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Sandia Base
Sandia Base was the principal nuclear weapons installation of the United States Department of Defense from 1946 to 1971. It was located on the southeastern edge of Albuquerque, New Mexico. For 25 years, the top-secret Sandia Base and its subsidiary installation, Manzano Base, carried on the atomic weapons research, development, design, testing, and training commenced by the Manhattan Project during World War II. Fabrication, assembly, and storage of nuclear weapons was also done at Sandia Base. The base played a key role in the United States nuclear deterrence capability during the Cold War. In 1971 it was merged into Kirtland Air Force Base. Geography Sandia Base was located at about 35° 02' 25" N, 106° 32' 59" W at an elevation above sea level. It was in the southeast quadrant of Albuquerque, bounded roughly by Louisiana Boulevard SE and Kirtland Air Force Base on the west, and Eubank Avenue SE and the Sandia Mountains on the east, and Isleta Pueblo lands on the south. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Weapons
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission, fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion, fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. Nuclear bombs have had Nuclear weapon yield, yields between 10 tons (the W54) and 50 megatons for the Tsar Bomba (see TNT equivalent). Yields in the low kilotons can devastate cities. A thermonuclear weapon weighing as little as can release energy equal to more than 1.2 megatons of TNT (5.0 Petajoule, PJ). Apart from the blast, Effects of nuclear explosions, effects of nuclear weapons include Firestorm, firestorms, extreme Thermal radiation, heat and ionizing radiation, radioactive nuclear fallout, an Nuclear electromagnetic pulse, electromagnetic pulse, and a radar blackout. The first nuclear weapons were deve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bomb
A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechanical stress, the impact and penetration of pressure-driven projectiles, pressure damage, and explosion-generated effects. Bombs have been utilized since the 11th century starting in East Asia. The term ''bomb'' is not usually applied to explosive devices used for civilian purposes such as construction or mining, although the people using the devices may sometimes refer to them as a "bomb". The military use of the term "bomb", or more specifically aerial bomb action, typically refers to airdropped, unpowered explosive weapons most commonly used by air forces and naval aviation. Other military explosive weapons not classified as "bombs" include shells, depth charges (used in water), or land mines. In unconventional warfare, other names ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naval Weapons Evaluation Facility
The Naval Weapons Evaluation Facility (NWEF) operated through the Cold War investigating aircraft-weapon interfaces to provide United States Navy aircraft with nuclear weapons delivery capability. History The United States Army Air Corps began using Kirtland Field south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the early years of World War II. The adjacent Sandia Base was created as a training facility. Several units from the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory were relocated to the Sandia Base in 1945 to use the Kirtland Field flight test facilities. Kirtland Field was designated Kirtland Air Force Base in 1947, and the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP) operated on Sandia Base. When the United States Air Force established the Air Force Special Weapons Command at Kirtland Air Force Base in 1949, the United States Navy formed a detachment to investigate nuclear capabilities for naval aircraft and assist the AFSWP with naval equipment for demonstrations and training. This detachment w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nevada Test Site
The Nevada National Security Sites (N2S2 or NNSS), popularized as the Nevada Test Site (NTS) until 2010, is a reservation of the United States Department of Energy located in the southeastern portion of Nye County, Nevada, about northwest of the city of Las Vegas. Formerly known as the Nevada Proving Grounds of the United States Army, the site was acquired in 1951 to be the testing venue for the American nuclear devices. The first atmospheric test was conducted at the site's Frenchman Flat area by the United States Atomic Energy Commission (USAEC) on January 27, 1951. About 928 nuclear tests were conducted here through 1994, when the United States stopped its underground nuclear testing. The site consists of about of desert and mountainous terrain. Some 1,100 buildings in 28 areas are connected by of paved roads, of unpaved roads, ten heliports, and two airstrips. The site is privately managed and operated by Mission Support and Test Services LLC, a joint venture of H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boeing B-50 Superfortress
The Boeing B-50 Superfortress is a retired American strategic bomber. A post–World War II revision of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, it was fitted with more powerful Pratt & Whitney R-4360 radial engines, stronger structure, a taller tail fin, and other improvements. It was the last piston-engined bomber built by Boeing for the United States Air Force, and was refined into Boeing's final such design, the prototype B-54. Although not as well known as its direct predecessor, the B-50 was in USAF service for nearly 20 years. After their primary service with Strategic Air Command (SAC) ended, B-50s were modified to serve as KB-50 aerial tankers for Tactical Air Command (TAC) and WB-50 weather reconnaissance aircraft for the Air Weather Service. These tanker and hurricane-hunter variants were retired in March 1965 after metal fatigue and corrosion were found in the wreckage of a KB-50J, ''48-065'', that crashed on 14 October 1964. Design and development Development of an improv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frenchman Flat
