US to test 700-tonne explosive(will send mushroom cloud over Las Vegas)

Breitbart.com ^

[MARKUSPRIME]

The US military plans to detonate a 700 tonne explosive charge in a test called "Divine Strake" that will send a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas, a senior defense official said.

"I don't want to sound glib here but it is the first time in Nevada that you'll see a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas since we stopped testing nuclear weapons," said James Tegnelia, head of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Tegnelia said the test was part of a US effort to develop weapons capable of destroying deeply buried bunkers housing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

"We have several very large penetrators we're developing," he told defense reporters.

[Monkey Face]

Yah...me and my daughter and grandkids!!!

They're doing that because I'm moving, right?

[RJS1950]

Maybe Divine Strike is aimed more at an Iranian audience. We dropped leaflets over Japan in the week preceding the first atomic bomb to let them know that a terrible fate awaited them if they didn't surrender immediately.

[oldleft]

I'm sure you could. If you figure that the tests were done when there wasn't much wind the clouds would have reached about 60,000 ft. Most of that is water vapor though, caused by the change in air pressure.

Back then, Las Vegas was a town of about 25,000 anyway.

[antiRepublicrat]

Uh... how do you deliver 700 tons? Strikes me as rather a lot to carry?

It's not quite as much, but a C-5 can carry 130 tons. But it would be a hell of a thing to get it to airdrop that.

[Skywarner]

"Reading into that, it is a test of the blast effect and fallout from a sub-kiloton, deep penetration nuclear bunker buster."

Bingo.

[BurbankKarl]

Good, Vegas needs to be reminded they are in fallout land.

[RJS1950]

Sure could.

[doug from upland]

Next stop, Mexico City.

[ARCADIA]

how do you deliver 700 tons? - hope for a long fuse and run really fast

Pack it into an stripped out 747 and steer it by remote control. We have thousands of tired old airframes around, it wouldn't take much to get them flying again.

[COEXERJ145]

[Mariner]

"planes that can carry 700 tons"?

We have no planes that can carry 1.4million pounds. They must be referring to the equivalent explosive power of TNT.

[ken5050]

actually, I think it's a designed to test the structural integrity of the underground nuclear waste repository..

[talleyman]

"We have several very large penetrators we're developing,"...

Oh, this is a porno movie...

[thackney]

Yep, I read this a just a confirmation to confirm the calculation method. Not an test of the explosive, but the effects of that size of "bunker buster". The actually usage might be a strategic nuke that penetrates before the reaction.

[MD_Willington_1976]

Cool, they should setup a viewing area and sell tickets...

[rahbert]

tow it behind the entire inventory of B2's?

[FastCoyote]

"actually, I think it's a designed to test the structural integrity of the underground nuclear waste repository.."

I hope you aren't serious. I literally wrote a book on Yucca Mountain.

[ken5050]

It was a joke..I thought it would be obvious..I guess I was a little too tongue-in-cheek..

[bert]

....how do you deliver 700 tons?.....

simple..... load it into 35 forty foot containers.

[Erik Latranyi]

Yep, I read this a just a confirmation to confirm the calculation method. Not an test of the explosive, but the effects of that size of "bunker buster". The actually usage might be a strategic nuke that penetrates before the reaction.

Right. They are trying to evaluate the air effects of an explosive that size, at that depth.

That means we have a bunker buster nuke of 700 tons yield. We just want to make sure the radiation is contained.

I'm willing to bet the the soil used to fill over the explosive has some tracking agent in it. Then they could determine how much material was dispersed and how far.