I'm watching the documentary - Dr. Teller's Very Large Bomb

[Swede]

Scary stuff.

[Confusious]

1. Eh, that was small fry.... hehe get it?

The big boy was the tzar bomba: 100 Megatons of pure fusion power. 93% of the energy created was from fusion.

Most Nukes average about 7 megatons these days, and are less efficient because of safety features.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

[daleo]

2. That one even scared the builders

It's freaky to even read about it.

[Swede]

3. This documentary is about the H bomb,not the a bombs.

It explains how to make them too (in general sense of course). How the Russians were able to build theirs smaller and more deliverable by putting the deuterium and tritium between the high explosives in the bomb. How America's Castle Bravo was 4-6 megatons bigger than they thought it would be,terrifying the scientists observing the mushroom cloud go up over and past them.

Also how the rightwingers were ready to go toe to toe all out nuclear exchange 3 fucking times,consequences be damned.

[Confusious]

4. The Tsar Bomba was an H bomb

The largest ever made by any country.

Notice I said "100 MEGAtons" an A-bomb cannot reach the MEGAton range. Hiroshima was a 13 KILOton A-bomb or --->

Hiroshima ---------> 13,000 tons of TNT ---------> 13 thousand tons
TZAR BOMBA --------> 100,000,000 tons of TNT ----> 100 Million tons

A-bombs are inefficient, only 1% to 5% of matter get used.

[Swede]

5. It had a yield of 53 Megatons. You can see the blast site on google earth.

At the time the Russians said it was 78 Megatons,the Americans said it was around 70,but it has since been estimate to about 53 Megatons.

[Confusious]

6. Yea, I saw that when I looked

But it could have gone up to 100, and at 53, it was still the largest ever.

You can still see the blast site? damn, I'll have to check that out!

Crazy what fear will make people do. Should have some sort of, I don't know, "national health care" to help people deal with that.

[Swede]

7. Scary.

[Statistical]

11. Most nuke today and well below even 1 Megaton.

MIRV and sea launch ballistic missiles changed all that.

The goal became to make warheads lighter and pack more on a single missile.

An ohio class has 24 Trident SLBM each can carry 12 warheads (although we have reduced number due to treaties).

That is potential for 288 warheads per submarine. At 475kt (0.475 megatons) each that is over 120 megatons effective yield which is more than double ALL the firepower used in WWII and 6000x the effect of Hiroshima.

Oh yeah and we have 14 Ohio class Boomers and due to lighter payload and shorter range they can put a warhead on target in less than 10 minutes with 100 meter accuracy.

While the big bombs make better stories the reality of a litteral shower of nuclear devices is far more scary.

[Canuckistanian]

8. Teller was a maniac

He was so invested in his precious H-bomb, that he wanted to see it used somewhere.

[Confusious]

9. And he had caterpillars for eyebrows

That should have tipped someone off.

[Canuckistanian]

10. Something went wrong there

Right-thinking Americans should never trust "pointy-headed inteleckshuals" who never trim their eyebrows.