Russian Meteor

[rekees4300]

While the topic of accidental nuclear war is being discussed, does the name Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov ring a bell? It should since because of him the USA still exists!!

Stanislav Petrov - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[dmccarty]

So,,,,,, the USA now has a weapon that is like 30 times more destructive then the Hiroshima bomb? We need a Physicist to tell us if that is even reasonable. Any Physicists here?

Oh, and if it turns out we do have this kind of bomb at our disposal, I would think twice b4 poking the US in the eye with insults. Just saying.

Does not take a physicist.

There are two main types of nuke bombs, fission and fusion.

Fission weapons, atomic bombs, were used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are two types of fission weapons, one that implodes and one that is a gun. An implosion weapon is very hard to make because the radioactive material is in a sphere wrapped with explosives. The explosives have to go off at the same time to implode/compress the radioactive material so that it goes super critical and there is a big boom. A fission gun device fires a chunk of radioactive material into another radioactive chunk causing the mass to go super critical and making big boom.

The bomb tested in New Mexico in 1945 was an implosion device. Nobody knew if it would work and one of the concerns was that if the weapon did not go super critical would they be able to recover the VERY expensive plutonium that would have been blown all over the test site. At that point in time, the US only had the three weapons and would only have enough radioactive material to make a few more bombs by the end of 1945.

The Hiroshima bomb was 13-18 Kilotons. This bomb was a gun type weapon and had NEVER been tested. The bomb used a naval gun, I think it was a six inch cannon, to launch one chunk of sub critical material, Uranium in this case, into another chuck of sub critical material at the other end of the bomb. The Nagasaki bomb, 20ish Kilotons, was an implosion device similar to what was tested in New Mexico.

Fission weapons SPLIT the atom to make big boom. Fusion weapons fuse hydrogen thus these weapons are called hydrogen bombs/H Bombs/Thermonuclear bomb. A hydrogen, aka fusion bomb, needs a FISSION bomb to start the reaction to make the big boom.

H Bombs make bigger booms than fission/atom bombs.

According to Wikipedia, the largest US H Bomb test was 15 MEGA tons which is over 833 times larger than the Hiroshima bomb. It looks like most US weapons were in the 100-475 Kilotons or 5 to 26 times the size of the Hiroshima bomb.

The Russians set off a 50 MEGA ton H bomb one time.

Later,
Dan

 

[jerrybob]

While the topic of accidental nuclear war is being discussed, does the name Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov ring a bell? It should since because of him the USA still exists!!

Stanislav Petrov - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They named a vodka after him........Petrov Vodka Facts and Figures

 

[Soundguy]

then it would be more appropriate to drop the bomb ON Russia, and not over it.

.

actually.. air burst is pretty darn effective..

 

[ArtMech]

I would add propaganda aspect to the topic. They know most of all Western countries are scared of accidential or uncontrolled missile(s) launch to be occured because of incompetence, equipement failure, corruption, vodka, loss of discipline and many other possible reasons. And they are frightenning the world in that way - if something will go wrong, nobody knows what might happen. The difference is a) in the cold war era they were saying, we will launch a missile, b) now they let the world understand the missile launch could go out of control. For sure they think b) works better for them now than a), and successfully use this Scare Tactics idea. But in reality I think it's only the game and propaganda.
Looks like even recent meteor fall is applied as a part of Scare Tactics program.

 

[MossRoad]

actually.. air burst is pretty darn effective..

You are correct. I'm pretty sure almost all nukers are set to detonate above ground, not on ground.

 

[MasseyWV]

You are correct. I'm pretty sure almost all nukers are set to detonate above ground, not on ground.

I agree. A simple way of looking at it is line of sight, where one can see much more from high above. The same is true of a blast radius.

 

[dmccarty]

When I wrote up my post about nukes, I did some fact checking on myself and left the page open.

I went to close the page today and some text caught my eye. Most nukes were set to air burst since it would do more damage. The bombs on Japan where air bursts. Then there are penetration bombs to take out command and control center bunkers and I suppose silos. What caught my eye was that there was a third deployment called lay down. The danged bombs were designed so that multiple parachutes where deployed and the bomb would simply lay on the ground before The Big Boom. I never knew that. Lay down mode would send a larger ground shock to destroy underground structures.

Later,
Dan

 

[texasjohn]

Ah, yes:gloomy::gloomy:

How can I kill thee:tombstone:

Let me count the ways:yo-yo::yo-yo:


This meteor has been so educational. Learned about dash cams for all cars, seen dozens of wrecks, meteor blast less damaging than nuclear device because dispersed across 32 seconds of space and time, fragments worth more than gold.

 

[ArtMech]

Another idea was running in Russia about what it was right after no radiation was found. Some say it was American cosmic debris. :laughing: Vivid imagination!