Download or read book The Nevada Test Site written by Emmet Gowin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Emmet Gowin likes to ask a provocative question: "Which country on earth has had the largest number of nuclear bombs detonated within its borders?" The answer is the United States. Covering approximately 680 square miles, the Nevada National Security Site, formerly known as the Nevada Test Site, was the primary testing location of American nuclear devices from 1951 to 1992; 1,021 announced nuclear tests occurred there, 921 of which were underground. The site, which is closed to the public, including its airspace, contains 28 areas, 1,100 buildings, 400 miles of paved roads, 300 miles of unpaved roads, 10 heliports, and two airstrips. Its surface is covered with subsidence craters from testing, and in places looks like the moon. In 1996, Gowin received permission to document the landscape by air, after over a decade of working to secure access. These aerial views of environmental devastation--made quietly majestic but no less potent in the hands of a master photographer--unveil environmental travesties on a grand scale. While groups of images from the Nevada Test Site series have been published previously, this book will produce the largest number yet, and three quarters of the pictures will not have been published at all. Gowin is the only photographer to have been granted access to this site, which is now permanently closed, post-9/11. Other than images made by the government for geographic purposes, no other images of this landscape exist. The book will feature a preface by photographer Robert Adams (America, b. 1937), whose photographic and written work is concerned with landscape, urbanization, and activism. It will also feature an afterword by Gowin on how he made the images, and their significance to him today."--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Nevada Test Site written by Peter W. Merlin and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2016 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Since Pres. Harry Truman established the Nevada Test Site (NTS) in December 1950, it has played a vital role in the security of the United States. For four decades, the test site's primary purpose was developmental testing of nuclear explosives. Atmospheric tests conducted over Yucca Flat and Frenchman Flat between 1951 and 1962 involved thousands of Army troops and Marines simulating nuclear battlefield conditions. Civil defense planners studied blast and radiation effects and evaluated bomb shelter designs. Testing moved underground in 1963 to eliminate radioactive fallout. Other projects at the NTS included nuclear rocket engine development for space travel, training for NASA's Apollo astronauts, excavation experiments, radioactive waste storage studies, and aircraft testing. Since the last underground nuclear test in 1992, this geographically diverse testing and training complex north of Las Vegas--known since 2010 as the Nevada National Security Site--has been used to support nuclear stockpile stewardship and as a unique outdoor laboratory for government and industry research and development efforts."--Page 4 of cover.
Download or read book United States Nuclear Tests written by and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This document lists chronologically and alphabetically by name all nuclear tests and simultaneous detonations conducted by the United States from July 1945 through September 1992. Two nuclear weapons that the United States exploded over Japan ending World War II are not listed. These detonations were not "tests" in the sense that they were conducted to prove that the weapon would work as designed (as was the first test near Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945), or to advance nuclear weapon design, or to determine weapons effects, or to verify weapon safety as were the more than one thousand tests that have taken place since June 30,1946. The nuclear weapon (nicknamed "Little Boy") dropped August 6,1945 from a United States Army Air Force B-29 bomber (the Enola Gay) and detonated over Hiroshima, Japan had an energy yield equivalent to that of 15,000 tons of TNT. The nuclear weapon (virtually identical to "Fat Man") exploded in a similar fashion August 9, 1945 over Nagaski, Japan had a yield of 21,000 tons of TNT. Both detonations were intended to end World War II as quickly as possible. Data on United States tests were obtained from, and verified by, the U.S. Department of Energy's three weapons laboratories -- Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California; and Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico; and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Additionally, data were obtained from public announcements issued by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and its successors, the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration, and the U.S. Department of Energy, respectively.
Download or read book Tonopah Test Range written by Peter W. Merlin and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2021-02-22 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Established by Sandia Corporation in 1957, Tonopah Test Range (TTR) in Nevada provided an isolated place for the Atomic Energy Commission and successor agencies to test ballistic characteristics and non-nuclear components of atomic bombs. Also known as Area 52, the vast outdoor laboratory served this purpose throughout the Cold War arms race and continues to play a vital role in the stewardship and maintenance of the United States' nuclear arsenal. The range has been used for training exercises, testing rockets, development of electronic warfare systems and unmanned aerial vehicles, and nuclear safety experiments. During the late 1970s, the Air Force constructed an airfield for a clandestine squadron of captured Russian fighter planes that were used for tactical evaluations and to provide realistic air combat training for thousands of US airmen. The TTR airfield also served as the first operational base for the F-117A stealth fighter, an airplane designed to be virtually invisible to detection by radar. Now operated primarily by Sandia National Laboratories for the Department of Energy and, in part, by the Air Force Materiel Command, TTR remains a valuable national asset with unparalleled capabilities.
