What's the biggest nuclear explosion captured on video?

[anamnesis]

We've probably all seen old video footage of nuclear explosions taken from film reels that are half a century old. When I hear that the yield on a modern nuclear weapon is hundreds of times more powerful than the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I try to imagine how much more terrifyingly massive such an explosion can possibly get. It boggles the mind ... so much so that I'd like to see what one of these modern warheads looks like when it goes off.

Is there any test footage of a "modern mushroom cloud"? Are there nuclear weapon tests that have been made in the modern era and immortalized on film?

No, the dream sequence from Terminator 2 does not count.

[Snarky_Kong]

Tsar bomba (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FfoQsZa8F1c&mode=related&search=), it was 50 megatons, over a thousand times either of the bombs used in WWII.

[anamnesis]

Yeah, I heard about the Tsar and that it was the biggest ever, but that was so long ago. I sorta figured based on what's said about modern nukes that something even bigger had come along since then ... or is that all apocryphal?

[Terminus Est]

You may be interested in Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie (http://www.vce.com/trinity.html), which has footage of nuclear explosions, from the initial 100 ton TNT test used to calibrate Trinity, the Trinity test itself, Little Boy, Fat Man, and many (if not all) of the American above ground nuclear tests, as well as the first Soviet and Chinese tests.

ETA: Modern nuclear weapons have never been exploded above ground, AFAIK.

[Airman Doors, USAF]

Yeah, I heard about the Tsar and that it was the biggest ever, but that was so long ago. I sorta figured based on what's said about modern nukes that something even bigger had come along since then ... or is that all apocryphal?

No, that remains the most powerful detonation of a nuclear weapon. Following the introduction of MIRVs it was realized that several smaller bombs would be far more effective than one big one, and they stopped making the uber-powerful ones in favor of modestly powerful bombs.

That's not to say that we couldn't make a bigger one. The Tsar Bomba was actually rated for 100 megatons but it was scaled down for the test. We have the knowledge to make them bigger, but there's no point, really.

[Airman Doors, USAF]

ETA: Modern nuclear weapons have never been exploded above ground, AFAIK.

The French did not agree to the Partial Test Ban Treaty and detonated some of them in French Polynesia until 1995, only a year prior to signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

[Terminus Est]

The French did not agree to the Partial Test Ban Treaty and detonated some of them in French Polynesia until 1995, only a year prior to signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Ah, yes, I had forgotten about those damn dirty Frenchman.

[Duke of Rat]

You may be interested in Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie (http://www.vce.com/trinity.html), which has footage of nuclear explosions, from the initial 100 ton TNT test used to calibrate Trinity, the Trinity test itself, Little Boy, Fat Man, and many (if not all) of the American above ground nuclear tests, as well as the first Soviet and Chinese tests.

ETA: Modern nuclear weapons have never been exploded above ground, AFAIK.

Narrated by Shatner, no less!

Lots of footage and some tidbits about the shots, I saw my first view of a nuke exploding in space watching it.

[Pushkin]

In a link from the Tsar Bomba youtube video above there's reference to a larger US detonation see here (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJixvAYPxE0&mode=related&search=), anyone know which one it was?

Another video of the Tsar Bomba from the Discovery Channel (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2046393742348211186). There's a second of footage at the end that I saw on another documentary of a nearby town, you can see two men getting knocked over by the blast, with the cheery Russian narrator chastising them for being so near the blast.

[Malodorous]

I recall reading a quote somehwhere by E. Teller saying that anything bigger the 50 megatons doesn't really increase the blast radius, and that most of the extra energy just gets wasted moving more dirt and atmosphere around.

Tsar Bomba wasn't built to be actually deployed as a weapon. Out of random curiousity, does anyone know what the highest yield bomb built built that was actually made to be a deliverable weapon was?

[Quartz]

I recall reading a quote somehwhere by E. Teller saying that anything bigger the 50 megatons doesn't really increase the blast radius, and that most of the extra energy just gets wasted moving more dirt and atmosphere around.

