Brought to you by the same people who invented "duck and cover drills". All is well, your arm really is not flame red or peeling off......The government still does the same BS but just under the table now.

Sad, but for most people at that age, many of their friends will have died from cancer even including those who never came anywhere near a nuclear bomb.

Cancer is a serious killer and it can and does kill many people who were never exposed to significant amounts of radiation.

Quick Indy! Hop into that lead-lined fridge!

"Hey, lady- You call him Dr. Jones!"
-Jonathon Ke Quan as Short Round (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 1984)

So "The Hills Have Eyes" was actually a documentary?

Disgusting. He sounds positively orgasmic about it. This is what happens because testosterone rules the Earth. No wonder the planet is polluted, boiling up and rotting out from under us. Absolutely shameful.

Thank God these officers were only mid level. If they had been senior grade officers WW2 would still be going on.

On the serious side----it never ceases to amaze me how nwe do stuff like like w/o knowing any of the risks invovled. And not just the short term risks.....kinda like fracking today. I wonder what humanity will have to say in about 50/60 years when some of the unknown risks starting popping up their ugly head.

We at least had cojones back then - when men were men! Maybe radioactive, and short-lived, but no one messed with us!

They had cojones until they had to have them removed because of testicular cancer... Less risk of brain tumor since they are obviously missing that part already.

humans lol

I remember watching a video of soldiers in close proximity to a ground blast hidden in a trench to avoid the blast wave and then marching off towards the mushroom cloud. It was amazing but understandable in post war years that for some reason citizens trusted the government. In reality they were guinea pigs.

The military has always played fast & loose with soldiers (and citizens) lives all covered up in nationalistic zeal.

AreYouBuyingThis? says"Lets test another bomb just above Dearborn Michigan............"

As I sit here in Dearborn, a man of western European descent, an all american, I have to say a few things about Dearborn and it's population. Yes, it may be the city in the USA with the highest per-capita population of people descended from the middle east, but it is a city of USA loving, hard working, respectful, peaceful, non-violent people, who left their homeland for a better life in a land of prosperity instead of tyranny. They are what now our ancestors were 270 years ago.

There are terrorists in every color and origin. How about if all non-white people associated every white person with a neo-nazi skin head? Would that be fair?

It seems that at least three out of the six people lived long lives, two of the military officers and the photographer. This is probably in line with population statistics for the time. I am not saying that this was a smart move, but the article does nothing to suggest that any of these men suffered any ill effects from their exposure. It is an interesting tale, but their are no facts to back up the suggestive language used by the author.

This pales to sending the "NATIONAL Guard" to Iraq ...

Now we realize there were $billions of reasons to do that!

OK Mark show me the forged cover up paperwork that you and Donald Trump printed. The you can get together with Rush Limberger and discuss the Batman conspiracy.

there is nothing more invigorating than trillions of Aplha and beta particles racing through your body and the thrill of protons and neutrons zipping through your man parts. yay, another example of "Milatary Intelligence' yay

Can't fix whats not broke.

If any of this is remotely true, which I doubt, it only goes to prove that while God always looks out for drunks and babies - in this case he has made an exception for 5 IDIOTS.

JS in SD:

...but the article does nothing to suggest that any of these men suffered any ill effects from their exposure.

Of course it doesn't. When was the last time you were given the complete, straight story from any media medium?

I guess I'm going to be in the minority, again. I think this movie is awesome. I'd like to have seen some camera footage from the air too, and maybe some wider angle views to see how far the blast wave extended, but this was pretty cool. The guys in this movie, and the cameraman was a volunteer too, let's be honest, all understood whatever risks they were taking. And what they understood was that there was almost no risk so long as the rocket flew properly and detonated 3.5 miles up. This was a TINY atomic blast, only 3KT.

Probably the biggest dangers these men faced was the sunburn they might've gotten in the desert, or the possibility of a vehicle accident on the way to or from ground zero. Too many people want to make something here out of nothing. And the coolest thing of all, but I'm glad we don't do it anymore, was the above ground atomic tests that millions of people viewed. It'd be kind of cool if, in drawing down our stockpiles, we actually popped a few of these off (our bigger warheads) in space, say 500 miles up, and at night.

