Friday, November 28

Starfish Prime, Operation Dominic, Nuking the Pacific

The United States conducted 22 successful nuclear detonations as part of Operation Dominic here in 1962.

Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States of America on July 9, 1962, a joint effort of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the Defense Atomic Support Agency (which became the Defense Nuclear Agency in 1971). Launched via a Thor rocket and carrying a W49 thermonuclear warhead (manufactured by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) and a Mk. 4 reentry vehicle, the explosion took place 250 miles (400 kilometers) above a point 19 miles (31 kilometers) southwest of Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. It was one of five tests conducted by the USA in outer space as defined by the FAI. It produced a yield of 1.4 megatons of TNT. continue

8 November 1957:
Grapple X Round C1, the first successful British hydrogen bomb test, detonates over Kiritimati's South East Point.