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Nuclear weapons history essay
Nuclear weapons history essay
Nuclear weapons history essay
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Broken Arrow – April 11, 1950 Since the United States first began developing and transporting nuclear weapons, there have been a number of accidents involving these weapons while in transport. The Department of Defense came up with a codeword for such events that could result in a nuclear detonation or release of radioactive materials, or the loss of a nuclear weapon: a Broken Arrow. Fortunately, due to the systems that have been put in place, there have been no accidental nuclear detonations on United States soil resulting from accidents in transport. That being said, it can still be considered rather unnerving to know that any one of these accidents could have resulted in a nuclear detonation that would have most certainly devastated the immediate and surrounding areas of the accident. One accident in particular, that occurred on April 11, 1950, was seen by a number of people who knew there was a nuclear weapon involved. Imagine being within a few miles of an aircraft accident, knowing there was a nuclear weapon on board, but not knowing if there would be a release of nuclear material in the crash. The Accident On April 11, 1950, at 9:38 PM, a B-29 took off from Kirtland Air Force Base (AFB) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The aircraft was on a mission to deliver a Mark 4 nuclear weapon to the 509th Bomb Wing at Walker AFB in Roswell. The aircraft and its crew of 13 were only in flight for approximately three minutes when the plane crashed into a mountain on Monzano Base, Kirtland AFB. All 13 personnel were killed in the crash. Neither the bomb, nor the high explosive material, exploded from the impact. Some of the explosive material was scattered and burned in the gasoline fire that resulted from the impact. The bomb cas... ... middle of paper ... ...ve material, and detonators. As a result, the bomb casing was destroyed; most of the explosive material burned up, but a case of four spare detonators and the nuclear capsule were recovered undamaged. Since the components were separated, it was impossible for a nuclear detonation to occur. Had these safety measures not been put in place, the situation could very well have been much worse. Conclusion Between 1950 and 1980, the United States has incurred 32 accidents involving nuclear weapons, or Broken Arrows. Fortunately, none of these accidents resulted in a nuclear detonation on U.S. soil. The accident at Monzano Base in Albuquerque, NM on April 11, 1950 was just one of those accidents that could have been avoided. Due to the substantial safety measures in place, this accident, along with others in the United States, did not result in widespread devastation.
...ary knew about the crash and that they were going to transport the wreckage to another military base. Many eyewitness accounts with similar details eliminate the possibility of merely a single person making up the entire event. The government’s contradictory reports demonstrate that their knowledge of the incident is dynamic and dependent on how they want the people to react. This matter is important because it raises the possibility that if the government is hiding information from the public about a spacecraft accident, there may be other incidents where the government is concealing the truth from the public. Despite the government’s best attempts to cover up the Roswell incident, eyewitness accounts from the common person validate the idea that an unidentified flying object crashed in Roswell, New Mexico and eternally changed the lives of several people.
The IC decided that the first thing that needed to be done was to contain the fire and get it extinguished as soon as possible. Then the IC divided the situation into three primary sections Tower 1, Tower 2 and the Vista Hotel. The bomb had detonated right below the Vista Hotel and thick black smoke was quickly filling the two towers. He then c...
On May 5, 1945, the 6th Bomb Squadron 29th Bomb Group 314th Wing had just completed a bombing run on Tachairai air depot and was returning to our base in Guam. The following crew members were onboard: William R. Fredericks, Co-Pilot; Howard T. Shingledecker, Bombardier; Charles Kearns, Navigator; Dale Plambeck, Radar Navigator; Teddy Poncezki, Engineer; John Colehower, Gunner; Cpl. Johnson, Gunner; Cpl. Oeinck, Gunner; Cpl. Czarnecki, Gunner; Robert Williams, Radio Operator; and myself as pilot.
On April 26, 1986 around 1:00 AM the reactor number 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet Ukraine performed a test in which a power failure was simulated, as a result a sudden increase of power in the reactor 4 of the nuclear power plant was overheating nuclear reactor core that ultimately led to the explosion of accumulated hydrogen in its interior. Basically, they wanted to experiment with it to see if the power turbines of the reactor could generate enough electricity to cool the pumps in case of failure, until diesel generators would start. The amounts of toxic radioactive materials that was estimated to be about ...
When one thinks about warfare, the average mental picture is usually a movie war scene with soldiers, and planes; very rarely do people think about about the average Joe, trimming his hedge. In the short story “Grace Period”, by Will Baker, there is a man trimming his hedge outside with an electric hedge trimmer when a nuclear bomb is dropped; his wife has gone to get the mail. In “an instant [he felt as] everything stretched just slightly, a few millimeters, then contracted again” (Baker, 1989, p. 7). Although the character does not know what is happening, the reader may realize that this description is a high altitude nuclear burst. The article “Nuclear Weapon Effects”, by John Pike, describes what a nuclear bomb’s effects are and what could happen if one was dropped. Based on clues in the story and the information from the article, the reader can determine what is happening to the man and what he can expect will happen to him.