These days, isn't that something we might want to do, moving - or shattering - an asteroid? Would a test of such be allowed under the various treaties?

[Stranger On A Train]

I recall reading a quote somehwhere by E. Teller saying that anything bigger the 50 megatons doesn't really increase the blast radius, and that most of the extra energy just gets wasted moving more dirt and atmosphere around.

Tsar Bomba wasn't built to be actually deployed as a weapon. Out of random curiousity, does anyone know what the highest yield bomb built built that was actually made to be a deliverable weapon was?The largest nuclear weapon fielded by the US was the B-41 gravity bomb (http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/B41.html) with an estimated yield of 25MT. The largest ICBM nuclear weapon was the W-53 "physics packages" based on the B-53 gravity bomb (http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/B53.html), which was carried by the Titan II ICBM. Both of these were intended to be "bunker busters" capable of striking at a hardened installation like missile complexes or weapon production/storage facilities. The B-41 has long been out of service, and all B-53/W-53s have either been decommissioned or moved to the Inactive class in the Enduring Stockpile since the Titan II force was decommissioned in 1989.

I believe the largest Soviet nuclear weapon was the 18-25MT estimated yield warhead on the R-36M (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/icbm/r-36m.htm) (NATO reporting name SS-18 Mod 1 'Satan'), which is the weapon that scared Congress into approving funding for the development of the M-X (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/icbm/lgm-118.htm) (later dubbed LGM-118 A 'Peacekeeper'). Although it was the 10+ MIRV variants (Mods 2 and 4) of the SS-18 that really spurred the US into M-X development, the Mod 3, an improved accuracy version of the Mod 1, capable of accurately targeting the "dense pack" Minuteman silos and destorying them despite hardening measures, that lead to much debate about how and where Peacekeeper (which was designed to be deployed in existing Minuteman silos to reduce cost and delployment effort) was to be based. Anyway, the new SS-27 Topal-M probably has enough throw weight for that warhead, and I would guess that they have retained those weapons in their stockpile.

Stranger

[Stranger On A Train]

These days, isn't that something we might want to do, moving - or shattering - an asteroid? Would a test of such be allowed under the various treaties?Not under extant treaties (although said treaties only apply to the signatories, so China or India could do as they please). We would be better off trying to deflect a threatening object rather than fragmenting it, which will make it harder to track or further deflect. On that basis, you'd be better off using a bunch of smaller devices to push it sideways, either by encapsulating in plastic and creating a large diffuse plasma to attentuate the shock or an ORION motor type device which lands on the object (assuming that it is solid and has a firm surface to attach to) and applies the impulse via a damped piston.

Stranger

[jjimm]

The French did not agree to the Partial Test Ban Treaty and detonated some of them in French Polynesia until 1995, only a year prior to signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.Yeah, but WRT the discussion they were under the ocean, not above ground, weren't they? I recall footage of the sea boiling in an instant, in a vast radius. Mind you, that might constitute being "filmed" - but no mushroom cloud IIRC.

[KGS]

No, that remains the most powerful detonation of a nuclear weapon. Following the introduction of MIRVs it was realized that several smaller bombs would be far more effective than one big one, and they stopped making the uber-powerful ones in favor of modestly powerful bombs.

That's not to say that we couldn't make a bigger one. The Tsar Bomba was actually rated for 100 megatons but it was scaled down for the test. We have the knowledge to make them bigger, but there's no point, really. It's my understanding that Russian missiles weren't nearly as accurate as U.S. ones, so the Soviets had to make bombs with a bigger BOOM! instead of relying on accuracy.

Of course, they could've jacketed them with Cobalt-Thorium-G and buried them underground...after all, if you merely wish to bury bombs, there's no limit to the size. :D

[Stranger On A Train]

It's my understanding that Russian missiles weren't nearly as accurate as U.S. ones, so the Soviets had to make bombs with a bigger BOOM! instead of relying on accuracy.That's the impression you may get from reading Tom Clancy, but it is both inaccurate and overly simplistic. There was certainly truth to this back in the mid-'Sixties through the 'Seventies when American microprocessor manufacturing capabilities far outstripped Soviet capability, but by the late 'Seventies the Soviets were deploying weapons with sufficient demonstrated accuracy to strike at individual facilities or hardened missile complexes with high probability of kill capablity.

