Nuclear testing

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Image:NTS test preparation2.jpg Template:Nuclear weapons A nuclear test explosion is an experiment involving the detonation of a nuclear warhead. Throughout the twentieth century, most nations which have developed nuclear weapons have staged tests of them. Testing nuclear weapons can yield information about how the weapons work (known as "weapons related" testing), as well as how the weapons behave under various conditions and how structures behave when subjected to nuclear explosions ("known as "weapons effects" testing). Additionally, nuclear testing has often been used as an indicator of scientific and military strength and many tests have been overtly political in their intention, and most nuclear weapons states publicly declared their nuclear status by means of a nuclear test.

Nuclear weapons tests are generally classified as being either "atmospheric" (in or above the atmosphere), "underground". or "underwater". Of these, underground testing contained in deep shafts poses the least health risk in terms of fallout. Atmospheric testing which comes in contact with the ground or other materials poses the highest risk. Nuclear weapons have been tested by dropping them from planes (an "airdrop"), from the tops of towers, hoisted from balloons, on barges at sea, attached to the bottom of ships, and even shot into outer space by rockets (high-altitude nuclear testing).

The first atomic test was detonated by the United States at the Trinity site on July 16, 1945, with a yield approximately equivalent to 20 kilotons. The first hydrogen bomb, codenamed "Mike", was tested at the Enewetak atoll in the Marshall Islands on November 1, 1952, also by the United States. The largest nuclear weapon ever tested was the "Tsar Bomba" of the Soviet Union at Novaya Zemlya, with an estimated yield of around 50 megatons.

In 1963, all nuclear and many non-nuclear states signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, pledging to refrain from testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, underwater, or in outer space. The treaty permitted underground tests. France continued atmospheric testing until 1974, while China continued up until 1980. The last underground test by the United States was in 1992, the Soviet Union in 1990, the United Kingdom in 1991, and both France and China continued testing up until 1996. After adopting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996, all of these states have pledged to discontinue all nuclear testing. Non-signatories India and Pakistan both last tested nuclear weapons in 1998.

Nuclear-weapons-related testing which result in no yield is known as subcritical testing; additionally, there have been simulations of nuclear tests using conventional explosives (such as the Minor Scale U.S. test in 1985).

1 History
2 Nuclear testing by country
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

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History

Image:Trinity shot color.jpg The first nuclear test was conducted by the United States on July 16, 1945, during the Manhattan Project, and given the codename "Trinity". The test was originally to confirm that the implosion-type nuclear weapon design was feasible, and to give the scientists and military officers an idea of what the actual size and effects of a nuclear explosion would be before they were used in combat against Japan. While the test gave a good approximation of many of the explosion's effects, it did not give an appreciable understanding of nuclear fallout, which was not well understood by the project scientists until well after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The United States conducted only six nuclear tests before the Soviet Union developed their first atomic bomb (Joe 1) and tested it on August 29, 1949. Neither country had very many nuclear weapons to spare at first, and so testing was relatively limited (when the U.S. used two weapons for Operation Crossroads in 1946, they were detonating over 20% of their current arsenal). However, by the 1950s the United States had established a dedicated test site on its own territory (Nevada Test Site) and were also using a site in the Marshall Islands (Pacific Proving Grounds) for extensive nuclear testing.

The early tests were used primarily to discern the military effects of nuclear weapons (Crossroads had involved the effect of nuclear weapons on a navy, and how they functioned underwater) and to test new weapon designs. During the 1950s these included new hydrogen bomb designs, which were tested in the Pacific, and also new and improved fission weapon designs. The Soviet Union also began testing on a limited scale, primarily in Kazakhstan. During the later phases of the Cold War, though, both countries developed accelerated testing programs, testing many hundreds of bombs over the last half of the twentieth century.

Image:Bravo fallout2.png

Nuclear tests can involve many hazards. A number of these were best illustrated in the U.S. Castle Bravo test in 1954. The weapon design tested was a new form of hydrogen bomb, and the scientists underestimated how vigorously some of the weapon materials would react. As a result, the explosion — with a yield of 15 Mt — was over twice of what was predicted. Aside from this problem, the weapon also generated a large amount of radioactive nuclear fallout, more than had been anticipated, and a change in the weather pattern caused the fallout to be spread in a direction which had not been cleared ahead of time. The fallout plume spread high levels of radiation for over a hundred miles, contaminating a number of populated islands in nearby atoll formations (the populations had to be evacuated, and many suffered from radiation burns and later from other effects such as increased cancer rate and birth defects), as well as a Japanese fishing boat. One member of the fishing boat died from radiation sickness after returning to port, and it was feared that the radioactive fish they had been carrying had made it into the Japanese food supply.

