
In 1957, Five Men Agreed to Stand Under an Exploding Nuclear Bomb (2012) - sjcsjc
http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/07/16/156851175/five-men-agree-to-stand-directly-under-an-exploding-nuclear-bomb
======
nylonstrung
Both my paternal grandparents were some of the downwinders in Utah it alludes
to. They were exposed to fallout from around 200 atmospheric nuclear tests,
the vast majority of which were far more powerful than Fat Man and Little Boy.
That is an amount of radiation many orders of magnitude greater than
Fukushima. I've researched it extensively and am convinced it is genuinely one
of the darkest and most disturbing parts of US 20th Century history and one
that remains glossed over to this day

The Atomic Energy Commission had plenty of evidence to believe that the
fallout would be harmful to anyone downwind yet reassured the local
populations that it was actually healthy due to "hormesis" and encouraged them
to watch the detonations and drink contaminated milk while they themselves
wore protective gear and followed proper protocol. There were several proposed
test sites that would have sent the fallout relatively harmlessly into the
Atlantic yet they chose one in an extremely dusty area upwind of population
centers which were almost entirely Native Americans and Mormons. At best it
was a blatant disregard for human life that prioritized the budget of the AEC
over minimizing harm to innocent people and at worst it was an intentional
case of unethical human experimentation. It certainly was when they forced
infantry to march through mushroom clouds without any decontamination or
protective gear.

As for my grandparents, one lost his stomach and gallbladder and went from a
muscular ~200 lb outdoorsman to a 90lb skeleton dependent on a feeding tube.
Our grandmother died unexpectedly from a horrific variety of lung cancer 10
years later. He lived another 10 years in absolute misery. There are thousands
of stories like these in Utah, many of them even more tragic. Despite their
oncologists testifying that it was essentially impossible for their cancers to
have been caused by anything other than nuclear weapons exposure, neither
received the paltry $50,000 compensation because of bureaucratic
technicalities.

~~~
delegate
Those people were designing devices to kill large numbers of (innocent)
civilians.

Given those goals that they had, why would anyone expect them to behave
'ethically' or care about the side effects of their activity ?

Of course that was a 'blatant disregard for human life', since that was the
very essence of the technology being developed.

~~~
kbenson
> Given those goals that they had, why would anyone expect them to behave
> 'ethically' or care about the side effects of their activity ?

Possibly, yes. An argument can be made that the atomic bombs dropped on Japan
caused less overall loss of life than an invasion or prolonged conflict (even
if heavily weighted to one side).

Wars are far more costly in human lives and suffering if neither side can get
enough advantage to win and they become protracted.

There's also the question of how many large conflicts were prevented since the
time the creation of atomic weapons because it was seen as too costly, or one
side was vastly superior because of them.

This is a very complex topic, and regardless of what you think of it, those
developing the weapons might have thought differently. When assessing the
motivations and considerations of those people, using only your own assessment
and moral calculus is insufficient.

~~~
hisham_hm
> Possibly, yes.

What is your "yes" referring to? That was not a yes-no answer.

> An argument can be made that the atomic bombs dropped on Japan caused less
> overall loss of life than an invasion or prolonged conflict (even if heavily
> weighted to one side).

Not only completely weighted to one side, but consisting in its vast majority
of civilians.

> There's also the question of how many large conflicts were prevented since
> the time the creation of atomic weapons because it was seen as too costly,
> or one side was vastly superior because of them.

There has been no "war to end all wars", in spite of hopeful predictions. We
haven't had WW3, but "one side being vastly superior" has not prevented the US
from being engaged near constantly in various wars since after WW2.

It is indeed a very complex topic, but questioning the ethics of those
involved in the development of atomic weapons, especially given all we know
about the way it was done, is a completely reasonable stance.