The penchant of the Soviets for heavy warheads stems at least in part from their differing view on the strategy of nuclear deterrence and nuclear exchange. The Soviets, as a integrated planning philosophy, never subscribed to the notion of "Assured Destruction", and thus, their planning focused more on the notion of a disabling strike and graduated warfare, and the tools to apply this like the SS-18 Mod 3 or the FOBS. The Soviets had a highly developed civil defense system and were prepared to lose a substantial part of their population and keep moving, though a full up exchange would have annihilated both nations regardless of any reasonable preparations. Only when the US started deploying MRV and MIRV systems on its submarine-based SLBMs (which were not at the time suffiicently accurate or long range to strike at hardened targets, and thus were dedicated to destroying cities and populations in alignment with the "total war" philosophy) did the Soviets respond by building MIRV systems of their own.

MIRVs were supposed to be inherently stabilizing, and would be cheaper, offering a greater deterrent value for fewer launchers; instead, MIRV became a new subrace of its own, and one that the US arguably "lost" at least in terms of raw capability. While the Peacekeeper was probably superior to any opposing ICBM system of its day, Soviet weapons were "accurate enough" to reliably hit US missile complexes and strategic centers. That the US Air Force had selected "dense pack" configuration for newer Minuteman (and later Peacekeeper) sites was the result of a persistant belief that ABM systems like Safeguard (http://www.nuclearabms.info/HSafeguard.html) and SafeSAM would be developed and would be more readily protected if in a small garrison; however, such systems (with the exception of the barely-operational-before-deactivation Stanley R. Mickelson Complex) have never been operationally deployed, and as a consequence US missile silos were very exposed to such an attack, which if successful could disable a dozen or more US assets in a disarming strike.

Modern Russian ICBMs are comperable to anything currently fielded by the United States, and if their PR is to be believed emerging systems are more capable than anything in the US arsenal (i.e. maneuvering RVs). I wouldn't stick any of the morgage money on Russian missiles being inaccurate.

Of course, they could've jacketed them with Cobalt-Thorium-G and buried them underground...after all, if you merely wish to bury bombs, there's no limit to the size. :DMr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap!

Stranger

[pravnik]

<ahem>

Para bailar Tsar bomba.
Para bailar Tsar bomba.
Se necesita una poca de gracia!
Una poca de gracia, pa mi pa ti,
Y arriba y arriba!
Ay arriba y arriba!
Por ti sere, por ti sere, por ti sere!

[t-bonham@scc.net]

The website at zvis.com/nuclear/nukimgs.shtml (http://zvis.com/nuclear/nukimgs.shtml) has still photos of nearly all nuclear explosions from 1945 until 1963. (After 1963, the test ban treat meant that most explosions were underground, so not much to see in a photo.)

[LiveOnAPlane]

...which is the weapon that scared Congress into approving funding for the development of the M-X (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/icbm/lgm-118.htm) (later dubbed LGM-118 A 'Peacekeeper')...
Stranger, you are probably the only one here who might appreciate this:

Back in the mid-1980s, I was involved in determining exactly when the Peacekeeper's MIRVs impacted the broad ocean area near Kwajalein. We did this by precisely plotting the signatures on light-sensitive paper which generated a printout that FLEW out of the machine and looked something like a sine wave or something with a timestamp at the bottom/top.

I really, really, wanted to save some of that paper to frame as a souvenir, and if I had been able to do so, I'd send you a piece, I think you would have liked it.

Alas, they would not let me, the paper was all burned as a security measure. :mad:

[LiveOnAPlane]

Addendum:

Before someone gets the wrong idea, this being the SDMB, I probably shoud expand my reply slightly.