Rich: If they truly understood all the risks, then what were they trying to prove? It's safety?

Mark plase go get a brain from the nearest organ donation station. Arpioo's Bs is just that BS. The investigation was undertaken by a guy that stands to benefit from this becoming a scandal, he write books about Government conspiracies.

Some times you Republicans (the Birthers) are the biggest bunch of naive twits I have ever seen. You believe anyone that claims to have proof Obama is a Muslim just because that is your default assumption: "He cannot possibly be American because he does not think like us good ol' boys!"

Please grow a pair and admit you were wrong.

The five officers, who volunteered for the duty, and the cameraman, who did not

The camerman didn't get a choice as to if he wanted to be at *Ground Zero* or not....so much so that he was not even incl in the *population count* on the sign.

and the cameraman was a volunteer too, let's be honest

Dream on....b/c his name was:

George Yoshitake

And what did the US govt do to Japanese-Americans during WWII?

They probably plucked him out of the handiest *containment camp*, didn't tell him exactly where he was going until he was there, & likely threatened to shoot him &/or his entire family if he left w/o getting the footage *needed*.

um Lill point of order. He is not black. He is mixed. So by your standard you could say there is a white man in the whitehouse. Hey dont get mad at me. Morgan Freeman said it first.

As far as these officers...wonder what was going through thier mind while they were watching it. Well, besides about a bazillion rads. Ok, just kidding I know the article said some of the men lived long lives.

Um, Scar Tissue, well, you see the war, meaning WW2, ended in 1945, and this movie was filmed in 1957. I don't think one has to be a mathematical wizard to conclude that Mr. Yoshitake wasn't in a camp in 1957. But hey, it's your delusion!

Hey Debi,

Exactly, just as the article states. People, lots of them highly educated too, have an awful lot of wild ideas and fears. An air-to-air rocket would not have been designed as a mass casualty weapon, but lots of people were afraid of atomic power. So if you wanted to have an atomic device with which to destroy enemy aircraft or missles before they destroy your own forces, but without wiping out your own forces, you might want a low-yield weapon to do it. But to get the services to adopt the idea you'd have to persuade the normally VERY conservative (not politically in this context) military brass it works.

I mean, the army wouldn't want the air force to use the device if the worry was about army forces on the ground below. Same idea as with the navy. And the air force would be disinclined to use a weapon of this kind if it meant the fighter that launched it would be destroyed as well. Know what I mean?

one hell of a boom

I think the folks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki would disagree with the premise of this article. I went to an exhibit of paintings and pictures drawn by survivors with captions explaining the pics. It was so painful I could barely make it through the exhibit. There's nothing safe about nuclear power or weapons.

Near the end of the video Col. Bodie wishes we all could have been there at ground zero with them. How touching.

Hey b,

This really should not be so hard to comprehend for people, but apparently it is. This blast was of a 3KT warhead 3.5 miles up. Hiroshima was 16KT at 2,000 feet. Nagasaki was 21KT at 1,500 feet. In other words, it was an amazingly tiny weapon compared to either Fat Man or Little Boy, and was detonated over 3 miles HIGHER than those two bombs. Of course the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not think a nuclear weapon is safe, but that isn't the premise of this story. The premise here is that at that altitude and size, it is safe for soldiers below.

Not for nothing, but nuclear power is incredibly safe. And still not for nothing again, while the deaths of 300,000 Japanese (over the long term) because of the two blasts is sad, it is a better outcome than the continued incendiary bombing of Japanese cities which was killing more Japanese than that, by far, and is WILDLY a better outcome than had the USA invaded Japan. Easily 5 to 10 million Japanese, and another half million or more Americans, plus hundreds of thousands of allied soldiers, would have died.

Is it really that hard to agree that an action which killed lots of people, but saved millions more, had to be the more moral outcome if the goal was to minimize the numbers killed? I'm sorry, but I really do not understand how you arrive at the conclusions you do. They make no logical sense, are backed up by no facts, and are argued without any fidelity to reason.

@danimyl

But we can fix this Obamanation living in our house

You just can stand it can you. I love it when you racists show your true colors. A black man and his family living in your "White" House. It just drives you nuts. Guess what dumbstick. There are a heck of a lot more of us sane people then there are of you. You and your type are endangered species. You will not be missed. All you do is drag this country backwards and down.

