictures on the museum's website give you the general idea. Although you can (and if they're old enough to understand what atoms are, you probably should) take your kids, this is primarily a museum made by, for, and on behalf of engineers.

If you held certain clearances, and you wanted to show your family what you did within the limits of your oath, this museum is a good place to show them. If your parents or spouse never talked about their work before they died, and you always wondered what they were doing and why they were doing it, this museum is a good place to find out.

And if you hold no clearances at all, but are just a random geek who wants to appreciate the engineering genius of those who did, this museum is perhaps the only place to do so.

The politics are kept to an absolute minimum; it's about the history and the technology.

here.

And here are the links to the videos (mov) themselves (to get around the stupid javascript crap): shot, boom, stuff blowing away, more stuff blowing away, trees

Here's an interesting article about the shot.

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And here are the links to the videos (mov) themselves (to get around the stupid javascript crap): shot, boom, stuff blowing away, more stuff blowing away, trees

Here's an interesting article about the shot.

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And here are the links to the videos (mov) themselves (to get around the stupid javascript crap): shot, boom, stuff blowing away, more stuff blowing away, trees

Here's an interesting article about the shot.

here.

And here are the links to the videos (mov) themselves (to get around the stupid javascript crap): shot, boom, stuff blowing away, more stuff blowing away, trees

Here's an interesting article about the shot.

here.

And here are the links to the videos (mov) themselves (to get around the stupid javascript crap): shot, boom, stuff blowing away, more stuff blowing away, trees

Here's an interesting article about the shot.

here.

And here are the links to the videos (mov) themselves (to get around the stupid javascript crap): shot, boom, stuff blowing away, more stuff blowing away, trees

Here's an interesting article about the shot.

Rather than just reading about them, view actual footage of many nuclear tests as well as extensive interviews with Teller in Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie
It is a very moving documentary chronicling the development of atomic weaponry.

The United States Navy sponsored a test project with a ~$500,000 budget in late 1998 to see if an independent team could build a reliable cruise missile weapon using off the shelf technology. I suppose that since the project failed they quietly cancelled it or declared it a success (since the independent team failed to develop a useful weapon) and ended it. Things may be different now but $5,000 probably won't be enough to build an effective military grade cruise missile, especially when one considers the advanced counter-measures employed by the United States and other Navies. I doubt that a $5,000 homemade cruise missile would defeat the Aegis system employed by the United States Navy. I was able to find only this small snippet of information on the web regarding the whole affair:

missile defense

"14 Apr 98 The Kraken cruise missile built by the BMDO Countermeasures Hands-On Project crashed on take off from Point Mugu, California. The Kraken was built to test the ability of a rest-of-world country to develop this type of weapon."

Spice channel? You mean, like pay for pr0n? You're new to this "geek" thing, aren't you?

Recommended beer: "Arrogant Bastard Ale".

Recommended pr0n that's worth paying for: "Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie"

Nothin' says lovin' like a 12-pack of Arrogant Bastard, a subwoofer vibrating the chair, and an entire room glowing a spooky shade of reddish-orange as the bombs go off.

(The only thing redder than the fireball from the explosion was the redshift of my last date's ass as she receded at z=5.9 :)

"Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie" - Dir. Peter Kuran.

The guy who did the visual effects from Star Wars spent a few years restoring declassified test footage and presenting the history of the weapons programme in an format intelligible to the layman. It's educational (though by no means nearly as so as the books you cite), the explosions are hauntingly beautiful (which sounds weird, but see the video before you declare me to on crack), and if you've got a sound system, the DVD will present your subwoofer with a serious workout. 10/10 in my books.

anyone else remember eg&g's high speed nuke cameras?

Rapatronic Camera Shots

Some can be found here. Peter Kuran made a film, Trinity and Beyond, that has some very impressive restored footage of nuclear weapons tests. A trailer can be viewed here.

Some can be found here. Peter Kuran made a film, Trinity and Beyond, that has some very impressive restored footage of nuclear weapons tests. A trailer can be viewed here.

Some can be found here. Peter Kuran made a film, Trinity and Beyond, that has some very impressive restored footage of nuclear weapons tests. A trailer can be viewed here.