The USA’s new weapon, the Hydrogen bomb, or H-bomb, was one of the most powerful weapons of the time. In 1950, the H-bomb was tested in the Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands (Cold War History). The reaction was so fierce, the explosion wiped the island off the face of the earth, leaving a crater on the ocean floor. The explosion reached a range of 25 square miles and had a mushroom cloud which dropped radioactive fallout on the surrounding areas (The Cold War Museum). This new weapon scared the Soviet Union into creating their own bombs.
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...
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.
On August 6th, 1945, on a clear, sunny day, there was a single American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, piloted by 29 year-old air-force colonel named Paul W. Tibbets, who had trained for months before the dropping of the atomic bomb, nicked named ‘Little boy’. He had spent these months dropping mock equivalents made of explosives and concrete onto Utah or the Pacific Ocean. There were no Japanese to challenge this deadly plane. The target of said bomb was the Aioi Bridge, which spanned the Ota River, at the heart of the city. At 8:15 Hiroshima time, the crew of the Enola Gay dropped the bomb. Forty-three seconds later, at an altitude of 1,900 ft., the Little Boy exploded in an awesome cloud of fire and smoke.
About the cause of the accident, there are two official interpretation of contradiction. The government of Soviet Union announced the first reason in August 1986 that because of the wrong operation of engineers of nuclear power plant. The operator mistakes probably caused this accident because they lack profession knowledge and
Since the invention of nuclear weapons, there have been numerous nuclear accidents around the world. One particularly severe such accident was the Windscale fire. The Windscale fire is considered to have been the greatest nuclear accident in the history of the United Kingdom. It was rated a Level Five on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Quick action prevented most of the serious complications that could potentially have arisen from taking place, but it still may have led to upward of 200 cancer cases.
Chernobyl was the greatest nuclear disaster of the 20th century. On April 26th, 1986, one of four nuclear reactors located in the Soviet Union melted down and contaminated a vast area of Eastern Europe. The meltdown, a result of human error, lapsed safety precautions, and lack of a containment vessel, was barely contained by dropping sand and releasing huge amounts of deadly radioactive isotopes into the atmosphere. The resulting contamination killed or injured hundreds of thousands of people and devastated the environment. The affects of this accident are still being felt today and will be felt for generations to come.
Nuclear disasters set precedence for one of the most difficult disasters people may deal with. The duration of these disasters have lasting effects for generations and present an astronomical cost to man and the environment. Significant damage will persist from the nuclear disaster which occurred at the Nuclear Power Plant Fukushima Daiichi. With the nuclear revolution only in its infancy, our ability to cope with these incidents is limited to our experiences of the Three Mile Island reactor meltdown and the events in Chernobyl Ukraine. With so few instances of major nuclear disasters taking place, the Fukushima disaster presents many significant and exceptional challenges for Japan and the rest of the world. Several aspects unique to, but not limited to nuclear disasters are damage assessment, debris removal and media interaction with authorities throughout the emergency management process.
During the years of 1945 and 1989 the United States and the Soviet Union were involved in a Cold War. (“The rewards of being wrong,” 2002) In the few years leading up to 1948, the Soviet Union had been lagging in the production of nuclear weapons. (“1942-2002 60 years of nuclear,” 2002) In order to help speed up production, nuclear weapons were being made at a plant in Kyshtym in Soviet Russia. This plant was a plutonium production reactor for nuclear weapons and nuclear fuel processing, called the Mayak plant. (“1942-2002 60 years of nuclear,” 2002) The plant was built hastily between the years of 1945 and 1948, when it then produced weapon grade plutonium and uranium. (“1942-2002 60 years of nuclear,” 2002) Nuclear physicists had poor knowledge about nuclear physics, making many of the decisions they made dangerous. The nuclear reactors at the plant were near lake Techa, which they continually contaminated. (CIA Historical Review Program, 1999) All of the reactors that were on the lake used an open cycle cooling system, where they pulled in lake water then discharged the contaminated water back into lake. (CIA Historical Review Program, 1999) It would be because of unrepaired fissures in these tanks that a nuclear reaction would occur and send a radioactive plume into the atmosphere.
Nuclear testing was a global issue during the 1960s. With threats of nuclear war from the communist countries of the Russia, Cuba and China, the United States was anxious to protect itself with a nuclear arsenal of its own. After the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, the United States did additional nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands, Nevada and New Mexico. General knowledge of nuclear radiation was minimal to the public at that time and the United States government could not warn their citizens about the dangerous effects of exposure to nuclear radiation. The diseases and disorders that arose as result of nuclear testing could have been prevented if the government of the United States had advised people about radiation and had implemented a mandatory evacuation around the test areas.