Wally,

When they get one group or person that are(is) not some Right Wing Brither mouth piece organization(person) to corroborate these claims and then we can talk. Till then it is all nonsense drivel created by Trump, our idiot Lt Gov here in Arizona, Bachman, and Rush/Hannity/other Tea Party affiliates.

During the atomic testing in the Bikini Atolls (South Pacific), our government exposed upward to 250,000 soldiers and civilian contractors to dangerous and deadly levels of radio activity. This testing was called "Operation Teapot".

Many of those same personal later died slow , painful deaths by cancer and the government who exposed them literally turned their back on them in regard to health care, help of any kind, or any acceptance of responsibility. Absolutely criminal/evil behavior using our service men as cattle for their experiment then shunning any responsibility for the lives and families destroyed.

Easily one of the more ignorant, shameful legacies of our government.

I can never excuse the U.S. government and military for their behavior in these tests. They literally pinned a piece of film on the men to track exposure then brushed them off with brooms (sick). Then they turned their back on these sick test subjects and denied any responsibility. They ruined thousands of lives then acted as if they had no responsibility to our service men or their families.

Disgusting.

It'd be kind of cool if, in drawing down our stockpiles, we actually popped a few of these off (our bigger warheads) in space, say 500 miles up, and at night.

Yea, only for a few seconds, then everyone would realize that all the electronics in the US have gone dead. Even 500 miles up you will still have the EMP from one of these blasts interacting with our planet. Setting one off that high up would be enough to take out most of the contenental US.

With all this technology we have, you'd think they could make it rain over the 81% of the USA that's in a serious drought.

I know they have "some" technology to do so but they need to up the ante.

Always trying to figure out how to extinguish mankind instead of sparing mankind. Ugh!

I would have been very conceerned about that "mist forming above us".....

Sadly, with the extremely high smoking rates of that time it would be difficult to know that IF any of these men were later diagnosed with cancer that it came from the nuclear test rather then Phillip Morris.

I think the point that most people miss with this test isn't that it was "safe" for soldiers to be under the detonation, but that they remained in fighting condition for a significant length of time. That's what the military was trying to justify, not whether they would get cancer 3-5 years later. Their life expectancy in a combat situation where atomic weapons are being detonated overhead (which implies some pretty nasty stuff happening on the ground) would be significantly decreased anyway. The military just wants them to live long enough to accomplish the mission.

Pretty damn stupid, IMO. Why would you detonate an atomic weapon far overhead that would not kill people immediately? What use is it?

What's sad is that none of you would know the dangers of nuclear weapons had men like these not volunteered, allowing us to find out how dangerous they can be. And yet you make fun of them.

scar_tissue-Several small points of history for you. 1) the USA has its own photographers-they do not have to grab someone and coerse them, they are soldiers and as such obey orders. 2) During WW2 we had Japanese-Americans in the military, their only restriction was they could not be deployed in the Pacific Theater and therefore could only be deployed stateside or in the European Theater. This was done due to the Japanese exceptionally strong sense of honor and fear that they might have problems shooting those who looked like them and might be related to them. The Japanese-American solders assigned to the European Theater served with the some of the highest honor and utmost courage of any soldiers in that theater and deserve the same respect and gratitude that are due all soldiers of that war.

Close the Fed-While I do not agree with most of you statements due to the fact that this testing needed to be done, new wepons system and you need to get real life examples under controlled situations, what was done to those soldiers and other military personel of that time period once signs and symptoms started to show up was shameful and an utter discrace to the honor of this country.

alan290-not as stupid as you might think. This type of wepon would have been used in air to air combat and it needed to be proven that the dispersal range of the radiation would be enough as to cause minimal to no effects to possiable ground troops under the hopefully destroyed enemy plane. If the desired effect was to harm the troops below the bomb would have been dropped.

Its too bad these things have fallout Imagine the 4th of July! forget fireworks! yea i bet that was one heck of an amazing show to experience it in person

I noticed the cameraman was giving interviews at 82, already past average.

WTF ?

The five officers, who volunteered for the duty, and the cameraman, who did not

MSNBC what does that mean, he did not volunteer ? Jesus, there is only one logical conclusion, and the idiot who wrote this didn't think it was worthy of investigating.