The tapes were recordings of what sonobuoys anchored in that area recorded and transmitted to instrument-laden Caribou airplanes that circled near the anticipated impact area. When the planes got back to Kwaj, we unloaded the equipment, which was locked to rails on the airplane, and rolled it into the lab. We used the tapes in a machine which allowed us to both listen to the sounds, determine when we heard the initial impact, and then start the paper flying with the accompanying time signatures.

Then, we took this paper to a table and started mapping out the impact signatures with the timestamps to determine exactly (well, more or less, it was past hundreths of a second, more I would not be comfortable saying) when this particular sonobuoy "heard" the impact.

Then, repeat for all of the other sonobuoys, so the folks elsewhere could triangulate and determine pretty accurately where each RV impacted.

Sorry for being long-winded, but just trying to cover the bases as much as I can before someone goes ??? or cries bullshit.

[Meurglys]

The book 100 Suns (http://www.michaellight.net/100suns/index.html) has excellent photos of 100 tests. Sadly. the image gallery doesn't seem to be available online just now, but the book is very impressive.

[Fozzie Bear]

<ahem>

Para bailar

Tsar bomba.
Para bailar

Tsar bomba.
Se necesita una poca de gracia!
Una poca de gracia, pa mi pa ti,
Y arriba y arriba!
Ay arriba y arriba!
Por ti sere, por ti sere, por ti sere!

I'm never going to be able to look at the mariachi guys in my favorite Mexican restaurant the same way again.

[KneadToKnow]

Tsar bomba (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=FfoQsZa8F1c&mode=related&search=), it was 50 megatons, over a thousand times either of the bombs used in WWII.
[Harry Connick, Jr.]
Holy God.
[/Harry Connick, Jr.]

[RickJay]

<ahem>

Para bailar
Para bailar
Se necesita una poca de gracia!
Una poca de gracia, pa mi pa ti,
Y arriba y arriba!
Ay arriba y arriba!
Por ti sere, por ti sere, por ti sere!
Best post of the month, and possibly the year.

[Flander]

Translation please? :-(

[Terminus Est]

Translation please? :-(
La Bamba (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YicJPLT1dWU)

[jtgain]

Not under extant treaties (although said treaties only apply to the signatories, so China or India could do as they please). We would be better off trying to deflect a threatening object rather than fragmenting it, which will make it harder to track or further deflect. On that basis, you'd be better off using a bunch of smaller devices to push it sideways, either by encapsulating in plastic and creating a large diffuse plasma to attentuate the shock or an ORION motor type device which lands on the object (assuming that it is solid and has a firm surface to attach to) and applies the impulse via a damped piston.

Stranger


I've said this exact thing over and over again, but nobody will listen to me. :D

[pravnik]

Best post of the month, and possibly the year.
< ¡Grito de alegría! >

[Ranchoth]

Tsar Bomba wasn't built to be actually deployed as a weapon. Out of random curiousity, does anyone know what the highest yield bomb built built that was actually made to be a deliverable weapon was?

Well, Kruschev claimed that Russia had actually deployed a 100 megaton weapon—which the 57 megaton Tsar was a scaled-down version of—in East Germany in 62, but that might have just been commie bluster. Good information on the details of the Russian nuclear program is somewhat hard to come by, compared to western programs.

However, this page on the nuclear weapons archive (http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/TsarBomba.html) (which also has some nice footage of the Tsar test) quotes sources as saying that the Russians deployed a weapon with a 50 megaton maximum yield, that was tested at about half yield.

[blondebear]

I visited the Atomic Testing Museum (http://www.atomictestingmuseum.org/) just last week. They had an interesting book on sale in the gift shop: How to Photograph an Atomic Bomb (http://www.vce.com/book/).

If you're interested in such things, the museum is well worth a visit.

[Musicat]

I am just going from memory here, as I can't find any evidence in a quick search, but I recall hearing that the first A bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a chase plane following to capture the explosion. But the camera malfunctioned, so there is no eyewitness motion picture available. Any truth to this?

