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The test was of an implosion-design plutonium bomb, nicknamed "The Gadget", of the same design as the Fat Man bomb later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. Concerns about whether the complex Fat Man design would work led to a decision to conduct the first nuclear test.
The main purpose of the trial was to determine the acceptable limit of the amount of plutonium-240 that could be present in a bomb. The plutonium used in the original Hurricane device was produced in the nuclear reactor at Windscale, but the Windscale Piles did not have the capacity to provide sufficient material for the British government's planned weapons programme, and consequently eight ...
The reactor grade plutonium nuclear test was a "low-yield (under 20 kilotons)" underground nuclear test using non-weapons-grade plutonium conducted at the US Nevada Test Site in 1962. [ 31 ] [ 32 ] Some information regarding this test was declassified in July 1977, under instructions from President Jimmy Carter , as background to his decision ...
The McDonald Ranch House in the Oscura Mountains of Socorro County, New Mexico, was the location of assembly of the world's first nuclear weapon.The active components of the Trinity test "gadget", a plutonium Fat Man-type bomb similar to that later dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, were assembled there on July 13, 1945.
First nuclear weapons test, conducted as part of the Manhattan Project. Tested the Mark 3 Fat Man design. Crossroads: 1946 2: 2: 2: 21 42: First postwar test series. Sandstone: 1948 3: 3: 3: 18 to 49 104: The first use of "levitated" cores made of oralloy. Tested components for Mark 4 design. Ranger: 1951 5: 5: 5: 1 to 22 40: First tests at the ...
The two bombs used in the test were Fat Man plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapons of the kind dropped on Nagasaki. The Able bomb was stenciled with the name Gilda and decorated with an Esquire magazine photograph of Rita Hayworth, star of the 1946 movie, Gilda. [51] The Baker bomb was Helen of Bikini.
If there is any nuclear yield in the firing, then the test is deemed a failure from a safety standpoint. A successful test will measure only the chemical explosive in the test bomb exploding, which still, of course, blasts the bomb core and causes the core material to be spread over a wide area if the test is in open air, as all the Project 56 ...
A big reason the lab is working toward producing 30 fresh plutonium cores is some federal scientists and nuclear security officials contend the Cold War pits have grown too old to be reliable ...