If true, that's a pretty GD big deal. And doesn't seem like it would be hard to figure since the guy is still alive.

Is it SO DAMNED HARD to figure out that the cameraman was ASSIGNED TO THE DUTY & therefore was not a volunteer ?

It IS THE US ARMY, where soldiers are ORDERED to perform their DUTY .

and photographer George Yoshitake.

Interesting. Sounds like he was Japanese. Couldn't he have just said, "Sorry, been there, done that?"

I noticed the cameraman was giving interviews at 82, already past average.

He was Japanese. They tend to live well into their 90s. Japan has one of the largest population of people over 90, with average life expectancy at 82.6, which is number one in the world.

Scott, try a little logic. the camera man did not volunteer to be "unprotected". Ie: he probably had some kind of roof over his head or had radiation resistant clothing on.

Hmmm... Could it be, not being exposed to radiation causes death...? Look at all those people born even many centuries before the first A-bomb test, all dead.. Coincidence? I think not...

Back when men had balls. You had astronauts going into space in small capsules you could barely fit in, not scared to die. Then you have these guys. True, if they knew then what we know now they probably wouldn't have done it. There always has to be firsts though, that is why they call it testing. Hind sight is always 20/20. Its easy to call people stupid, just like 30-50 years from now they will be calling us idiots.

chubby rain: But 30 to 50 years from now, they won't be saying "back when men had balls" because we did nothing to stop rampant bank abuses and global warming.

At least we had the "balls" to put Obama in office. Well said, Chubby!

Well, I guess I should've kept rdg insterad of commenting above....see #1.34 for my take on why he wasn't a *volunteer*.

It IS THE US ARMY, where soldiers are ORDERED to perform their DUTY .

In WWII, initially Japanese-Americans were not accepted into the military....the US did declare war on Japan 1st due to Pearl Harbor, after all, & rounded up American citizens of Japanese descent & slammed them into *camps* (shades of Hitler) for the duration of the war. When they were accepted, none of the Japanese-American soldiers saw the Pacific theatre (for reasons that ought to be obvious but just in case they're not, b/c of their ethnicity; it was more likely to get them *friendly fire* when they looked just like the enemy). They were posted to the European theatre instead. Somehow I doubt a cushy bullet-free Stateside gig seeing no action whatsoever was reserved for anyone but the sons of the white elite. Even Joe Kennedy Jr (who was killed in action, blown to smithereens above the English Channel) & JFK volunteered for active duty when their father Joe Sr (Ambassador to Great Britain, chairman of the SEC, & owner of a Naval shipyard) certainly could've pulled strings to keep them safely behind an American desk.

I still think he was a civilian who was dropped off w/ the volunteers & not given a choice in the matter. (I mean, how far was he going to run b4 getting caught?) The article doesn't attribute a military rank to him &, more significantly, does not expound on why he wasn't a volunteer. Maybe Yoshitake's silence on how he came to be there was purchased by the Pentagon.

cold war...

I think he volunteered, because you know, it is against the law to force him to do what he did...

> just like 30-50 years from now they will be calling us idiots

In your case, Chubby, I'm perfectly content not to wait.

scar_tissue

In WWII, initially Japanese-Americans were not accepted into the military....the US did declare war on Japan 1st due to Pearl Harbor, after all, & rounded up American citizens of Japanese descent & slammed them into *camps*...

I still think he was a civilian who was dropped off w/ the volunteers & not given a choice in the matter. (I mean, how far was he going to run b4 getting caught?) .

The movie was made in 1957, 12 years after the end of WW2. Perhaps you should actually read the story before you start any conspiracy theories about abducting citizens from internment camps.

My bad....totally missed the date LOL And it was a damn good theory, too!

Still don't know why the cameraman was not a volunteer.

There's gotta be an abduction theory in there somewhere :P

Yeah, but what are you going to do?

No, assisting with one is in some state.

But this isn't suicide dummy, suicide is taking your own life on purpose.

isn't suicide against the law?

Yes, but it's hard to prosecute the offenders. They never show up for trial.

It sure is against the law... I believe you get the death penalty if convicted.

