B53 Nuclear Bomb dismantled in Amarillo Texas

Closing a Cold War chapter, technicians Tuesday dismantled the last of the most powerful U.S. nuclear bombs ever built.

The B53 nuclear bomb was made to deliver a 9-Megaton blast about 600 times more powerful than the one that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.

Starting in 1962, about 300 of the 10,000-pound, minivan-size bombs were made, meant to be carried on bombers kept on 24-hour alert at the height of U.S.-Soviet tensions.

"Obviously, this was one of the largest weapons we had. It was a big one," says Greg Cunningham of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration's Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas. At the plant, a ceremony marked the removal of high explosives from the last of the final 50 B53 bombs held in a reserve after the weapon's 1997 retirement.

"Monster really is the word. It would have created a fireball several miles wide," says noted nuclear history author Richard Rhodes.

"The world is a safer place with this dismantlement," said NNSA chief Thomas D'Agostino, in a statement. "The B53 was a weapon developed in another time for a different world."

The B53 was a thermonuclear device: An atomic bomb set off a larger hydrogen one, creating a tremendously powerful blast intended to annihilate Russian command bunkers deep underground. It was replaced by smaller, more accurate "bunker buster" weapons.

Video Credit: Fox News
News story from CNN News

Category:

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Tags:

• B53
• Nuclear
• Bomb
• dismantled
• Bunker
• Buster
• Weapon
• Atomic
• Mega
• Nuke
• Warhead

[xMasterJuiceX]

Fuck FOX News!!

[olegvol2]

peace in the whole world

[RobertMOdell]

I was wondering how we were going to be able to fight WWIII. Now I know.  They'll get rid of the nukes and then we'll have world war with the cheaters bombing those who actually obeyed the treaty.

[cheeseiscool2936]

This weapon was at the height of its da-da 1:33 hahahahhaahah

[geonerd]

"Mega Death Weapon!"

Faux sensationalism at its finest!

[baniyas2011]

fucking video stop kill people 

[baniyas2011]

@WomackPhotoKCMO obama must die

[Jay91Byrd]

hmm looks like know one gets there 25 kill streak reward now :(



[Tupacincuba]

you know damn well ww3 is gonna happen

[lumina998]

its biggest in 1962 .

not now .