Nukes

The nuclear age began bright and early at 5:30 a.m. on July 16, 1945, when the United States government detonated a plutonium-powered implosion device (nicknamed “Gadget”) over the New Mexico desert. In a fraction of a second, the explosion released the equivalent of 21,000 tons of TNT — enough to vaporize the surrounding infrastructure and sweep desert sand into a hot, pressurized fireball that spit out trinitite glass.  The vast majority of the glass was a pale green color, thanks to a…

ScienceThe results from the 1962 Starfish Prime test serve as a warning of what might happen if Earth’s magnetic field gets blasted again with high doses of radiation. ByBrian Gutierrez Published July 15, 2021 • 9 min read It was pitch black when Greg Spriggs’ father brought his family to…

Last month I spoke to a youth group whose members are advocating for a treaty to forever end nuclear weapons testing. Our meeting was timely, before the July 16 anniversary of the first atomic bomb test at the end of World War II. Code-named Trinity, the A-bomb test by the…

This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Author of the article: Bloomberg News Tony Capaccio Article content (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Air Force’s new nuclear cruise missile will cost at least $29 billion to develop, procure, operate and sustain, a Pentagon evaluation found. That’s $2 billion…

Hispanics and Mescalero Apache tribal members in New Mexico this month are marking the anniversary of the 1945 Trinity Test — an experiment resulting in health problems for generations living near the site of the world's first atomic bomb explosion. Why it matters: Descendants of those families use the July…

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Christian Le Miere Christian Le Miere is a foreign policy adviser. He is the founder of Arcipel, a strategic consultancy, and has worked as a senior adviser to an Abu Dhabi entity. He was formerly a senior fellow at the IISS, a London-based think tank, and the editor of various…

China's new missile silos found deep in the desert. Photo / Supplied Satellites have spotted China building more than 100 new nuclear missile silos deep in the desert – and it changes the calculations of Mutually Assured Destruction. Researchers from the US Middlebury Institute of International Studies have pinpointed construction…

China has begun construction of over 100 new silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles in a desert near the country's northwestern city of Yumen, signalling a major expansion of its nuclear capabilities, a leading American daily has reported citing satellite imagery. The silo construction project could provide China — which celebrated…

The Raytheon stand is seen at the 53rd International Paris Air Show at Le Bourget Airport near Paris, France June 21, 2019. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol/File Photo July 1 (Reuters) - Raytheon Technologies Corp (RTX.N) has been awarded an about $2 billion contract by the U.S. Air Force to develop and make…