Standing under a nuclear explosion

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 05/18/2017 at 17:32 • Filed to: Planelopnik

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In 1957, the US Air Force wanted to know what it would be like to stand directly under an air-detonated nuclear missile. So they got five guys—all USAF officers—to stand on the test range so they could film the results (the cameraman was the only one who didn’t volunteer for the job). The 2-kiloton missile, designed to be launched into the center of a fleet of attacking Soviet bombers, was fired from a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! at an altitude of 18,500 feet. Though the men in the video lived into their 60s and 80s, there were thousands more who volunteered for similar “downwind” tests, only to develop cancers and other illnesses later in life. The US government has since paid out over $8 million to these volunteers. These tests were carried out to demonstrate that nukes were “safe,” though it seems that these 5 guys were the lucky ones.

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JR1 > ttyymmnn 05/18/2017 at 17:39

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Reminds me of these poor boys who had to run into a ground zero. @ 1:38 they start running

Ash78, voting early and often > ttyymmnn 05/18/2017 at 17:40

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Today, nobody would sign up for that at any amount of money. Except Marines. They’d pay you for the privilege.

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 05/18/2017 at 17:42

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If nukes were safe, wouldn’t they be pointless?

ttyymmnn > Chariotoflove 05/18/2017 at 17:46

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Government logic. Remember, this is the same outfit that thought it would be a good idea to fly a giant airplane around the country with a functioning nuclear reactor inside.

ttyymmnn > JR1 05/18/2017 at 17:47

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Probably where a lot of the 8 mil went. Also, interesting choice of music for that video.

ttyymmnn > Ash78, voting early and often 05/18/2017 at 17:48

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See the video that Jarod Rose posted in this thread.

ttyymmnn > JR1 05/18/2017 at 17:49

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Over the top, boys. Might as well be running into machine guns.

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > Ash78, voting early and often 05/18/2017 at 17:58

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^dem’s fax

kanadanmajava1 > Ash78, voting early and often 05/18/2017 at 17:58

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I would. That would be a pretty awesome experience.

Tristan > ttyymmnn 05/18/2017 at 18:07

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In today’s Air Force, the officers would have volunteered to order their NCOs to do it. At 0500 on a Saturday. And if anyone protested this decision “YOU RAISED YOUR RIGHT HAND, DIDN’T YOU?!”

wiffleballtony > JR1 05/18/2017 at 18:11

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Good thing they have rifles

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 05/18/2017 at 18:11

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You mean it’s not?

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > Ash78, voting early and often 05/18/2017 at 18:15

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Uh not this one

ttyymmnn > Chariotoflove 05/18/2017 at 18:16

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Well, I don’t think it’s a very good idea.

HammerheadFistpunch > ttyymmnn 05/18/2017 at 18:18

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Well it IS pretty safe, bearing in mind the distances involved in keeping high energy Alpha and beta particles which go away rapidly

“The level of initial nuclear radiation decreases rapidly with distance from the fireball to where less than one roentgen may be received five miles from ground zero. In addition, initial radiation lasts only as long as nuclear fission occurs in the fireball. Initial nuclear radiation represents about 3 percent of the total energy in a nuclear explosion.

Though people close to ground zero may receive lethal doses of radiation, they are concurrently being killed by the blast wave and thermal pulse.”

Its the particulate matter irradiated with Neutron and Gamma radiation thats the trouble. and with an air burst those are pretty minimal and are carried away nicely to someplace else. These guys aren’t lucky, only in as much as the scientists that ran this test were right about their radiation assumptions.

ttyymmnn > HammerheadFistpunch 05/18/2017 at 18:21

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Oh, there you go again with your science . Party pooper.

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > Ash78, voting early and often 05/18/2017 at 18:23

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Not this Marine. Then again, there was a reason I got out after six years.

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 05/18/2017 at 18:28

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But, people do it all the time.

Pictured: giant airplane flying around the country with a functioning nuclear reactor inside.

;)

Nauraushaun > JR1 05/18/2017 at 18:30

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Why were they doing that!?

ttyymmnn > Chariotoflove 05/18/2017 at 18:42

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But nuclear bombs aren’t really reactors. Until triggered, they’re really pretty safe, unless a 2000-pound inert bomb crashes on your house. The reactor in the NB-36 was fissioning all the while it was flying over the US heartland.

