
Tsar Bomba - windowtoss
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
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cowabungacode
While this is about the largest nuclear bomb ever produced, I also find the
stories of the smallest interesting. Project Orion was a classified effort by
the US to produce minituarized nukes for use in dropping out the bottom of a
spacecraft to accelerate to insane top speeds.

Wicked pollution but I think they could also get to Alpha Centuri at like 10%
c or something like that. Human-lifetime achievable. Project was cancelled for
a number of reasons, the top likely being the Atmosphere and Space Test Ban.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propuls...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_\(nuclear_propulsion\))

~~~
Someone
_”I also find the stories of the smallest interesting“_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_\(nuclear_device\))

2,100 produced.

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skrap
I've always wondered what evidence remains at the test site. Has nature
completely covered up what happened once there? Or is the destruction too
indelible? Has any reporter gone and explored that site?

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mrep
Looks like it, albeit, it's so remote nothing was really there before it was
used [0].

[0]:
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tsar+Bomba+hypocenter/@73....](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tsar+Bomba+hypocenter/@73.8418942,55.1111069,749m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x44f9e590f9311b19:0xdc3f0ae7f142ba31!8m2!3d73.8426591!4d55.1149827)

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trixie_
Right now there are 14 Ohio class submarines in the water, each with up to 24
ICBMs, each missile with up to 14 warheads of 100 kilotons.

As of 2014 there were 488 cities in the world with over a million people. If
somehow even half of that arsenal was unleashed: 7x12x7=588 city centers (2
mile radius) could be wiped out instantly.

It's scary to think about anything that possibly can happen, will happen..
eventually..

~~~
Someone
That’s an eighth of that arsenal, not half of it.

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jedberg
It's unfortunate that we are so good at making weapons, and that we expend so
many resources and so much brain power to the endeavor.

The space race was military based, but at least it was somewhat wholesome in
the outward appearance of trying to better humanity. We need another one of
those.

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gamesbrainiac
The Green Energy race perhaps? I think its absolutely magical if we can run on
100% renewable energy.

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aclsid
Well, people were doing that with horses and natural resources like wood,
sperm oil and others for centuries before us. I do love our modernity but as
far as being sustainable, there is no way on earth we are not going to destroy
this planet with all the plastic packaging and the short-term throwaway
mentality of modern electronics. All-electric from renewable sources is such a
small part of that equation that it is mostly lip service. After all, you will
still need batteries with all the pollution that implies.

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tunesmith
50 megatons of TNT? When fat man and little boy were 15 and 20 _kilotons_
respectively? This was really 3,000 times as big? I guess I didn't realize
there was such a difference.

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docbrown
_This three stage weapon was actually a 100 megaton bomb design, but the
uranium fusion stage tamper of the tertiary (and possibly the secondary)
stage(s) was replaced by one(s) made of lead. This reduced the yield by 50% by
eliminating the fast fissioning of the uranium tamper by the fusion neutrons,
and eliminated 97% of the fallout (1.5 megatons of fission, instead of about
51.5 Mt), yet still proved the full yield design. The result was the
"cleanest" weapon ever tested with 97% of the energy coming from fusion
reactions. The effect of this bomb at full yield on global fallout would have
been tremendous. It would have increased the world's total fission fallout
since the invention of the atomic bomb by 25%._ [1]

1:
[http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/TsarBomba.html](http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/TsarBomba.html)

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anonymfus
Dear HNers, when kids study Cold War as part of the history lessons in schools
of your country, is Tsar Bomba mentioned?

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choonway
Not in Singapore. Nuclear weapons that it was used against Japan, but not
cold-war developments in that respect.

Maybe it's because it makes the militaries of non-nuclear states feel small.