~~~
sillysaurus3
From _100 Decisive Battles_ :

"When Okinawa was finally declared secure, the cost had been horrific. Some
150,000 Okinawans died, approximately one-third the island's population. An
additional 10,000 Koreans, used by the Japanese military as slave labor, died
as well. Of the 119,000 or so Japanese soldiers, as many as 112,000 were
killed in the battle or forever sealed inside a collapsed cave or bunker.
Aside from the human cost, most of the physical aspects of Okinawan culture
were razed. Few buildings survived the 3 months fighting. Collectively, the
defenders lost more dead than the Japanese suffered in the two atomic bombings
combined. The United States lost 13,000 dead: almost 8,000 on the island and
the remainder at sea; another 32,000 were wounded.

The loss of life on both sides, particularly among the Japanese civilians,
caused immense worry in Washington. New President Harry Truman was looking at
the plans for a proposed assault on the Japanese main islands, and the
casualty projections were unacceptable. Projections numbered the potential
casualties from 100,000 in the first 30 days to as many as 1 million
attackers, and the death count for the Japanese civilians would be impossible
to calculate. If they resisted as strongly as did the citizens of Okinawa --
and the inhabitants of the home islands would be even more dedicated to
defending their homeland -- Japan would become a wasteland. It was already
looking like one in many areas. The U.S. bombing campaign, in place since the
previous September, was burning out huge areas of Japanese cities. How much
longer the Japanese could have held out in the face of the fire bombing is a
matter of much dispute; some project that, had the incendiary raids continued
until November, the Japanese would have been thrown back to an almost Stone
Age existence. The problem was this: no one in the west knew exactly what was
happening in Japan. The devastation could be estimated, but the resistance
could not.

Thus, with the casualties of the Okinawa battle fresh in his mind, when Truman
learned of the successful testing of an atomic bomb, he ordered its use. This
is a decision debated since 6 August 1945, the date of the bombing of
Hiroshima, and even before. Just what was known of Japanese decision-making
processes before that date is also argued to this day. Was the Japanese
government in the process of formulating a peace offer, in spite of the demand
for unconditional surrender the Allies had decided upon in February 1943? If
they were doing so, did anyone in the west know about it? Who knew what, when
they knew it, and what effect that knowledge had or may have had on Truman's
decision making is a matter of much dispute. Whatever the political
ramifications of the atomic bomb on the immediate and postwar world, Truman's
decision was certainly based in no small part on the nature of the fighting on
Okinawa. Truman wrote just after his decision, "We'll end the war sooner now.
And think of the kids who wont be killed."

Note that a persuasive counter-argument was posted by Floegipoky
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11751090](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11751090))

"The invasion of Okinawa is not at all comparable to a potential invasion of
Japan. I won't address your main point. I'm posting to correct a grave
misunderstanding about the relationship between Okinawa and Japan during this
period. Okinawa is a distinct cultural entity, and the island was viewed by
Japan as occupied territory. Japanese forces slaughtered Okinawans, going so
far as to use them as human shields. Some Okinawans were ordered to kill
themselves and their families to avoid the horrific fate that the Japanese
promised at the hands of American troops. Others, including schoolchildren,
were pressed into front-line service or sent on suicide missions. Others were
simply murdered, whether for their food or supplies, out of paranoia to root
out "spies" (those who made the grave mistake of speaking in Okinawan within
earshot), or for entertainment. I'm not saying Americans didn't kill Okinawans
too. What I'm saying is that the Japanese could not have cared less about the
survival of Okinawa: the land, culture, or people.

