Orange Herald: The Bomb Behind Britain's Worst Nuclear Disaster

Orange Herald: The Bomb Behind Britain's Worst Nuclear Disaster

In the aftermath of the Second World War, it quickly became evident to the British government that Americans had no intention of sharing their newly acquired nuclear weapons technology despite the UK’s assistance in the Manhattan Project. As such the British government set about building its own atomic arsenal which eventually led to the UK’s worst nuclear meltdown in history.

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How the US Invented Dirty Bombs to Stop the Soviet Advance in Europe

The thought of mutually assured destruction in the form of worldwide nuclear annihilation made leaders on both sides of the Iron Curtain squeamish. But, limited nuclear war, now there was a plan! Irradiating the Soviets just a little bit, you know, as a deterrent, was seen as the clearly superior option to outright ICBM volleys.

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New Google Earth Hack Lets You Nuke Any City in Devastating 3D

New Google Earth Hack Lets You Nuke Any City in Devastating 3D

A perverse fascination with nuclear fallout and blast radii isn’t that weird. Don’t you want to know how hard you and everything you know is going to disappear from the face of the Earth in the unlikely case that some maniac drops twenty kilotons of atomic death on your front door? Now you can see a simulation of the mushroom cloud that will claim your life—in three dimensions.

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How NASA’s Nuclear Rockets Will Take Us Way Beyond Mars

The first people to step on to the surface of Mars won’t arrive aboard the chemical-fueled rockets that delivered Apollo 11 to the Moon—they simply don’t provide enough thrust to get to the Red Planet before exposing their crews to months of dangerous space radiation. Instead, NASA is turning to long-ignored nuclear-thermal rocket technology to deliver the first Martian explorers into history. More »

Could North Korea Really Hit Us With a Nuke?

In a predictably insane but still unsettling development, North Korea has declared its interest in showering the US mainland with missiles. The bluster comes on the heels of an American stealth bomber show of force, and is largely just posturing. More »

Pentagon: Let’s Threaten Nuke Strike Against Hackers

Most of us are content keeping hackers away with a firewall and decent password. But the Pentagon isn’t nearly content, and in a new report, insists we should keep our nuclear arsenal ready for Internet retaliation. What could go wrong? More »

A Complete History of American Nuclear Explosions in 90 Seconds

On July 16, 1945, the US Army destroyed a small part of New Mexico by testing the first nuclear bomb in human history, the most powerful weapon of all time. It then proceeded to blow up 1,054 more. More »

Meet The Tiny Bomb-Wielding Spacecraft That Could Someday Save Our Species

Scientists have given some thought as to how we’ll defend ourselves when a giant asteroid inevitably heads our way and solutions range from paintballs to nukes. A team at Iowa State University has settled on the latter, and they’ve got plans for a ship that can do it waiting in the wings. More »

US Air Force Tests Doomsday Nuclear Launch Attack

If Lenin ever leaps out of his coffin and starts singin’ nukes at Rhode Island, this is how America will seek her justice: a nuclear-tipped Minuteman III rocket, aimed straight down Moscow’s throat. Will it work? Watch and see! More »

These Five Men Volunteered to Let a Nuke Explode Over Them [Video]

Sixty five years ago today, the Department of Defense launched a nuclear missile test in Nevada, as they would hundreds of times again. But this time, five guys and a cameraman were placed right underneath the massive atomic explosion. Why? More »