JR1 > ttyymmnn 05/18/2017 at 18:46

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The music was indeed interesting

JR1 > wiffleballtony 05/18/2017 at 18:47

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Yep they provided a lot of protection I’m sure

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 05/18/2017 at 18:49

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Yeah, I know, but you didn’t specify continually reacting; so, I’m still gonna take credit for being clever. :D

Anyway, that Convair was never really in service, was it? I thought it was only the one used to test the feasibility of having a reactor in flight?

JR1 > Nauraushaun 05/18/2017 at 18:51

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My history professor at college explained this used to be a drill for if we ever had to go to war with the USSR. Bomb the city and storm the aftermath.

Don’t quote me on that though I’m paraphrasing

cesariojpn > JR1 05/18/2017 at 19:20

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Those poor horses.

ttyymmnn > Chariotoflove 05/18/2017 at 19:32

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Pedants gonna pedant. ;)

Only 1 NB-36 was ever built. They realized that it was horrible, this idea.

Ash78, voting early and often > ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com 05/18/2017 at 19:37

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Thank you for your (apparently rational) service!

Ash78, voting early and often > 415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) 05/18/2017 at 19:38

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Consolation prize: A ride in an overloaded V22 that’s 6 month late on maintenance :D (thank you for your service)

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ttyymmnn 05/18/2017 at 19:46

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It’s not really his science, or he wouldn’t have used quotes.

BJ > ttyymmnn 05/18/2017 at 20:39

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Since no-one else has said it, let me be the first:

JEEZUS FUCKING CHRIST ALMIGHTY!

You’ve got to be at the intersection of maximum stupidity and maximum bravery to “volunteer” for something like that.

FUCK, NO. NO, THANK YOU. NEVER.

Chariotoflove > ttyymmnn 05/18/2017 at 20:45

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Well I am an academic, after all.

Thank goodness for the wisdom of our US government.

ttyymmnn > BJ 05/18/2017 at 21:16

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I’ll bet it was good for their career.

HammerheadFistpunch > JR1 05/18/2017 at 23:17

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This was such a faf. I mean, they are upwind of the immediate danger, but holy hell. the idea was to prove out the tactics and methodology for using a field fired tactical weapon to break a soviet tank line. I mean...yeah it works but at what cost.

HammerheadFistpunch > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 05/18/2017 at 23:18

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I have no science. Peanut butter and jelly is still a mystery to me...WHY DOES IT WORK?!

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > ttyymmnn 05/18/2017 at 23:29

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Indeed. There was that time we dropped a nuke on Albuquerque. In 1957 the Air Force mistakenly dropped an H bomb from a B-36 on Albuquerque while coming in on approach. Only the conventional explosives detonated on impact leaving a big hole in the ground. There was also the time in 1950 that a plane carrying a nuke crashed into the Monzano Mountaints immediately next to Albuquerque, although to be fair there are quite a few cases of planes with nukes crashing. We actually have a surprising number of nukes sitting somewhere out there on the seabed that have never been found and recovered.

ttyymmnn > ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com 05/19/2017 at 00:35

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Then there was this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Damascus_Titan_missile_explosion

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > HammerheadFistpunch 05/19/2017 at 02:21

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That’s akin to asking what five means.

TorqueToYield > HammerheadFistpunch 05/19/2017 at 07:25

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“carried away nicely to someplace else” That’s a bit worrisome.

‘Hey, where’s this someplace else?’ ‘Eh, don’t worry about it, it got carried away nicely, somewhere else, not here, now stand under this nuke like a good soldier and stop asking questions’. 

JR1 > HammerheadFistpunch 05/19/2017 at 07:54

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At the time I am not ever fully sure they were aware of a cost. Or if the government was they certainly were not going to tell the public about it. 

HammerheadFistpunch > TorqueToYield 05/19/2017 at 09:07

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Mostly where I live. also the rest of the world too

HammerheadFistpunch > JR1 05/19/2017 at 09:08

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Yeah I don’t think they knew. Scary time to volunteer. My neighbor was the for the bikini island tests... He’s got some stories

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn 05/19/2017 at 09:37

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See also Goldsboro NC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash  

Three of the four arming circuits had fired, a single low voltage firing circuit failed preventing the bomb from detonating.

ttyymmnn > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 05/19/2017 at 09:39

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Can we just be done with nukes? Please?

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn 05/19/2017 at 11:02

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You have something against MAD?

Seriously, when your defense strategy goes by the acronym of MAD... I’m really not sure what to say about that.

ttyymmnn > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 05/19/2017 at 11:13

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JR1 > HammerheadFistpunch 05/19/2017 at 17:02

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I can imagine