No billfromphilly suicide has never been against the law, if you commit suicide you are dead and beyound even our criminal justice system. What is against the law is failing at commiting suicide, otherwise known as attempted suicide, and the sentence will generally include a visit to the "happy young men in their clean white coats" and to a padded room for a stay.

I've had a few aunts and a large percentage of other older relatives die from cancer. No doubt it was related to the testing.

Don't let facts get in the way of your opinion pieces, MSNBC.

My ex's father worked as a chemist on the Manhattan Project. He died from brain cancer in his 40's. Everyone who worked with him also died young from some kind of cancer. That's a fact, not an opinion.

The article was fact based, >;/ x2, with direct quotes and referencing sources. Where do you feel the article side stepped and became opinion?

"Fact" is that lots of people die from cancer, including those who were never exposed to significant amounts of radiation.

You're assuming that had these individuals not participated in nuclear activities, that they would not have died from cancer. That is a fairly large assumption that is most likely incorrect.

There are more facts in your statement than in the article, I'll give you that. A statement from an 82 year-old photographer with no other information on the test subjects is an opinion. Correlation != causation.

lets face it, at the time they did not know they were playing with a very dangerous fire, i mean do research on the demon core and you will see what i'm talking about. to them it was just a means to justify the ending of a war and they would deal with what ever genie that they let out later once the lamp was broken

x2,

Let's not let your ignorance get in the way of your slander and baseless accusations.

This article was fairly benine. It was reporting on people who were a part of something that was, although dreadful, needed, since there were three other countries who were not friendly with us doing the same thing.

Although we aren't an Empire, there are those in other geographies who wouldn't have been opposed to including North America in their's. We didn't understand the extent of the reactions, so too many of the personnel involved were entirely too close to the test sites. Human testing was voluntary, as the article stated, excluding the videographers.

To this day there is a federal fund that pays people who lived in Nevada, Arizona, and Utah in areas that were blanked by the fall-out. Study after staudy has shown that those who lived in these areas suffer from cancers af certain types than any where else, also the ground was tested for many years and radiation was present, again in above normal numbers. Most people do nor realize that they tested hundreds of those bombs in the open air, and even more in underground tests in a number of US states.

look for information on "Downwinders" and you will find info. I had vever heard of the fund, till I went to live in northern Arizona.

>;/ x2

Speaking of facts, there is no longer an "MSNB", the article is from NBC News.

I actually thought the article was beten. Or potentially beeleven, but definitely not benine.

Also, Ed, you seem to be writing as one of those affected. My condolences.

>;/ x2, considering that the US military conducted almost 50 nuclear tests on US soil it IS possible that it had some effect on your family members. We also conducted some 1054 tests in total. That's a lot of radition released in the environment.

"Fact" is that lots of people die from cancer, including those who were never exposed to significant amounts of radiation.

I've got news for you all: we've all been exposed to (maybe significant amounts of?) radiation. Since 1947 there have been at least 2000 detonated somewhere around the world. Check out this disturbing time-lapse simulation of every nuclear test performed since 1945: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY&feature=player_embedded

Go to Alberq. NM or St George Utah, try & find people who were born in 1957....

DEAD from cancer, thyroid & other anomalies that were never present before 1955 or in anywhere else away from the Nevada test facility . Find the people in IOWA who were poisoned by Strontium 90 in cows milk in 1955-59 and see how they are doing & why their kids had a higher incidence of birth defects .

"I've had a few aunts and a large percentage of other older relatives die from cancer. No doubt it was related to the testing. Don't let facts get in the way of your opinion pieces, MSNBC."

>;/ x2. Let me tell you now, in case no one has, you're way off base. As a trained nuclear biological and chemical defense soldier, radiation without a doubt does in fact cause cancer.

Whether your relatives died from cancer or not has nothing at all to do with this article.

" ... Don't let facts get in the way of your opinion pieces, ... "

You mean like the Right in America NEVER lets facts get in the way of .......

... well in the way of any and everything?

Huh. Imagine that.

And speaking of the military, the Navy refuses to release the data about water wells they knew were contaminated with goodies like benzene, toulan and a host of other cancer causing drugs.

Cancer clusters in large military groups of men, women and children. But all is not lost completely from this. The NIH folks are now able to study the cause of breast cancer in men.