Image:US fallout exposure.png

Bravo was the worst U.S. nuclear accident, but many of its component problems — unpredictably large yields, changing weather patterns, unexpected fallout contamination of populations and the food supply — occurred during other atmospheric nuclear weapons tests by other countries as well. Concerns over worldwide fallout rates eventually lead to the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, which limited signatories to only underground testing. Not all atmospheric tests stopped, however, but because the United States and the Soviet Union in particular stopped testing aboveground it cut the number of atmospheric tests down substantially, since around 86% of all nuclear tests were conducted by those two countries. France continued atmospheric testing until 1974, and People's Republic of China until 1980.

Almost all new nuclear powers have announced their possession of nuclear weapons with a nuclear test. The only acknowledged nuclear power which claims to have never conducted a test was South Africa (who has since claimed to have dismantled all of their weapons). The state of Israel is widely thought by intelligence agencies to possess a sizeable nuclear arsenal, though it has never tested. Experts disagree on whether states can have reliable nuclear arsenals — especially ones using advanced warhead designs, such as hydrogen bombs and miniaturized weapons — without testing, though all agree that it is very unlikely to develop significant nuclear innovations without testing. One other approach is to use supercomputers to conduct "virtual" testing, but the value of these simulations without actual test result data is thought to be slim.

Image:Sedan Plowshare Crater.jpg

Some nuclear testing has been for "peaceful" purposes. These so-called peaceful nuclear explosions were used to evaluate whether nuclear explosions could be used for non-military purposes such as digging canals and artificial harbors, or to stimulate oil and gas fields. In most cases the results were too radioactive for use, and the programs proved neither economically sound or politically favorable.

Nuclear testing has also been used for clearly political purposes. The most explicit example of this was the detonation of the largest nuclear bomb ever created, the 50 Mt Tsar Bomba, by the Soviet Union in 1961. This weapon was far too large to be practically used against an enemy target, and it is not thought that any were actually developed except the one which was detonated. The weapon was used by the USSR as a show of Soviet strength and force, rather than to be developed as an actual weapon or for specifically scientific purposes.

There have been many attempts to limit the number and size of nuclear testing; the most far-reaching was the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996, which was not ratified by the United States. The last worldwide nuclear tests were in 1998. Nuclear testing has since become a controversial issue in the United States, with a number of politicians saying that future testing might be necessary to maintain the aging warheads from the Cold War. Because nuclear testing is seen as furthering nuclear arms development, many are also opposed to future testing as an acceleration of the arms race.

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Nuclear testing by country

Template:Main The nuclear powers have conducted at least 2,000 nuclear test explosions (numbers are approximated, as some test results have been disputed): Image:Nuclear use locations world map.PNG

Template:Flagicon United States: 1,050 tests (involving 1,125 devices,331 atmospheric tests), most at Nevada Test Site and the Pacific Proving Grounds in the Marshall Islands, with ten other tests taking place at various locations in the United States, including Alaska, Colorado, Mississippi, and New Mexico (see nuclear weapons and the United States for details).
Template:Flagicon Soviet Union: between 715 and 969 tests, most at Semipalatinsk Test Site and Novaya Zemlya, and a few more at various sites in Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine.
Template:Flagicon France: 210 tests, mostly at Reggane and Ekker in Algeria, and Fangataufa and Moruroa in French Polynesia.
Template:Flagicon United Kingdom: 45 tests (21 in Australian territory, including 9 in mainland South Australia at Maralinga and Emu Field, many others in the U.S. as part of joint test series)
Template:Flagicon China: 45 tests (23 atmospheric and 22 underground, all conducted at Lop Nur Nuclear Weapons Test Base, in Malan, Xinjiang)
Template:Flagicon India: between 5 and 6 tests, at Pokhran.
Template:Flagicon Pakistan: between 3 and 6 tests, at Chagai Hills.

Additionally, there may have been at least three alleged/disputed/unacknowledged nuclear explosions (see list of alleged nuclear tests). Of these, the only one taken seriously as a possible nuclear test is the Vela Incident, a possible detection of a nuclear explosion in the Indian Ocean in 1979 hypothesized to be a joint Israeli/South African test.

From the first nuclear test in 1945 until the latest tests by Pakistan in 1998, there was never a period of more than 22 months with no nuclear testing. Therefore, the period from June of 1998 to the present has been, by far, the longest period since 1945 with no acknowledged nuclear tests.

Image:Worldwide nuclear testing.png

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Weapons of
mass destruction
By Type
Biological weapons
Chemical weapons
Nuclear weapons
Radiological weapons
By country
Algeria	Argentina
Brazil	Australia
Canada	P.R. China
France	Germany
India	Iran
Iraq	Israel
Italy	Japan
Netherlands	North Korea
Pakistan	Poland
Russia	South Africa
ROC (Taiwan)	United Kingdom
United States

References

History

Gusterson, Hugh. Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996.
Hacker, Barton C. Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing, 1947-1974. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994.
Schwartz, Stephen I. Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998.
Weart, Spencer R. Nuclear Fear: A History of Images. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.

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