Frenchman Flat is a hydrographic basin in the Nevada National Security Site south of Yucca Flat and north of Mercury, Nevada. The flat was used as an American nuclear test site and has a dry lake bed (Frenchman Lake) that was used as a 1950s airstrip before it was chosen after the start of the Korean War for the Nevada Proving Grounds. Nellis Air Force Base land was transferred to the Atomic Energy Commission on which Site Mercury was constructed on the flat for supporting American nuclear explosive tests. The 1951 Operation Ranger "Able" test (ground zero at UTM Coordinates 923758 on the flat) was the first continental US nuclear detonation after the 1945 Trinity test, and Frenchman Flat also had the only detonation of an American artillery-fired nuclear projectile in the 1953 Upshot-Knothole Grable test using the M65 Atomic Cannon. Area 5 Area 5 consists of of the southeastern portion of NTS, north of the town of Mercury, and includes the Area 5 Radioactive Waste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, the 32nd-most populous, and the ninth-least densely populated U.S. state. Nearly three-quarters of Nevada's population live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area, including three of the state's four largest incorporated cities. Nevada's capital is Carson City. Las Vegas is the largest city in the state. Nevada is officially known as the "Silver State" because of the importance of silver to its history and economy. It is also known as the "Battle Born State" because it achieved statehood during the Civil War (the words "Battle Born" also appear on its state flag); due to the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, the Union benefited immensely from the support of newly awarded statehood by the infusion of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marshall Islands
The Marshall Islands, officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands, is an island country west of the International Date Line and north of the equator in the Micronesia region of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. The territory consists of 29 coral atolls and five main islands as well as 1,220 other very small ones, divided across two Archipelago, island chains: Ratak in the east and Ralik in the west. 97.87% of its territory is water, the largest proportion of water to land of any sovereign state. The country shares Maritime boundary, maritime boundaries with Wake Island to the north, Kiribati to the southeast, Nauru to the south, and the Federated States of Micronesia to the west. The capital city, capital and largest city is Majuro, home to approximately half of the country's population. The Marshall Islands are one of only four atoll based nations in the entire world. Austronesian settlers reached the Marshall Islands as early as the 2nd millennium BC and introduced Southeas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eniwetok Atoll
Enewetak Atoll (; also spelled Eniwetok Atoll or sometimes Eniewetok; , , or , ; known to the Japanese as Brown Atoll or Brown Island; ) is a large coral atoll of 40 islands in the Pacific Ocean and with its 296 people (as of 2021) forms a legislative district of the Ralik Chain of the Marshall Islands. With a land area total less than , it is no higher than and surrounds a deep central lagoon, in circumference. It is the second-westernmost atoll of the Ralik Chain and is west from Bikini Atoll. It was held by the Japanese from 1914 until its capture by the United States in February 1944 during World War II, then became Naval Base Eniwetok. Nuclear testing by the US, totaling the equivalent of over 30 megatons of TNT, took place during the Cold War; in 1977–1980, a concrete dome (the Runit Dome) was built on Runit Island to deposit radioactive soil and debris. The Runit Dome is deteriorating and could be breached by a typhoon, though the sediments in the lagoon are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Sandstone
Operation Sandstone was a series of nuclear weapon tests in 1948. It was the third series of American tests, following Trinity in 1945 and Crossroads in 1946, and preceding Ranger. Like the Crossroads tests, the Sandstone tests were carried out at the Pacific Proving Grounds, although at Enewetak Atoll rather than Bikini Atoll. They differed from Crossroads in that they were conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission, with the armed forces having only a supporting role. The purpose of the Sandstone tests was also different: they were primarily tests of new bomb designs, especially the more efficient levitated pits, rather than of the effects of nuclear weapons. Three tests were carried out in April and May 1948 by Joint Task Force 7, with a work force of 10,366 personnel, of whom 9,890 were military. The successful testing of the new cores in the Operation Sandstone tests rendered every component of the old weapons obsolete. Even before the third test had been carried out, p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roswell, New Mexico
Roswell () is a city in and the county seat of Chaves County, New Mexico, Chaves County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 48,422 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in New Mexico, fifth-most populous city in New Mexico. It is home to the New Mexico Military Institute (NMMI), founded in 1891. The city is also the location of an Eastern New Mexico University campus. Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge is located a few miles northeast of the city on the Pecos River. Bottomless Lakes State Park is located east of Roswell on U.S. Route 380, US 380. Chaves County forms the entirety of the List of micropolitan areas in New Mexico, Roswell micropolitan area. The Roswell incident was named after the town, though the crash site of the alleged UFO was some north of Roswell and closer to Corona, New Mexico, Corona. The investigation and debris recovery was handled by the local Roswell Army Air Field. On the 50th anniversary of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
