DailyDirt: Not So Secret Nuclear Weapons
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
As technology advances, it gets easier and easier to make all kinds of complicated things. Information spreads more easily, and it's more and more difficult to keep technology away from any particular group of people. It's an exciting time, but it could also be a bit scary. The knowledge of how to design and build nuclear weapons has existed for decades now, and more countries are developing their own nuclear weapons programs (sometimes with the help of other nuclear-capable countries). Here are just a few things that might keep you awake as the Doomsday Clock is just 5 minutes away from midnight.- Saudi Arabia doesn't have its own nuclear weapons program, but it apparently has a standing order with Pakistan to buy some nuclear warheads. This arrangement isn't exactly transparent, but it's a situation that likely exists and may become more obvious if more Middle East countries develop nuclear weapons. [url]
- Back in the 1960s, the Nth Country Experiment set out to show how long it would take for a country to develop its own atomic bomb from scratch. In 1964, three PhDs in physics were given a support staff and publicly available information about nuclear weapons, and just three years later, these scientists had reasonable blueprints for a nuclear weapon. [url]
- Starfish Prime was part of a series of high-altitude nuclear bomb tests that detonated nuclear weapons over the Pacific Ocean in the 1960s. Starfish Prime demonstrated the effects of a 1.4 megaton nuclear bomb, by knocking out satellites and causing EMP problems for hundreds of miles -- and its blast has shown everyone the potential destructive power of an atomic bomb. [url]
Filed Under: atomic bomb, doomsday clock, emp, nth country experiment, nuclear, starfish prime, weapons