It's sickening.

There's radiation everywhere. You're getting radiated right now. Why would these 5 guys have cared if they were underneath it? They'd probably receive more exposure getting on an airplane these days!

ask all those tiny islands we "empired" and tested nukes on how they feel about the above average and rampant cancer...and then tell me we (our govt) had nothing to do with it.

at least we are slowly suiciding the human race of out of existance rather than in one big bang.

rkaralius

"My ex's father worked as a chemist on the Manhattan Project. He died from brain cancer in his 40's. Everyone who worked with him also died young from some kind of cancer. That's a fact, not an opinion."

_________________________________________________________________

Thank you for your post rkarlius. My loyal father also died of brain cancer in his early 40's after involvement in Operation Teapot. That also is a "fact not an opinion".

Thousands of loyal Americans died from tests like Mathattan Project and Operation Teapot and the U.S. Government did NOTHING for the lives lost, painful suffering, and families shattered.

I for one will never forget how our government used these citizens as test animals and then turned their backs on them in their time of need and pain.

Disgusting.

Tony (responding to your post below) (stupid website won't let me fix it!!)

You're right about the altitude and yield. Of course the neutron bomb was what an observer on the ground would call "low yield" but still several kilotons (nothing compared to more modern weapons that measure in the 20 -50 megaton range). It was designed primarily to throw out huge amounts of radiation which would penetrate typical nuclear shelters and kill by tearing apart people's DNA/cell structure (so death would not be instant but soon).

My father-in law, was an Army Air core weatherman.

He monitored those tests. Yes, the cloud moved with the air mass it was detonated in.

He never told me it headed strait for xxx but he said it did not just dissipate. It went somewhere.

Actually airbursts disperse relatively low amounts of radiation, only the contents of the bomb itself. Add that to the thousands of square miles it is diluted over, and you probably can't even detect it above the background radiation. Ground bursts activate (it becomes radioactive) a huge amount of dust and debris, which becomes the fallout. No significant fallout associated with an airburst. So they were probably fine, aside from any hard gamma rays that happened to be beamed directly at them. I highly doubt this test caused any of their cancers. The soldiers who witnessed ground based testing may have a valid complaint though. Depends on how long they spent downwind of the blast.

• Blast—40-50% of total energy
• Thermal radiation—30-50% of total energy
• Ionizing radiation—5% of total energy (more in a neutron bomb)
• Residual radiation—5-10% of total energy

Remydon - You must be one of or closely related to the government propagandists. If not, I'm sure they'll recruit you to become another spin artist for them.

What is your far-fetched theories on the "insignificant" exposure to marine life due to the vast size of the ocean in relation to the Japanese catastrophe?

Remydon-2325813

Ya RIGHT Pal, and NOBODY at HIROSHIMA was radiated because it was an AIR BLAST.....

pull your head outa your arse or whose ever it is that it's hidden up....

stick to Starbux conversations next time .

Hiroshima was a low altitude air blast. High altitude air blasts don't have the same issues.

And since we're resorting to personal attacks, are you really that retarded? You think the same type of airburst that LEVELED Hiroshima was the same type that these six soldiers survived at ground zero? REALLY? Guess they ate their Wheaties that morning...

Just STFU and go read a book you moron.

People at Hiroshima were irradiated by the hard gamma radiation directly from the bomb. Gamma radiation moves at the speed of light. It doesn't linger. It's not "fallout". "Fallout" is irradiated dust that's swept up in the mushroom cloud and that later falls out of the sky.

Airbursts create a lot of hard gamma radiation but comparatively little fallout.

Remydon: ++ lol

It's ridiculous how if you have any education on nuclear technology you are labeled an apologist. I work on naval reactors, have a M.S. in Nuclear Engineering, and I don't give a damn whether a largely retarded public thinks about it. Thankfully, naval reactors don't need the approval of the public.

