Sayeret
04-20-2009, 02:27 PM
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The first nuclear weapon ever tested by the US, the Gadget.
Trinity Shot was part of the secret Manhattan Project - the atomic bomb project charged with designing, developing, testing, and firing a weaponization of the newly discovered phenomenon, fission, the splitting of nuclei of heavy particles to release energy. Nicknamed "Gadget," the device was exploded at the Trinity Site in southeastern New Mexico, near Alamogordo as the first proof test of the concept of implosion. This involved taking a critical mass of plutonium and using detonators to set off high explosives to cause the mass of radioactive material to squeeze in upon itself until it reached a super critical mass. This implosion, then, resulted in the splitting of the nuclei in the plutonium atoms, which produced heat, blast, and radiation.
The blast that lit up the entire New Mexico sky at 5:29:45 a.m. on July 16, 1945 was "brighter than 20 suns and the most spectacular sunrise ever seen." That's how Ben Benjamin, a retired Sandia weaponeer and member of the Manhattan project, described the first test of an atomic bomb at the Trinity Site. In 1945 Ben was a 22-year-old Army sergeant assigned as a technician to the photo-optical division in the Manhattan Project. Selected for the job because of his earlier work in industry making lenses and prisms, he was one of a handful of people in the division responsible for photographing the blast using both still and motion picture cameras.
Mike
The Mike device was a 22-foot-long, 5-foot-diameter cylinder housing canisters of liquid hydrogen fuel. These canisters were surrounded by the atomic trigger. The Mike shot occurred on October 31, 1952, and as scientists watched from 40 miles away as the mushroom cloud rose into the stratosphere, the second generation of nuclear weapons was born.
The island where the device was detonated was vaporized. The hole Mike left was big enough to accommodate several pentagon-size buildings and deep enough to hold the Empire State Building. Mike's yield was an incredible 10.4 megatons, signaling the expansion of the nuclear arsenal from fission to fusion, the same process that occurs in the Sun.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/images/davy2.jpg
Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM)
In the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. developed lightweight nuclear devices to use in the interest of U.S. national security. The Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM) was a Navy and Marines project that was demonstrated as feasible in the mid-to-late 1960s, but was never used. The project, which involved a small nuclear weapon, was designed to allow one individual to parachute from any type of aircraft carrying the weapon package that would be placed in a harbor or other strategic location that could be accessed from the sea. Another parachutist without a weapon package would follow the first parachutist to provide support as needed. The two-man team would place the weapon package in an acceptable location, set the timer, and swim out into the ocean where they would be retrieved by a submarine or other high-speed water craft. The parachute jumps and the retrieval procedures were practiced extensively. While the procedures were practiced extensively, SADM was never used. These types of weapons are no longer in the stockpile.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/nuke-list.htm
http://www.blogiseverything.com/files/pics/nuclear_bomb_comparison.gif
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/images/gadget-ready.jpg
The first nuclear weapon ever tested by the US, the Gadget.
Trinity Shot was part of the secret Manhattan Project - the atomic bomb project charged with designing, developing, testing, and firing a weaponization of the newly discovered phenomenon, fission, the splitting of nuclei of heavy particles to release energy. Nicknamed "Gadget," the device was exploded at the Trinity Site in southeastern New Mexico, near Alamogordo as the first proof test of the concept of implosion. This involved taking a critical mass of plutonium and using detonators to set off high explosives to cause the mass of radioactive material to squeeze in upon itself until it reached a super critical mass. This implosion, then, resulted in the splitting of the nuclei in the plutonium atoms, which produced heat, blast, and radiation.
The blast that lit up the entire New Mexico sky at 5:29:45 a.m. on July 16, 1945 was "brighter than 20 suns and the most spectacular sunrise ever seen." That's how Ben Benjamin, a retired Sandia weaponeer and member of the Manhattan project, described the first test of an atomic bomb at the Trinity Site. In 1945 Ben was a 22-year-old Army sergeant assigned as a technician to the photo-optical division in the Manhattan Project. Selected for the job because of his earlier work in industry making lenses and prisms, he was one of a handful of people in the division responsible for photographing the blast using both still and motion picture cameras.
Mike
The Mike device was a 22-foot-long, 5-foot-diameter cylinder housing canisters of liquid hydrogen fuel. These canisters were surrounded by the atomic trigger. The Mike shot occurred on October 31, 1952, and as scientists watched from 40 miles away as the mushroom cloud rose into the stratosphere, the second generation of nuclear weapons was born.
The island where the device was detonated was vaporized. The hole Mike left was big enough to accommodate several pentagon-size buildings and deep enough to hold the Empire State Building. Mike's yield was an incredible 10.4 megatons, signaling the expansion of the nuclear arsenal from fission to fusion, the same process that occurs in the Sun.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/images/davy2.jpg
Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM)
In the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. developed lightweight nuclear devices to use in the interest of U.S. national security. The Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM) was a Navy and Marines project that was demonstrated as feasible in the mid-to-late 1960s, but was never used. The project, which involved a small nuclear weapon, was designed to allow one individual to parachute from any type of aircraft carrying the weapon package that would be placed in a harbor or other strategic location that could be accessed from the sea. Another parachutist without a weapon package would follow the first parachutist to provide support as needed. The two-man team would place the weapon package in an acceptable location, set the timer, and swim out into the ocean where they would be retrieved by a submarine or other high-speed water craft. The parachute jumps and the retrieval procedures were practiced extensively. While the procedures were practiced extensively, SADM was never used. These types of weapons are no longer in the stockpile.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/nuke-list.htm