Henry’s Take on Nukes: Frightening Moments in History

–Henry Huang

 

Two weeks ago, North Korea tested a nuclear weapon, alarming the world. Nuclear weapons are some of the most destructive weapons that man has ever built. During the dark times of the Cold War, there were many crazy ideas about nuclear weapons. Here are a few of them.

1) The Czar Bomba was the biggest nuclear weapon designed and produced in history.

2) The Davy Crockett was the smallest nuclear weapon ever produced but was intended as “conventional weaponry” to be used in the battlefield against the USSR.

And, 3) in the 1950’s, NASA had planned on using nuclear explosions to propel rockets through space.

The Czar Bomba
This weapon is the most powerful explosive device ever built by human beings. Designed by the Soviets in 1960, this device had a yield of 50 megaton TNT–3,800 times more powerful than theHiroshima bomb. However, it was not designed in 50 megaton TNT; it was designed actually to be 100 megaton TNT. For a Hydrogen bomb like that, there is no place in the world that the weapon could be tested safely. That was the reason that the final explosion was only 50 megaton. It was not designed to put into real use. The Soviets were threatening Americans by the explosion of the Czar Bomba. It was designed to be a threat. When it was exploded and tested, the fireball could be seen more than 1,000 kilometers away–that’s more than 600 miles or three times the distance to Los Angeles from Rancho Mirage. The hot wind would givehuman beings 170 kilometers away 3rd degree burns. The explosion ranked second among all the explosions in the world.

 (Note: the largest explosion made dinosaurs extent.)

 

The Davy Crockett

This nuclear weapon was designed by Americans in the late 1950’s. The United States deployed this small “battlefield” nuclear weapon in West Germany in case of possible Soviet invasion. 
 The weapon is not a relatively powerful nuke, only yielding 10 tons TNT payload. A Davy Crockett can only cause damage in a 2.5 mile range. However, that is the reason this weapon is crazy. Because this nuke is so small, it must be fired at close range with a handheld cannon. The radiation caused by firing this weapon at close range might harm the very soldiers who fired the weapon. What’s more, the weapon was designed to use in a conventional battlefield. The idea of using a nuclear weapon conventionally is crazy! How could this be common practice on the battlefield?
The United States Army, however, produced more than 2,100 pieces of the Davy Crockett nuclear device. From 1956 to 1971 Americans were producing them. The Davy Crockett retired from the Army in 1971.

Nuclear Explosions & NASA: Operation Orion
NASA, in the 1950s, worked on a project meant to send astronauts to Mars. This plan to send rockets to Mars sounds like it has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. However, it was one of the craziest ideas regarding the use of nuclear weapons.
 Crazy was using nuclear weapons in the 60’s to remove rocks and mountains for road access and construction. However, this idea is the craziest. Americans were trying to use nuclear weapons as fuel for rockets! NASA was trying to use the enormous force that nuclear weapon explosions could produce to propel rockets. 
 The plan was so outrageous and so dangerous. They couldn’t steer a nuclear-explosion-powered rocket. The power itself is uncontrollable. The plan was to explode nuclear weapons–one by one–to push the rockets to Mars. In fact, NASA cancelled the plan in a short time.

 

Nuclear weaponry is a representation of human creativity. These designs are representative of the crazy things that happened in a crazy era–the Cold War. If history could repeat itself again, I believe that human beings would not create monsters like these!

*To see a simulation of the destruction of these various nuclear weapons, go to NUKEMAP @ nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap.