Operation Castle Bravo 1954 Reloaded

Credit: Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie (1995) by Peter Kuran

Castle Bravo was the code name given to the first U.S. test of a so-called dry fuel thermonuclear (fusion- rather than fission-based) device, detonated on March 1, 1954 at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, by the United States, as the first test of Operation Castle (a longer series of tests of various devices). Unexpected fallout from the detonation—intended to be a secret test—poisoned the crew of Daigo Fukuryū Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5"), a Japanese fishing boat, and created international concern about atmospheric thermonuclear testing.he bomb used lithium deuteride fuel for the fusion stage, unlike the cryogenic liquid deuterium used as fuel for the fusion stage of the U.S. first-generation Ivy Mike device, which, being the size of a small office building, was an impracticable weapon for use at war. The bomb tested at Castle Bravo was the first practical deliverable fusion bomb in the U.S. arsenal.

The Soviet Union had previously used lithium deuteride in a nuclear bomb, their Sloika (also known as Alarm Clock) design, but since it relied on using the initial fission explosion to compress, inertially confine, and ignite the fusion fuel, its yield was limited (400 kt) in comparison to the Teller-Ulam-based Ivy Mike (10.4 Mt) and Castle Bravo (~15 Mt). Mike and Bravo both used the Teller-Ulam design, which featured separation of the fusion device from the fission device, and used radiation pressure (or probably radiation-induced ablation of the heavy tamper surrounding the fusion device) to produce staged-radiation implosion and fusion ignition of a much greater magnitude. After a few years, the Soviets, led by Andrei Sakharov, independently developed (Sakharov's Third Idea) and tested (RDS-37) their first Teller-Ulam device in 1956.

Castle Bravo was the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States, with a yield of 15 megatons. That yield, far exceeding the expected yield of 4 to 8 megatons, combined with other factors to produce the worst radiological accident ever caused by the United States.

Though some 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bombs which were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, it was considerably smaller than the largest nuclear test conducted by the Soviet Union several years later, the ~50 Mt Tsar Bomba.

This clip was taken from the documentary "Trinity And Beyond"

Directed By: Peter Kuran
Music By: William T. Stromberg
Narrated By: William Shatner

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Operation
• Castle
• Bravo
• 1954
• Reloaded
• atomic
• bomb
• nuclear
• nuke
• test
• bikini

[AHOYKIPPER]

Keep up the good work

[TitusFlavius79]

this is the orginal video with the orginal sound. if you see the other version look after the video called : operation castle bravo 1954 (colored version). have a nice day.

[derekwall25]

ive heard alot of stories about our bombs and that weve developed a 250-300 megaton weapon. imagine the amount of destruction youd see in a blast from a nuke that large

[gaguy1967]

This is the Red Army Choir singing

[gaguy1967]

@matapan50 Over 100 from 1951 to 1962. The worst series was the 1953 Upshot Knothole. Most of the radiation went to Utah and east.

[colombianito7123]

@joshplume i don´t think a 200MT test would have being posible in secret

[jcavaletto708]

@tupacforlifes And New York...

[joshplume]

@zMrHipnotik

What people don't realize is 15 MT was only the largest bomb DETONATED by the US and the only one on record that big. The US had warheads over 60MT on any B52 at any given time back in the cold war. There are also hundreds of classified yield tests to this day and many think we did a 200 + MT in space back in the 60's.

[zMrHipnotik]

what most people dont realise is that we could create a bomb 10 times as powerful as the tsar bomb and extremely accurate we just dont want to spend money on it america has more power than any other country

[glhx2112]

@matapan50 Wahhhhhhhhh! My Pussy Hurts! Evil nukes made me scared. Fag. 

[fadalisdestroyer666]

2:49 looks like a brain lol

[DieserBenuterIstCool]

This is akin to hell on Earth.