While the Japanese were certainly willing to use civilians for tactical or
strategic gain, one cannot assume that their military forces would have raped
and pillaged their own populace in the same manner.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa#Civilian_los...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Okinawa#Civilian_losses.2C_suicides_and_atrocities)
"

Nonetheless, you can see how a reasonable person could take the stance that
developing the bomb was ethical. Being compared to mass murderers and such is
just breathless posturing.

~~~
caf
Truman's actions here must also be considered in light of the argument that he
had been misled about the nature of the targets for the atomic bombings. From
his diary in July 1945:

 _" This weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I
have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives
and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if
the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the
world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital
or the new."_

 _" He and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we
will issue a warning statement asking the Japs to surrender and save lives.
I’m sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance. It is
certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler’s crowd or Stalin’s did not
discover this atomic bomb. It seems to be the most terrible thing ever
discovered, but it can be made the most useful..."_

( [http://www.dannen.com/decision/hst-
jl25.html](http://www.dannen.com/decision/hst-jl25.html) )

Truman also ordered the immediate cessation of further atomic bombings without
his explicit approval on August 10th (the military was planning to continue
the bombings as further cores became available, which were being produced at
the rate of a couple per month).

See also [http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/08/08/kyoto-
misconceptio...](http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/08/08/kyoto-
misconception/)

~~~
dbdr
> "The target will be a purely military one"

Dropping such bombs on cities cannot be said to be "purely military". Was
Truman really not aware of the targets, or was he being dishonest in his
diary?

According to the Wikipedia article [1], Truman was not in the Target
Committee, but he was for instance approached about removing Kyoto from the
list, so he was aware of the nature of the possible targets.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Choice_of_targets)

~~~
caf
I suggest reading the last link above, particularly the conclusions about
Truman's knowledge towards the end.

~~~
dbdr
Thank you. It's highly disturbing that such decision could be made with the
president not understanding what he is ordering, and not being presented with
other options (the "demonstration" before directly bombing a city).

~~~
caf
Groves originally pushed back against the very idea that the military wouldn't
be the ones choosing the targets!

------
sillysaurus3
Here's a little mystery for HN. Have you seen the fictional BBC segment
someone produced about an escalating conflict between Russia and NATO?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VZ3LGfSMhA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VZ3LGfSMhA)

It made the rounds on HN a couple months ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14101405](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14101405)

 _It 's the only piece of fiction that has made me feel deathly ill in quite
the same way Threads did._

The video is incredible. It's one of the best pieces of realistic fiction I've
ever seen.

But how was it made? Who made it? And why? I counted at least 10 professional-
quality actors with convincing, in-character costumes. See this timestamp:
[https://youtu.be/2VZ3LGfSMhA?t=1053](https://youtu.be/2VZ3LGfSMhA?t=1053)

The uploader of the video is "Ben Marking", only 8k subscribers, and no online
presence. They left a comment:
[http://i.imgur.com/MJVh31d.png](http://i.imgur.com/MJVh31d.png) Other than
that, no one's taking credit.

So why make it? It's wonderful art, but is there anything more to it?

Whoever's behind this has also uploaded nine revisions since last year:
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA9r2NNlWMitk1hhR7yj8SA/vid...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA9r2NNlWMitk1hhR7yj8SA/videos)
including a Canadian and Australian version.

~~~
IanCal
I'm not sure I get what you mean from the timestamped section. It looks like
either simple to make footage or real footage where they've dubbed over.

I think there are possibly only two actors, and only one for the vast majority
of it. I think all the footage is just real clips, which is why it looks
realistic.

edit - I jumped to a random section and it has Fallon talking about Russia
making a situation more dangerous, but it's a real clip as there's coverage
back in 2015 of him saying these things:
[http://www.itv.com/news/update/2015-10-08/fallon-russia-
is-m...](http://www.itv.com/news/update/2015-10-08/fallon-russia-is-making-
syria-situation-more-dangerous/)

~~~
baddox
I assumed it was stock footage. That sort of thing is pretty common even in
major Hollywood films.

------
epalmer
My dad witnessed one of the Bikini Atoll nuclear bomb tests and was on the
Atoll 24 hours later measuring background radiation. He never got cancer and
lived till he was 83 and died of old age with his organs just shutting down.
He was almost never sick. Many of the people that were with him died early of
cancer. I hope I have some of his gene pool protection.

He also worked on the Manhattan project. He really never wanted to talk about
either experience other than the days when he was assigned to the Manhattan
project but before then got to Oakridge Tenn. He had some funny stories to
tell about being stationed in NYC before transport to Tenn.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll)

~~~
mabbo
Could be a bit of selection bias there.