Download or read book Savage Dreams written by Rebecca Solnit and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2014-06-06 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In 1851, a war began in what would become Yosemite National Park, a war against the indigenous inhabitants that has yet to come to a real conclusion. A century later - 1951 - and about a hundred and fifty miles away, another war began when the U.S. government started setting off nuclear bombs at the Nevada Test Site. It was called a "nuclear testing program" but functioned as a war against the land and people of the Great Basin."--
Download or read book Doom Towns written by Andrew G. Kirk and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Explains critical technological developments and the policies that drove weapons innovation within the context of the specific environments and communities where testing actually took place ... [and] emphasizes the people who participated, protested, or were affected by atomic testing and explains the decision-making process that resulted in these people and places becoming the only locations and groups to actually experience nuclear warfare during the Cold War"--
Download or read book The Five Series Study written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2000-03-02 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than 200,000 U.S. military personnel participated in atmospheric nuclear weapons tests between 1945 and the 1963 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Questions persist, such as whether that test participation is associated with the timing and causes of death among those individuals. This is the report of a mortality study of the approximately 70,000 soldiers, sailors, and airmen who participated in at least one of five selected U.S. nuclear weapons test series1 in the 1950s and nearly 65,000 comparable nonparticipants, the referents. The investigation described in this report, based on more than 5 million person-years of mortality follow-up, represents one of the largest cohort studies of military veterans ever conducted.
Download or read book Under the Cloud written by Richard Lee Miller and published by Two-Sixty Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In "a chilling documentary history of America's above-ground nuclear tests conducted during the 1950s and early 1960s, Miller takes on the subject and universalizes it, at the same time giving it the flavor of a Dos Passos novel" ("Kirkus Reviews").
Download or read book Bombs in the Backyard written by A. Constandina Titus and published by University of Nevada Press. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On January 27, 1951, the first atomic weapon was detonated over a section of desert known as Frenchman Flat in southern Nevada, providing dramatic evidence of the Nevada Test Site's beginnings. Fifty years later, author A. Costandina Titus reviews contemporary nuclear policy issues concerning the continued viability of that site for weapons testing. Titus has updated her now-classic study of atomic testing with fifteen years of political and cultural history, from the mid-1980s Reagan-Gorbachev nuclear standoff to the authorization of the Nevada Test Site Research Center, a Desert Research Institute facility scheduled to open in 2001. In this second edition of Bombs in the Backyard, Titus deftly covers the post-Cold War transformation of American atomic policy as well as our overarching cultural interest in all matters atomic, making this a must-read for anyone interested in atomic policy and politics.
Download or read book A Good Day Has No Rain written by Bill Heller and published by Atlasbooks Dist Serv. This book was released on 2003 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the risk of exposing innocent Americans to cancer-causing radiation, the U.S. government decided that domestic atom bomb testing was "essential to the national defense." This testing, combined with an extremely violent storm, caused New York's Capital Region to receive excessive amounts of radioactive fallout in April 1953.
Download or read book Adverse Reproductive Outcomes in Families of Atomic Veterans written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1995-07-17 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past several decades, public concern over exposure to ionizing radiation has increased. This concern has manifested itself in different ways depending on the perception of risk to different individuals and different groups and the circumstances of their exposure. One such group are those U.S. servicemen (the "Atomic Veterans" who participated in the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site or in the Pacific Proving Grounds, who served with occupation forces in or near Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or who were prisoners of war in or near those cities at the time of, or shortly after, the atomic bombings. This book addresses the feasibility of conducting an epidemiologic study to determine if there is an increased risk of adverse reproductive outcomes in the spouses, children, and grandchildren of the Atomic Veterans.
Download or read book Area 51 written by Annie Jacobsen and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2011-05-17 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This "compellingly hard-hitting" bestseller from a Pulitzer Prize finalist gives readers the complete untold story of the top-secret military base for the first time (New York Times). It is the most famous military installation in the world. And it doesn't exist. Located a mere seventy-five miles outside of Las Vegas in Nevada's desert, the base has never been acknowledged by the U.S. government — but Area 51 has captivated imaginations for decades. Myths and hypotheses about Area 51 have long abounded, thanks to the intense secrecy enveloping it. Some claim it is home to aliens, underground tunnel systems, and nuclear facilities. Others believe that the lunar landing itself was filmed there. The prevalence of these rumors stems from the fact that no credible insider has ever divulged the truth about his time inside the base. Until now. Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to nineteen men who served the base proudly and secretly for decades and are now aged 75-92, and unprecedented access to fifty-five additional military and intelligence personnel, scientists, pilots, and engineers linked to the secret base, thirty-two of whom lived and worked there for extended periods. In Area 51, Jacobsen shows us what has really gone on in the Nevada desert, from testing nuclear weapons to building super-secret, supersonic jets to pursuing the War on Terror. This is the first book based on interviews with eye witnesses to Area 51 history, which makes it the seminal work on the subject. Filled with formerly classified information that has never been accurately decoded for the public, Area 51 weaves the mysterious activities of the top-secret base into a gripping narrative, showing that facts are often more fantastic than fiction, especially when the distinction is almost impossible to make.
