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| Nuclear
testing
Nuclear
weapons testing and indigenous peoples
Sub-
critical nuclear weapons tests |
To date, 8 countries have conducted
approximately 2,051 nuclear tests under water, underground, and in the
atmosphere. This represents an average of one nuclear test every nine
days for the last 50 years.
These bombs have been exploded
by United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France, People's Republic
of China, India, and Pakistan.
Historical background
of the nuclear testing program 
(National Cancer Institute)
Almost All
in U.S. Have Been Exposed to Fallout, Study Finds
Partial
Victories on Nuclear Weapons in Congress, but bill suggests that the
U.S. should be ready to resume testing with as little as six months' notice
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The
Nevada Test Site,
located on land sacred to the Western Shoshone, is an integral part of
the nation’s nuclear design and testing industry and the most bombed
area on Earth with over 1,000 nuclear explosions.
A nuclear test explosion is
an experiment involving the detonation of a nuclear warhead. Throughout
the twentieth century, most nations which have developed nuclear weapons
have staged tests of them. Testing nuclear weapons can yield information
about how the weapons work (known as "weapons related" testing),
as well as how the weapons behave under various conditions and how structures
behave when subjected to nuclear explosions ("known as "weapons
effects" testing). Additionally, nuclear testing has often been used
as an indicator of scientific and military strength and many tests have
been overtly political in their intention, and most nuclear weapons states
publicly declared their nuclear status by means of a nuclear test.
Nuclear
testing by country |
The Nevada Test Site (topo
map)
is a Rhode Island-sized testing ground northwest of Las Vegas where the
U.S. conducted the majority of its nuclear weapons tests during the Cold
War. Initially the NTS, originally called the Nevada Proving Grounds,
consisted of 680 square miles, about half its present size. Additional
land was added in 1958, 1961, 1964, and 1967.
A
Shundahai Network Special Report Nevada
Test Site History
The Nevada Test Site: Desert
Annex of the Nuclear Weapons Laboratories |
| Nuclear weapons
tests are generally classified as being either "atmospheric"
(in or above the atmosphere), "underground". or "underwater".
Of these, underground testing contained in deep shafts poses the least
health risk in terms of fallout. Atmospheric testing which comes in contact
with the ground or other materials poses the highest risk. Nuclear weapons
have been tested by dropping them from planes (an "airdrop"),
from the tops of towers, hoisted from balloons, on barges at sea, attached
to the bottom of ships, and even shot into outer space by rockets (high-altitude
nuclear testing).
The first atomic test was
detonated by the United States at the Trinity site on July 16, 1945, with
a yield approximately equivalent to 20 kilotons. The first hydrogen bomb,
code named"Mike", was tested at the Enewetak atoll in the Marshall
Islands on November 1, 1952, also by the United States. The largest nuclear
weapon ever tested was the "Tsar Bomba" of the Soviet Union
at Novaya Zemlya, with an estimated yield of around 50 megatons.
In 1963, all nuclear and many
non-nuclear states signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, pledging to refrain
from testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, underwater, or in outer
space. The treaty permitted underground tests. France continued atmospheric
testing until 1974, while China continued up until 1980. The last underground
test by the United States was in 1992, the Soviet Union in 1990, the United
Kingdom in 1991, and both France and China continued testing up until
1996. After adopting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996, all of
these states have pledged to discontinue all nuclear testing. Non-signatories
India and Pakistan both last tested nuclear weapons in 1998.
Nuclear-weapons-related testing
which result in no yield is known as subcritical testing; additionally,
there have been simulations of nuclear tests using conventional explosives
(such as the Minor Scale U.S. test in 1985). |
| •
The Bush Administration wants to build a plant to produce plutonium “pits”
that make up the heart of nuclear weapons and is studying the test site
as one of five options for the future home of the plant.
• November 2003- the
Bush administration succeeded in overcoming bipartisan opposition to lifting
a decade-long ban on research and development of New classes of nuclear
weapons.
• December 2003- President
Bush signed the energy bill into law funding research on new, so-called
mini-nukes, or nuclear warheads with an explosive power a third or less
of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The bill also increased spending
on ‘’bunker buster’’ warheads that can burrow
deep into the earth, and destroy buried bunkers or command centers. |
• May 2004-Bunker Buster Amendment defeated, which provides appropriations
for the “military activities” of the Department of Defense
during the fiscal year of 2005.
• June 2004-Kennedy-Feinstein
Amendment defeated. This allows the Bush administration to spend $485
million on the development and production of nuclear weapons over the
next five years, including $27 million for a robust nuclear earth penetrator
or “bunker buster.”
• The Bush Administration’s
”Nuclear Posture Review” is lifting the moratorium on underground
nuclear tests in order to test nuclear weapons.
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