Of the people at Bikini Atoll during the testing, just randomly some were more
susceptible to radiation and sickness, others less. Those that were more
susceptible died sooner, those that weren't lived long enough to be your
father.

~~~
DonHopkins
How many fathers do you think he has?

~~~
Retric
It's not about him. It's the odds that someone would have children from that
original group.

Consider, it's in no way an unusual event for lotteries to have winners.
Further someone can increase their odds of winning by buying a lot of tickets.
However, winners are unlikely to buy thousands of tickets for that drawing
because the pool of people that buy a few tickets are vastly higher than the
pool of people that buy thousands of tickets to each drawing.

So, just because one guy did not get cancer does not mean he has unusual DNA.
Granted, the odds of him having some anti cancer mutation is probably higher
than the general population.

~~~
DonHopkins
So you mean he's luckier because he has lots of fathers, therefore more
lottery tickets, thus increasing the chance that at least one of his fathers
will live a long life without getting cancer?

~~~
Retric
No, "It's not about him."

------
eunoia
Somewhat on topic, but in Colorado we have 6 of the original Titan I nuclear
complexes. Abandoned since 1965, each complex has probably a mile of tunnels,
huge underground rooms and 3 massive silos. They're absolutely fascinating to
explore.

Some random photos from the last time we went in to one.

[https://www.instagram.com/p/BLysXzHjG58/?taken-
by=hamonacob](https://www.instagram.com/p/BLysXzHjG58/?taken-by=hamonacob)

[https://www.instagram.com/p/BK3fsXFjwE6/?taken-
by=hamonacob](https://www.instagram.com/p/BK3fsXFjwE6/?taken-by=hamonacob)

[https://www.instagram.com/p/BCqaiG-KHGF/?taken-
by=hamonacob](https://www.instagram.com/p/BCqaiG-KHGF/?taken-by=hamonacob)

Happy to answer any questions for the curious.

~~~
Namrog84
Those are always the place I assume that most people assume are totally safe
and spelunk and climb and explore only to find out later they have way more
radiation or something 'new' bad thing that all those people were now exposed
to.

~~~
eunoia
The Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment has published their
findings on each site's environmental concerns.

[https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cdphe/titan-1-missile-
compl...](https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cdphe/titan-1-missile-complexes)

Edit: Of course there's still risk. Plenty of obvious asbestos about as well
as physically precarious flooring, deep standing water, angry farmers that
don't want you on their land, etc. Lots of fun though :)

------
yourapostasy
Especially informative was the side comment on what an atomic bomb _really_
sounds like to those on the ground observing from a distance. Forget the media
representations (shocker, right?). The all-encompassing, blinding light of the
sun part in fictional portrayals is mostly realistic. The sound however, is
completely different, and I've never heard a fictional one like it [1], with
its higher-toned sharp bang preceding the growling aftermath that is also
higher-toned than I expected based upon conditioned memory from entertainment
media.

It's like most entertainment media portrayals of drowning: not useful, not
actionable, not educational, and not informative; would be more enriching if
the entertainment industry reversed that predilection.

[1] [https://youtu.be/U_nLNcEbIC8?t=141](https://youtu.be/U_nLNcEbIC8?t=141)

~~~
mannykannot
We have to consider that the recording equipment probably did not capture the
detonation with much fidelity, and not at all the physiological effects of a
powerful shockwave.

I was once fairly close to a lightning strike, and my impression was that
there _had just been_ a very loud bang - it was as if it had no duration
whatsoever.

If a movie were to depict an explosion realistically, most of the audience
would think there was something wrong about it.