Download or read book The Size of the Risk written by Leisl Carr Childers and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2015-10-09 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Great Basin, a stark and beautiful desert filled with sagebrush deserts and mountain ranges, is the epicenter for public lands conflicts. Arising out of the multiple, often incompatible uses created throughout the twentieth century, these struggles reveal the tension inherent within the multiple use concept, a management philosophy that promises equitable access to the region’s resources and economic gain to those who live there. Multiple use was originally conceived as a way to legitimize the historical use of public lands for grazing without precluding future uses, such as outdoor recreation, weapons development, and wildlife management. It was applied to the Great Basin to bring the region, once seen as worthless, into the national economic fold. Land managers, ranchers, mining interests, wilderness and wildlife advocates, outdoor recreationists, and even the military adopted this ideology to accommodate, promote, and sanction a multitude of activities on public lands, particularly those overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. Some of these uses are locally driven and others are nationally mandated, but all have exacted a cost from the region’s human and natural environment. In The Size of the Risk, Leisl Carr Childers shows how different constituencies worked to fill the presumed “empty space” of the Great Basin with a variety of land-use regimes that overlapped, conflicted, and ultimately harmed the environment and the people who depended on the region for their livelihoods. She looks at the conflicts that arose from the intersection of an ever-increasing number of activities, such as nuclear testing and wild horse preservation, and how Great Basin residents have navigated these conflicts. Carr Childers’s study of multiple use in the Great Basin highlights the complex interplay between the state, society, and the environment, allowing us to better understand the ongoing reality of living in the American West.
Download or read book Nuclear Landscapes written by Peter Goin and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Photographer Groin presents all-too-vivid color images of sites in the US where nuclear testing has significantly altered the landscape and anything (usually not much) that still lives there. Also includes historical and official photographs of tests and their effects. An exhibit of the photographs is currently touring the country. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Download or read book American Ground Zero written by Carole Gallagher and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One photojournalist's decade-long commitment, a gripping collection of portraits and interviews of those whose lives were crossed by radioactive fallout.
Download or read book Restricted Data written by Alex Wellerstein and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-04-09 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Nuclear weapons, since their conception, have been the subject of secrecy. In the months after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the American scientific establishment, the American government, and the American public all wrestled with what was called the "problem of secrecy," wondering not only whether secrecy was appropriate and effective as a means of controlling this new technology but also whether it was compatible with the country's core values. Out of a messy context of propaganda, confusion, spy scares, and the grave counsel of competing groups of scientists, what historian Alex Wellerstein calls a "new regime of secrecy" was put into place. It was unlike any other previous or since. Nuclear secrets were given their own unique legal designation in American law ("restricted data"), one that operates differently than all other forms of national security classification and exists to this day. Drawing on massive amounts of declassified files, including records released by the government for the first time at the author's request, Restricted Data is a narrative account of nuclear secrecy and the tensions and uncertainty that built as the Cold War continued. In the US, both science and democracy are pitted against nuclear secrecy, and this makes its history uniquely compelling and timely"--
Download or read book The Plutonium Files written by Eileen Welsome and published by Delta. This book was released on 2010-10-20 with total page 724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the vast wartime factories of the Manhattan Project began producing plutonium in quantities never before seen on earth, scientists working on the top-secret bomb-building program grew apprehensive. Fearful that plutonium might cause a cancer epidemic among workers and desperate to learn more about what it could do to the human body, the Manhattan Project's medical doctors embarked upon an experiment in which eighteen unsuspecting patients in hospital wards throughout the country were secretly injected with the cancer-causing substance. Most of these patients would go to their graves without ever knowing what had been done to them. Now, in The Plutonium Files, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Eileen Welsome reveals for the first time the breadth of the extraordinary fifty-year cover-up surrounding the plutonium injections, as well as the deceitful nature of thousands of other experiments conducted on American citizens in the postwar years. Welsome's remarkable investigation spans the 1930s to the 1990s and draws upon hundreds of newly declassified documents and other primary sources to disclose this shadowy chapter in American history. She gives a voice to such innocents as Helen Hutchison, a young woman who entered a prenatal clinic in Nashville for a routine checkup and was instead given a radioactive "cocktail" to drink; Gordon Shattuck, one of several boys at a state school for the developmentally disabled in Massachusetts who was fed radioactive oatmeal for breakfast; and Maude Jacobs, a Cincinnati woman suffering from cancer and subjected to an experimental radiation treatment designed to help military planners learn how to win a nuclear war. Welsome also tells the stories of the scientists themselves, many of whom learned the ways of secrecy on the Manhattan Project. Among them are Stafford Warren, a grand figure whose bravado masked a cunning intelligence; Joseph Hamilton, who felt he was immune to the dangers of radiation only to suffer later from a fatal leukemia; and physician Louis Hempelmann, one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the plan to inject humans with potentially carcinogenic doses of plutonium. Hidden discussions of fifty years past are reconstructed here, wherein trusted government officials debated the ethical and legal implications of the experiments, demolishing forever the argument that these studies took place in a less enlightened era. Powered by her groundbreaking reportage and singular narrative gifts, Eileen Welsome has created a work of profound humanity as well as major historical significance. From the Hardcover edition.