[Terminus Est]

I am just going from memory here, as I can't find any evidence in a quick search, but I recall hearing that the first A bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a chase plane following to capture the explosion. But the camera malfunctioned, so there is no eyewitness motion picture available. Any truth to this?
Absolutely incorrect. Clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeCpIKoKTkk) from aforementioned Trinity and Beyond; actual Little Boy footage begins at about 0:53.

[Hail Ants]

Well, Kruschev claimed that Russia had actually deployed a 100 megaton weapon—which the 57 megaton Tsar was a scaled-down version of—in East Germany in 62, but that might have just been commie bluster.The Tsar Bomba was indeed designed to have a yield of 100MT. Its a bit technical, but it was a 3-stage H-bomb and had they used Uranium as a tamper for the third stage instead of Lead the yield would have doubled from 50 to 100. However it would have also been incredibly dirty. Estimates say the one bomb with the Uranium tamper would have increased the entire world's nuclear fallout by 25%.

[bonzer]

I am just going from memory here, as I can't find any evidence in a quick search, but I recall hearing that the first A bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a chase plane following to capture the explosion. But the camera malfunctioned, so there is no eyewitness motion picture available. Any truth to this?

Aside from there being some other footage, you're correct.
The plan had been that the photographic record of the explosion would be provided by a high-speed Fastax camera in the third plane (V-91, later to be renamed the Necessary Evil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessary_Evil_%28B-29%29)) operated by the physicist Bernard Waldman. Fastex cameras, which had been used successfully at the Trinity test, ran at nearly 10,000 frames a second, but would rip through an entire film cannister in about 3 second. There was thus an elaborate radio signalling system from the bomb to allow the plane to be in the correct position and Waldman to be able to trigger the camera at the right moment. That all went smoothly, but when the film was developed it was discovered that there was some unknown problem with the emulsion and there was nothing to see. It's sometimes suggested that the problem was mechanical and even that EMP had interfered with the camera, but Waldman was clear that it was the film in postwar interviews.
The successful footage of the explosion was thus not officially planned and was taken by Harold Agnew (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/filmmore/reference/interview/agnewhiroshima.html) in the Great Artiste. Indeed the whole successful photographic record of the explosion was essentially taken unofficially - not that there were any objections to people taking cameras along and several took their own simple amateur ones. (Nor to forget the rare handful of photos of the mushroom cloud taken from the ground.)

And there was there no better luck in getting Fastax footage at Nagasaki. Waldman's equivalent on the Big Stink (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Stink) was to be Robert Serber (with William Penney and Leonard Cheshire accompanying him as observers). But due to a screw-up over parachutes, Hopkins the pilot threw Serber off the plane immediately before takeoff. With Hopkins carrying on regardless, Tinian was reduced to getting Serber to unsuccessfully trying to explain how to work the camera over the radio. The screw-ups continued and the plane was eighty miles from Nagasaki at detonation and so didn't arrive until ten minutes afterwards. Hence no Fastax footage.
After the failure at Hiroshima, Waldman made sure that several crew members on the second mission had handheld cine cameras to provide backups. That included Albert DeHart, the tailgunner on Bockscar and the only person on the plane facing the target when the bomb went off. I believe it's him that took the familiar clip of the Nagasaki blast.

[Ranchoth]

After the failure at Hiroshima, Waldman made sure that several crew members on the second mission had handheld cine cameras to provide backups. That included Albert DeHart, the tailgunner on Bockscar and the only person on the plane facing the target when the bomb went off. I believe it's him that took the familiar clip of the Nagasaki blast.

Speaking of said clip—how much more footage of the explosion/aftermath did he manage to shoot? The Trinity & Beyond clip with the rising mushroom cloud (and, if you look closely, what appear to be glowing splotches of orange on the ground. Yikes.) is one of the longest I've seen, and it's only a couple of seconds long.

[bonzer]

I'm not sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's about it.
That said, there'd have been the best part of a minute after detonation during which Bockscar would have been flying roughly directly away, giving DeHart an uninterrupted view. It was only then, after the shock waves had reached them, that Sweeney would have turned the plane about to give the rest of the crew a chance to see what they'd done. They didn't then hang around much, given that they were running low on fuel.