Posted on 09/05/2016 8:03:41 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Where to see the vestiges of nuclear weapons tests around the world.
The atomic age began on July 16, 1945, when the Manhattan Project detonated its first successful nuclear weapon test in the New Mexico desert. Less than a month later, atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From then up until the signing of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996, over 2,000 nuclear test explosions have detonated on remote islands, atolls and stretches of desert around the world—the vast majority in the United States and Soviet Union—to prepare for the possibility of nuclear war.
Although, mercifully, the Cold War never turned hot, remnants of this charged chapter of history can still be found today throughout the U.S. and former Soviet Union. Below are seven nuclear test sites in the Atlas that you can still visit today, vestiges of this sobering turning point in the evolution of warfare.
Trinity — The Birthplace of the Atomic Age
(Excerpt) Read more at atlasobscura.com ...
Very interesting photos at link.
“Atomic Tests Were a Tourist Draw in 1950s Las Vegas”
http://www.citylab.com/politics/2014/08/atomic-tests-were-a-tourist-draw-in-1950s-las-vegas/375802
Some cool pics.
But, what if you have to go right now?
All sites are safer than Chicago.
Would be cool to go see those places. The history, the way the course of the entire world changed from that development! Not many events are as pivotal as harnessing atomic power.
Okay, a couple thousand nuclear detonations around the world. We were told that a nuclear war would end life as we know it on our planet. Nuclear Winter and all that hyperbole. I know that nuclear bomb testing went underground about 50 years ago, but even then many nukes were detonated above ground. Yet the Earth did not go into a Nuclear Winter. Man did not expire. Truth is, nuclear detonations pale in comparison to volcanic eruptions, and there are quite a few of those that happen. Our most deadly weapon, the nuke, is not enough to kill our planet.
Thanks for the link.
I’d like to see photos or a video of the inside of the caverns created by underground nuclear tests.
Makes you think we each said “OK let’s blow our own selves up!”
In 1995, I visited the Trinity site at Jornada del Muerto, NM, near San Antonio. We had to take a bus from an Air Force base in Albuquerque, and it was a day-long event.
I have been to three: Trinity, Nagasaki, and Hiroshima. Growing up out west, I was in the fallout of others.
Left out two others I know of. The Gasbuggy tests under the plowshares program trying to find peaceful uses. The blew them up under New Mexico in an early attempt at fracking. It worked but you got radioactive gas.
Both are on accessible land. National forest and BLM. Used to be a marker at each.
You can drive your own car now. That’s a great tour.
There are some from 1962 in New Mexico. I’m a nuke buff, and was just studying up on this last week. I wish I could remember the test name now.
DesertRhino just referred to the same test series. You should be able to search for “plowshare” and “cavern” and find what you want.
All sites are safer than Chicago
"View toward the top of the salt dome cavity created by the Gnome underground nuclear test. Note the stalactites. Gnome was conducted on December 10, 1961 as part of Operation Plowshare"
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