~~~
userbinator
_If a movie were to depict an explosion realistically, most of the audience
would think there was something wrong about it._

I think that would be more applicable in the past, but now that there's plenty
of _real_ explosions you can see and hear on YouTube, a "movie explosion"
probably sounds quite obviously... cinematic. The same goes for car crashes
(which are in reality similar to your description of lightning: usually one
loud _bang_ , and then silence --- no tinkling of shrapnel or boomy bass
echoes.)

~~~
tgjsrkghruksd
yup. bang and then silence, and then maybe after a stunned pause the
wails/groans of any surviving wounded.

------
mabbo
> It was shot by the U.S. Air Force ... to demonstrate the relative safety of
> a low-grade nuclear exchange in the atmosphere.

> the U.S. government has paid some $813 million to more than 16,000
> "downwinders" to compensate them for illnesses presumably connected to the
> bomb testing program.

I can only hope that the lessons learned from these programs are still
remembered today, as the POTUS talks about resuming building nuclear weapons.

~~~
openasocket
Fortunately:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_Nuclear_Test_Ban_Treat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_Nuclear_Test_Ban_Treaty)
bans all above ground tests . This was largely spurred by
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Tooth_Survey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Tooth_Survey)
which showed that the levels of radioactive Strontium 90 in baby teeth around
the US were steadily increasing. Nothing like radioactive baby teeth to get
people to take action.

~~~
jacquesm
Ah, but that is a treaty and those are not worth the paper they were printed
on these days. Just unilaterally withdraw and do whatever you want.

~~~
wnissen
If the Paris accord were in fact a treaty, we would not have been able to
withdraw, but treaties require a two-thirds vote in the Senate to be ratified
as law. This has been essentially been impossible to achieve in modern times.
Even crucial agreements such as the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which
effectively ended nuclear weapon testing worldwide are "signed but not
ratified." We have not, however, seen a unilateral withdrawal from a ratified
treaty, so please choose your words with care.

~~~
dragonwriter
> If the Paris accord were in fact a treaty, we would not have been able to
> withdraw

Many treaties (including the Paris Accord) have withdrawal mechanisms. (The
Paris Accord is a treaty under international law, whether it was a treaty,
requiring ratification, under the more narrow terms of US Constitutional law
has been a matter of some debate—still ongoing as those who argued it was a
treaty argue against characterizing Trump's action as a withdrawal.)

> We have not, however, seen a unilateral withdrawal from a ratified treaty

We have, just not under this President; e.g., George W. Bush's unilateral (but
compliant with the withdrawal mechanism of that treaty) withdrawal of the US
from the ABM Treaty.

~~~
Turing_Machine
"The Paris Accord is a treaty under international law, whether it was a
treaty, requiring ratification, under the more narrow terms of US
Constitutional law has been a matter of some debate"

There is no "debate". The US Constitution requires that treaties be ratified
by the Senate before they take effect. The Senate did not ratify the Paris
Accord. Therefore the United States is not and was not a party to that treaty.

Anyone who claims otherwise is dissembling, not "debating".

Note that this is a completely separate issue from whether it would have been
a good idea to ratify the Paris Accord.

~~~
dragonwriter
> There is no "debate".

There, in fact, is a still-hunting debate about whether the Paris Accord is a
treaty in Constitutional terms (and thus would have required ratification to
be in force; note that there is.no serious legal debate about the fa that the
term “treaty” has a broader meaning in international law than US
Constitutional law) or whether it is the type of agreement that could be
implemented as a sole executive agreement. Prior to Trump's recent
announcement, the debate was about whether the US was properly a party to the
Accord, now it's about whether it is proper to characterize Trump's act as
“withdrawal” from the Accord.

The fact that you have a strongly-held opinion (apparently based on a naïve
conflation of the international law and Constitutional law meanings of
“treaty” which even those who share your conclusion generally avoid) on the
debate does not mean that the debate does not exist.

~~~
Turing_Machine
"There, in fact, is a still-hunting debate about whether the Paris Accord is a
treaty in Constitutional terms"

No, there isn't. As someone once said, the Constitution is written in language
so clear that it requires a lawyer to misunderstand it.