I'm just trying to throw in some clarifying facts. If you think it is spin, then good for you. I have no vested interest in nuclear weapons, and never will. I work on reactors. It doesn't change the truth though.

also depends on the size of weapon. the air-to-air missiles are much smaller than the bomb used on Hiroshima, and, as noted, the Hiroshima bomb detonated at 2,000 feet, the one in the article at 18,500 feet. As late as the 1980's, we had nuclear air-to-air missiles on alert aircraft. don't need a direct hit, and an explosion can down several aircraft in the vicinity. Another poster was correct on the fallout issue. Too far above the earth to create the vacuum beneath it to suck up dust. The Hiroshima bomb was low enough to suck up dust, so there was some fallout from it, although most of the radiation illness was the result of immediate exposure to the bomb itself.

Remydon has been fairly spot on. The only thing missing is a discussion of how much dust an air-burst will pick up at various altitudes. The French "neutron bomb" was a nuclear air-burst designed to kill troops and leave the equipment intact. A ground-burst nuke could make a 1/4 mile crater. An air-burst at on a few thousand feet will suck up an enormous amount of dust, but not as much as a ground-burst.

Height and yield will make a difference on how much radioactive dust will be scattered.

Jon got in first. That's what happens when people walk into your office while you are typing posts and wasting time.

OK, now I've lost sight of the "mission."

If airbursts are so relatively harmless, why were they being tested?

They're harmless to ground targets. Not so much to the nearby bombers and fighters that they are aimed at.

rkaralius and TonyInDallas: Great info. Thanks, guys.

I feel like I can turn off my computer and feel like I actually learned something from my MSNBC NBCNews stay.

I'll look forward to your future posts.

Remydon, gotcha. Thanks.

Nobody gained any super powers? Bummer!

@moonie-Check the "Camp Lejeune Historical Water Project" If you lived on base or nearby you may qualify for a program set up by Dept. of the Navy.

Nobody gained any super powers? Bummer!

None reported. I suspect a cover-up.

*tin foil hat off*

Also, radioactive fallout is also affected by wind speed, direction and other weather patterns. Forgot ot mention that earlier.

It was probably an air to air missle intened to take out incoming ICBMs or bombers. Better to take out a big bomb high up with a little one (2 kilotons yield is small for a nuke) than to let the big one get to its target

That's right. Intercept an incoming attack with an above-ground burst to spread the nuclear cloud over a greater area. Gotta save the target rich environment of areas such as Washington DC. What would America do without their leadership?

A 2KT blast is nothing. And a nuclear bomb that's blasted to pieces before it undergoes fission is significantly easier to clean up than one that goes critical.

This isn't like "missile defense", one nuclear bomb won't cause another one to detonate.

or were very very tall......................................:)

about 5000

Even without Einstein the bomb would have been made. I'm sure he's considered it and I'm sure he realizes the truth of this. Sometimes it's better to create something terrible but be far enough inside the inner circle to try to direct the hand that really controls it.

If the atomic bomb was never made, Harry Truman would have had to send in American troops into Japan to make the Japanese to surrender. Whenever you send in American troops into hostile territory, there will be a lot of deaths. So when Truman dropped the A-Bomb, he was saving the American soldiers lives. Also, Russia was very close to invading Japan. By the time we dropped the bombs, the Red Army was already invading Mongolia.

If not for the bomb, there would have been American AND Japanese deaths. The bombs isolated the deaths to Japan only.

Russia did not declare war on Japan until AFTER we dropped the bombs. If they had not declared war, they would have been excluded from the Japanese negotiations and would not get any "spoils".

Also if you did not know the Koreans were working on an atomic bomb, and supposedly very close to actually getting it, when Japan invaded Korea thus stopping Korea's research. Of course this all occured before we as a nation became interested in that part of the war.

If that were the case, Japan probably would have had the bomb before us, after stealing Korea's research.

Though I have my doubts about this bit of info. Do you have a reference?

if not for the bomb Nan King would have been a drop in the bucket to the rest of China. The "Rape of nan king" ended on Sep 2nd 1945 only a few weeks after the Bombing of Japan and in Nan King alone close to 300,000 were killed in the most horrific ways you can imagine... There is no doubt that these two bombings saved millions of innocent lives. Japans blood lust at the time was so great the world would not have been enough to quench it..

(If you know nothing about the history i would research it some. "Flowers of war" is a very well written movie about Nan King starring Christian Bale)

agreed

i beleive the term was "putz" but the terms "stupid and "moron" predate them both...............:)

They did artwork?

