Happy Birthday (?)..

[Amadeus]

60 years ago, on August the 6th, 1945, at 08.17 Japanese time, the first atomic bomb used in warfare, nicknamed "Little Boy" (because the bomb, three meters long and weighing in at almost five tons, turned out to be substantially smaller than its designers had initially expected), was dropped from a B-29 Superfortress, the Enola Gay, piloted by Lt. Col. Paul Tibbets, from about 31,000 feet onto the city of Hiroshima.

 

So today, 60 years ago, mankind once again opened another chapter in history, by using an atomic bomb against it's enemies at war for the first time ever.

 

I just thought that this anniversary would be worth mentioning here..

[Alias]

Do the sites still suffer from unuseable radioactivity levels?

[loaf]

No. Hiroshima has long since been rebuilt and I believe is completely safe, but a single building, now known as the Atomic Bomb Dome is preserved near the point at which the Little Boy bomb was detonated as a reminder of the devistation caused and a symbol of world peace.

 

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whilst causing huge losses of life, are mere coughs compared to the H-bombs tested in the South Pacific. For example, 50 or so years on, inhabitants of Bikini in the Marshall Islands are still not allowed back onto their native island due to radioactive contamination.

[Digga]

That will be why they were showing 'Trinity and beyond the H bomb story' some fantastic footage in a 2 hour long program that is well worth seeing

 

 

 

Here is a good site for amazing pics

nagbomb1.mov

[Amadeus]

There certainly is a strange fascination attached to these devices of doom..

 

"Little Boy" was actually a so-called "Gun-triggered fission bomb", while "Fat Man", the one in the clip above, was an "Implosion-triggered fission bomb" - if that means as much to you as it meant to me before I read up about it, then here's a link for more info

 

Apparently, "Little Boy" only had an efficiency of about 1.5 percent, so only 1.5% of the material reacted before the rest was destroyed by the explosion.

 

And always happy to extend the boarders of insanity when it comes to new weapons, the yanks even built an atomic cannon at some point - only used once as far as I know, but the footage gives you some kind of idea how powerful such a weapon must be - scary is a mild word here...

 

Link to Atomic Cannon Clip

 

thrown in my webspace - once there, right-click, save

[MasterChief]

They are scary scary weapons, the luckiest people of all die without even realising anything is wrong in the initial radiation blast close to the epicenter. The most unlucky are those who are walking on tarmac at just the right distance, such is the power of the bomb that they would melt into the very pavement they were walking on before dying in the firestorm.

 

To think that even now the American administration is looking into developing new versions of these weapons is truly chilling.