Let us suppose that a school is having a class trip. Going on the trip
requires the student to sign up and also to get the consent of his parents.

Arguing that the Paris accord is a "treaty" is like arguing that a student
should get to go on the trip simply because he signed the sheet, even though
his parents have not granted permission. That would be an idiotic and/or
dishonest interpretation, and anyone who makes that argument is not "debating"
under any reasonable interpretation of that term.

There are also some points to be made about what this says about the character
of the student who signs the sheet when he knows full well that his parents
are never going to grant permission, but we'll just leave that off to the
side.

------
advisedwang
This was around the time that the US started to put Nuclear warheads on anti-
balistic missile systems. Nike Hercules would have used high-altitude low-
yield nuclear blasts within 100 miles of US cities to stop incoming ICBMs.

My guess is that this is what the author is referring to when he says "Air
Force wanted to reassure people that it was OK to use atomic weapons to
counter similar weapons being developed in Russia."

~~~
openasocket
Why on earth would you need a nuclear weapon to intercept a ballistic missle?
Certainly conventional explosives would have more than enough yield to destroy
a single missle. Or is the idea that you don't have to hit the target exactly,
you just have to be in the ballpark?

~~~
Tuna-Fish
> Why on earth would you need a nuclear weapon to intercept a ballistic
> missle? Certainly conventional explosives would have more than enough yield
> to destroy a single missle. Or is the idea that you don't have to hit the
> target exactly, you just have to be in the ballpark?

Yep. Re-entering ballistic missiles come down _really_ fast -- if you mistime
the detonation of your warhead by a few microseconds, no conventional warhead
can hit the target. Back when missiles just couldn't be accurate enough, they
were deployed with nuclear warheads to have large enough area of effect.

And those missiles were _insane_. For example, look at the Sprint missile: It
accelerates at 100g to reach mach 10 in 5 seconds, just in time to get close
enough to nuke the target. After accelerating, the head of the missile glows
brightly white hot from heating.

Modern ABMs are typically hittiles, that is they do away with the warhead
completely and just intend to hit the target directly, using the fact that
they don't have to carry a warhead to gain a drastically better kinematics.

~~~
Pxtl
> hittiles

Oh god please tell me that's not a real word.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
Sorry to disappoint, but it's been in wide use for half a century. BAC coined
it to market their Rapier missile which was accurate enough to not need a
large fragmentation warhead, and it spread out from there.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I wouldn't say "wide use". Google has only 18,000 total hits for the term, and
most of those seems to be false positives (e.g. "hit tile").

~~~
Zancarius
Certainly not in the DoJ's R&D engineering teams, AFAIK. See my post above.
That's not to say it's a more common colloquialism in commonwealth countries.

------
angrygoat
> "Quite a few have died from cancer," he told reporter Bill Broad. "No doubt
> it was related to the testing."

Here in Australia, veterans of nuclear testing only just received access to
the 'Gold Card' which covers all healthcare costs. Of course, many of those
exposed have now died.

[http://www.abc.net.au/news/story-streams/federal-
budget-2017...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/story-streams/federal-
budget-2017/2017-05-07/federal-budget-2017-veterans-welcome-gold-card-
decision/8504884)

The people in the photo might have known what they were signing up for, and an
idea of the risk, but many service people had no idea at all.

~~~
jessriedel
Do we actually know that anyone involved in this story had cancer that was
likely caused by testing? The size of effects of very low dosages (which are
only seen at the population-level) is not well understood, but the risks of
dosages with large effect is very well quantified. Certainly, it does not
appear that the radiation dose from this single test was large enough to give
someone cancer with large (e.g., >5%) probability, which is less than the
baseline population rate.

~~~
Symmetry
We don't know how much radiation the cameramen were exposed to. If they were
close to enough nuclear tests they might very well have gathered a lifetime
dose in the 100s of mS range without ever getting radiation poisoning. Which
is certainly enough to up your cancer rates quite a bit.