I served 16 years enlisted. Then I served 12 years commissioned. I was much more educated the last 12 because of my college (at least I know how to spell it-you don't or know how to use a spell check obviously), and much wiser for my age and the best SOLDIERS have both. I do know what you are trying to say but the meaning was lost in your bigotry.

A spell checker wouldn't catch the word "collage." Yes, "collage" is a real word but is misused here. Before you go slighting others for their ignorance perhaps it's wise to check your own first... or at least use a gentle tongue.

Who says spelling and intelligence go together?

I was always told "never trust Enlisted men who are given commissions" because they are nothing more than "Positional Filler"....

.

Actually Fids, those of us who were/are capable of having been both enlisted & officers earned the right of position, it was not "given" to us. It is difficult work to wear both hats and with it comes great responsibility to remember your roots and to provide quality leadership with the understanding that being a junior enlisted person is never easy or financially rewarding.

My "Positional Filler" has granted me the honor of serving on three fast attack submarines (1 of which was in Officer capacity) and now an Amphibious Assault Ship (LHD). I am pretty certain that my shelf life has proven greater than just filling one position, but thanks for your perspective. BTW how long did you serve and in what capacity?

@Chris: Easy big feller... I'm sure he didn't mean you. But confess, you know at least as many ROADies (Retired On Active Duty) as I do.

And yes, you've got to know at least one butter bar with a Master's in Basket Weaving. There's at least one in every Quatermaster's unit.

And you're right - it's quite difficult to trade in one's stripes for brass, at least until payday ;-)

I worked for a nuclear fuels producer several years back. We had ongoing, compulsory, safety training which noted that short term exposure to high levels of radiation was statistically less dangerous than chronic exposure at lower doses. It's gambling with the odds, so no sure "if exposed to this much at 'x' feet, you will get 'y'". Still though, that might explain some of the people exposed only briefly to just the blasts fairing better than those who lived for years in the fallout zones.

You would think that hard lessons about radiation poisoning would have been learned as early as 1921 when the painters of radium-dial watches at the U. S. Radium Corporation in Orange, NJ, began to fall ill and die. These young women, known as the Radium Girls, suffered well-documented horrors from radiation poisoning; however, the usual company cover-ups and government complicity refused to acknowledge the dangers. They were studied by one Harrison Martland, a pioneer of Forensic Medicine, and chronicled by him in 1925 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Still, it was 1928 before the Company moved to settle a lawsuit, brought by the remaining survivors, for a paltry sum even for that time.

Although the Food & Drug Act was passed in 1906, it did not require premarket inspections and approval. The Food and Drug Administration, established in 1930 as part of the US Department of Health and Human Services, does have the authority and the teeth to compel rigorous testing and safety requirements of such products, and grew out of just such tragic incidents and the humane desire to prevent them from happening again.

Ah, well... Good intentions, eh?

The EMP effects of this relatively weak bomb probably won't cause much problems for the electronics of the time. It is an interesting question though.

But things were built so much more robust back then. Besides how much electronic gadgets were there, then?

no TV...no radio or telegraph HELL most of AMERICA was riding on horseback.....NOT you flippin moron !

The bomb was far too small, and detonated far too low to cause an EMP.

Hey guys I believe I remember hearing once that EMP effects are minimized or null on old tube equipment. The real nasty effects are on the type of circuity we have now with transistors and microprocessors. That is why, at least for a long time it was said that the Russian fliers might have held up better than American fliers due to the fact that so much of their tech was still based on tubes.

Then they hopped in their vehicles that run on internal combustion engines in case neither the bomb nor the cigarettes did the trick.

Wherever there are narrow minded, pea-brained right wingnuts: that's where!

We sure were naive back then, but still I think the government should have known better, based on the injuries sustained by the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

There's one more thing. Contrary to the accompanying information, only the first airplane (the one nearest the blast) was a Northrop F-89 Scorpion. The one behind it was a Martin B-57 Night Intruder, which was basically Britain's English Electric Canberra built under license in this country.

No, it was ignorance. Back then no one knew the longer effects. The first nuclear reactor was built on a racket court at the University of Chicago. It had no lead shielding or safety measures. The physicists and mathematicians were absolutely confident they weren't necessary.