A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion reactions, producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter.
Damascus is a town in Faulkner and Van Buren counties of central Arkansas, United States. The population of Damascus was 382 at the 2010 census.
A nuclear and radiation accident is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility. Examples include lethal effects to individuals, large radioactivity release to the environment, reactor core melt." The prime example of a "major nuclear accident" is one in which a reactor core is damaged and significant amounts of radioactive isotopes are released, such as in the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
Red Alert is a 1958 novel by Peter George about nuclear war. The book was the underlying inspiration for Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Kubrick's film differs significantly from the novel in that the film is a black comedy.
Eric Matthew Schlosser is an American journalist and author known for his investigative journalism, such as in his books Fast Food Nation (2001), Reefer Madness (2003), and Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety (2013).
Peter Bryan George was a Welsh author, most famous for the 1958 Cold War thriller novel Red Alert, published initially with the title Two Hours to Doom and written using the pseudonym Peter Bryant. The book was the inspiration for Stanley Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
Elugelab, or Elugelap, was an island, part of the Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands. It was destroyed by the world's first true hydrogen bomb test on 1 November 1952, a test which was codenamed shot "Mike" of Operation Ivy. Prior to being destroyed, the island was described as "just another small naked island of the atoll".
The United States Armed Forces uses a number of terms to define the magnitude and extent of nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents in order to reduce the time taken to report the type of incident, thus streamlining the radio communications in the wake of the event.
The 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash was an accident that occurred near Goldsboro, North Carolina, United States, on 24 January 1961. A Boeing B-52 Stratofortress carrying two 3–4-megaton Mark 39 nuclear bombs broke up in mid-air, dropping its nuclear payload in the process. The pilot in command, Walter Scott Tulloch, ordered the crew to eject at 9,000 ft (2,700 m). Five crewmen successfully ejected or bailed out of the aircraft and landed safely; another ejected, but did not survive the landing, and two died in the crash. Information declassified in 2013 showed that one of the bombs came close to detonating, with three of the four required triggering mechanisms having activated.
Lloyd Richardson Leavitt Jr. was an American Air Force lieutenant general. As vice commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, he fulfilled the responsibilities of the SAC commander in chief in his absence. He was also the commander's principal adviser in the formulation of SAC policies, plans, and directives.
Nuclear ethics is a cross-disciplinary field of academic and policy-relevant study in which the problems associated with nuclear warfare, nuclear deterrence, nuclear arms control, nuclear disarmament, or nuclear energy are examined through one or more ethical or moral theories or frameworks. In contemporary security studies, the problems of nuclear warfare, deterrence, proliferation, and so forth are often understood strictly in political, strategic, or military terms. In the study of international organizations and law, however, these problems are also understood in legal terms. Nuclear ethics assumes that the very real possibilities of human extinction, mass human destruction, or mass environmental damage which could result from nuclear warfare are deep ethical or moral problems. Specifically, it assumes that the outcomes of human extinction, mass human destruction, or environmental damage count as moral evils. Another area of inquiry concerns future generations and the burden that nuclear waste and pollution imposes on them. Some scholars have concluded that it is therefore morally wrong to act in ways that produce these outcomes, which means it is morally wrong to engage in nuclear warfare.
The Damascus Titan missile explosion was a 1980 U.S. nuclear weapons incident involving a Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The incident occurred on September 18–19, 1980, at Missile Complex 374-7 in rural Arkansas when a U.S. Air Force LGM-25C Titan II ICBM loaded with a 9-megaton W-53 nuclear warhead experienced a liquid fuel explosion inside its silo.
The Basic Encyclopedia is an encyclopedia of the US Air Force that lists places that are targets for bombing. It was begun in 1946 during the Cold War as the Bombing Encyclopedia and included over 80,000 potential targets around the world during the Cold War. It included their B.E. number, a brief description, longitude and latitude, elevation, and category. The title was changed to Basic Encyclopedia in the 1960s or 1970s before its publication ended in 1973. The encyclopedia was computerized and used in the Defense Intelligence Agency's Automated Installation File.
The Bomb is a 2015 American documentary film about the history of nuclear weapons, from theoretical scientific considerations at the very beginning, to their first use on August 6, 1945, to their global political implications in the present day. The two-hour PBS film was written and directed by Rushmore DeNooyer, who noted the project took a year and a half to complete, since much of the film footage and images was only recently declassified by the United States Department of Defense. According to DeNooyer, “It wouldn’t take very many bombs to really change life on Earth, ... The idea that there are thousands of them sitting around is pretty scary. I don’t think people today realize that. They don’t think about it. I don’t think they are scared. But in a way, they should be.” Mark Dawidziak, of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, summarized the film as follows: "The Bomb moves swiftly to cover Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cold War, the arms race, the Red Scare, the witch hunt, the Cuban Missile Crisis, test-ban treaties, the "Star Wars" initiative, the anti-nuke movement, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of new nuclear threats." According to historian Richard Rhodes, “The invention [of 'The Bomb'] was a millennial change in human history: for the first time, we were now capable of our own destruction, as a species.”
Command and Control is a 2016 American documentary film directed by Robert Kenner and based on the 2013 non-fiction book of the same name by Eric Schlosser. It was released initially in the United States at the Tribeca Film Festival and then in the United Kingdom at the Sheffield Doc/Fest on June 11, 2016. It is based on the 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion in Damascus, Arkansas between September 18–19, 1980. The film aired on the PBS network series American Experience on January 10, 2017.
Project Vista was a top secret study conducted by prominent physicists, researchers, military officers, and staff at California Institute of Technology from April 1 to December 1, 1951. The project got its name from the Vista del Arroyo Hotel in Pasadena, California, which was selected as the headquarters for the study. The project was originally meant to analyze possible improvements relating to the relationship between ground and tactical air warfare. Initially, project Vista was not meant to be specific to a certain geographical region, but the focus was quickly set towards Western Europe, as the immediate threat to Europe, United States, and NATO, was the Soviet Union. The report was buried after its release, and was only partially declassified in 1980.
Northeast of San Francisco, California, on 5 August 1950, a United States Air Force Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber carrying a Mark 4 nuclear bomb crashed shortly after takeoff from Fairfield-Suisun Air Force Base with 20 men on board. Twelve men were killed in the crash, including the commander of the 9th Bombardment Wing, Brigadier General Robert F. Travis, and another seven were killed on the ground when the aircraft exploded. The base was later renamed for Travis.
RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, one of several air bases in the United Kingdom which was used by the United States Air Force to store nuclear weapons during the Cold War, was the site of accidents involving nuclear weapons, in 1956 and 1961.
The 1965 Searcy missile silo fire was an uncontrolled fire inside a Titan II missile silo near Searcy, Arkansas on August 9, 1965. The fire broke out while the missile silo was being renovated and improved; the missile was installed and fueled at the time, although the nuclear warhead had been removed. Only two of the 55 workers who were inside the silo at the time survived.