Some online calculators tell me that the 5 guys in the photo got about 50 mS
which is barely enough to detectably raise cancer rates.

With small nukes like that 2kt one the main danger tends to be from radiation
rather than heat and blast. With big 2Mt nukes it's the opposite. Well, 2Mt
nukes are basically all fission-fusion-fission devices and that last U-238
fission stage creates an immense amount of fallout.

------
fnordfnordfnord
Notably, the cameraman did not volunteer for the job.

This article from 2010 was linked in the OP:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/science/14atom.html?pagewa...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/science/14atom.html?pagewanted=all)

~~~
badosu
Also, from the wikipedia entry on the AIR-2 Genie [0]:

 _Gamma and neutron doses received by observers on the ground were negligible.
Doses received by aircrew were highest for the fliers assigned to penetrate
the airburst cloud ten minutes after explosion._

Imagine for a moment being _assigned_ to take a risk of developing a mortal
condition.

[0] -
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIR-2_Genie](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIR-2_Genie)

~~~
dragonwriter
> Imagine for a moment being assigned to take a risk of developing a mortal
> condition.

Every action involves some risk of developing a mortal condition, and being in
the military, particularly, involves notable risk of being assigned to tasks
that have elevated risks of developing a mortal condition.

~~~
badosu
Of course, but remember that you're not being asked simply to fly a plane in a
common way or to test some conventional device.

You're being asked to fly into a radioactive mushroom cloud to test if you get
harmed or not.

And you're probably not even being asked but _ordered_ , you don't have too
much choice.

 _Oh, he died? Well, let 's test again but 20 minutes later instead of 10_

~~~
jessriedel
This was not the purpose of flying into the cloud.

~~~
badosu
I may be wrong on that, do you know what was then?

~~~
jessriedel
I don't know anything about this specific test, but the military goes to
extraordinary lengths to train realistically for unusual and new war
scenarios. (E.g., most US soldiers have been preparing for fighting in the
presence of chemical weapons with gas masks, etc., for decades even though, to
my knowledge, there's never been a large-scale usage since WW2.) But in this
case, I'd wager they're taking scientific data for understanding the
performance of the bomb; terrestrial bomb tests were huge exercises in data
taking, and I don't know why airbursts would be different.

The link between radiation and cancer was established in the '20s, and
certainly well-known (if poorly understood) by the time atomic weapons were
developed. For instance, Muller got the Nobel prize for this work in 1947.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation-
induced_cancer#Histo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation-
induced_cancer#History)

Certainly, safety rules weren't as conservative and stringent as they are
today, but it's silly to think US soldiers were routinely and openly used as
guinea pigs.

~~~
badosu
Thanks for the information.

------
dredmorbius
Ground Zero, population _six_.

More on the cameraman, civillian photographer Akira "George" Yoshitake. On the
test footage shown: "he was not aware of what his assignment would entail,
until arriving at the test center that day."

An interview:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/george-yoshitake-
nu...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/george-yoshitake-nuclear-test-
five-5-men-nevada_n_1687233.html)

His obituary, 2013.

[http://lompocrecord.com/lifestyles/announcements/obituaries/...](http://lompocrecord.com/lifestyles/announcements/obituaries/akira-
george-yoshitake/article_e7d7490d-8347-5fab-a8ed-6e0adf725271.html)

George died in Santa Barbara. From his name, it's evident that he's of
Japanese ancestry. As the obit states, his family were interned along with
other West Coast American citizens of Japanese descent, during World War II.

------
jessriedel
FYI: The article mentions that this weapon had a 2 kiloton yield. This is to
be compared to the 15-20 kiloton yields of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, and modern thermonuclear warheads which typically have maximum
yields in the 300-500 kiloton range.

~~~
badosu
There were not guided missiles yet, and the US was anxious due to the
development of the atomic bomb and bombers by Soviet Russia.

So it was devised as a missile that could compensate the lack of accuracy with
the higher yield than conventional ammunition, even though it was not as
potent as a bomb.

~~~
chiph
Correct - the guidance on these missiles were more of the "point and fire"
variety. So to ensure that you shot down the Soviet bomber (which also had
nuclear weapons on it), you compensated by increasing the size of the
explosion. Even a miss might have been good enough, as the shockwave could
potentially tear a wing or tail off.

------
ChuckMcM
As the article points out, much of the fallout from the nuclear tests headed
south and east over Utah and St. George Utah in particular. There has been a
number of research studies on the population there. What is less well known is
that these studies, and some longitudinal studies of Japanese survivors of the
Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs are nearly all of the data sets available for
understanding the effects of environmental nuclear exposure on humans.

------
Simulacra
There's a fascinating book called "How to Photograph an Atomic Bomb" [1] that
delves into exactly how they made all of those photos, and movies. It's really
not as simple as one might think.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Photograph-Atomic-Bomb-Peter-
Kuran/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Photograph-Atomic-Bomb-Peter-
Kuran/dp/1889054119)

------
atemerev
I'd volunteered. People make larger risks with paragliding or mountain
climbing, but there at least was a chance to make history.

~~~
likelynew
You mean you are one of those 5?

~~~
whiteandnerdy
More likely a grammar error: OP probably meant "I'd volunteer" but conjugated
as if "I'd" was "I had" (using the past participle) rather than "I would"
(using the bare infinitive). Easy mistake for a non native speaker.

~~~
NamTaf
That's my interpretation. The OP likely meant 'I'd _have_ voluneered'.

------
doener
Two comics where this plays a role:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormwatch_(comics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormwatch_\(comics\))

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_(comics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_\(comics\))

------
jdcarr
Radiolab had a great episode about nuclear weapons in the US.

At the ~51:26 mark of the episode
[http://www.wnyc.org/radio/#/747788](http://www.wnyc.org/radio/#/747788)
there's a great description of what the explosion of a hydrogen bomb was like.

------
jshmrsn
I was just reading about the Genie a few days ago, funny to see it on HN.

Unguided air-to-air missile with a nuclear warhead. A great icon for era it
came from.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIR-2_Genie](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIR-2_Genie)

------
Dove
I realized only recently the degree and specificity to which this scenario
forms the backstory to the classic arcade game Missile Command.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQJA5YjvHDU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQJA5YjvHDU)

------
hagakure0c
Same kind of people playing around with weaponized AI today, what could
possibly go wrong.

------
fokinsean
On a related note, here is a time lapse of all the nuclear detonations since
1945.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY)

------
thatwebdude
Guy in middle with sunglasses had the right idea.

I'd really like to know how dark they were though, he didn't even flinch at
that flash.

------
LordKano
This is fantastic. I can only imagine the kind of courage it would have taken
to volunteer for this 60 years ago.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
I'm not sure "courage" is the word. They'd been assured by trusted authority
figures that it was completely harmless. Maybe "naive trust".

~~~
eridius
2 colonels, 2 majors, and another officer. I think they _were_ the authority
figures.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Maybe "stupid", then.

------
ianai
It was a starkly different time back then.

~~~
valuearb
The blast was far safer than you believe.

------
krath94
Would an actual detonation happen at that height? If so, how does it actually
kill other than radiation?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Would an actual detonation happen at that height?

Yes, quite likely.

> If so, how does it actually kill other than radiation?

Remember that the purpose of this was to assure the public about safety of
using nuclear weapons to intercept enemy nuclear attacks (specifically, I
believe, incoming bomber groups.)

------
musgrove
The first 5 inductees into the Darwin Awards?

------
gtirloni
"Agreed" (2012)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4262242](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4262242)

~~~
blowski
Probably the same type of people who want to be the first to live on mars.
Some people are thrill seekers, consequences be damned.

