Nuclear Bomb Testing: Images From The First 30 Years Of Tests (PHOTOS)

Since the first nuclear explosion in 1945 almost 2,000 nuclear tests have been performed.

While a large number of tests took place in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, according to the Atlantic, things died down in the 1990s as regulations began to restrict their use. A U.S. testing moratorium and a U.N. test ban treaty have gone further to limit these tests.

The nuclear tests were a sight to behold, and we've assembled some of the most historic images from 30 years of these tests, which claimed no lives directly.

Comments

[Jarrod38]

04:18 PM on 05/09/2011

If anyone wants to watch a good documentary check out Radio Bikini. It's about the nuclear test around the Bikini Atoll and the effects of servicemen and the people who lived on the islands.

[Pete Marriott]

11:06 AM on 05/09/2011

Between the U.S. tests and the U.S.S.R. tests during the cold war it's no wonder why the ozone layer is in the condition it's in. Testing these nukes pretty much accelerated the damaging process industrialization was already doing. What a brilliantly stupid species us humans are to create the very things that will eventually destroy us one way or another. :(

[dudervision]

02:52 AM on 05/09/2011

There was a movie, "Trinity and Beyond, the Atomic Bomb Movie" that used the declassified footage of many of the US bomb tests. It's very complete and you begin to realize in the latter years we were doing above ground testing, they were doing all kinds of weird things like setting bombs off in the upper atmosphere and deep underwater. Supposedly one of the atomic depth charge tests took place no far from San Diego. It's pretty easy to find.

[DSOTM]

05:49 PM on 05/08/2011

No wonder cancer is so high in this country.

[hdohighdesertobserver]

05:09 PM on 05/08/2011

I've been waiting since I was a child to see film or photos of what happened to the ships at sea following the testing. The ships were positioned to ring the site at the moment of detonation, but I've never seen what happened next. Were they active ships or abandoned? Did they capsize? Melt? Vanish? (lol) I'd love to see footage from (or of) these ships, but I don't think I've seen a new shot since '62. Anybody else?

[uncc49er]

07:23 PM on 05/08/2011

That test happened in Bikini islands. The islands were completely wiped off the map. The results were interesting. The ships close to the blast site were destroyed and sank in to the ocean. As a matter of fact if you fly in low altitude in that area today, you can still see them. The ships farther away didn't sink and were not damaged badly. It surprised the military. The whole purpose of the test was to see the effect of a nuclear blast on the ships, US Navy wanted to know the extend of the damage.

[hdohighdesertobserver]

12:36 AM on 05/09/2011

Do you suppose that there is any actual footage available?

[fgbouman]

09:07 AM on 05/09/2011

Not quite. The Bikini Islanders were eventually settled in Majuro and on Kili. Much of Bikini was covered with a concrete cap and an attempt was made to resettle there. I'm not sure of what the current status is, but Bikini definitely exists.

[LLNYRN]

03:19 PM on 05/08/2011

"Beautiful, But Deadly" as the saying goes.

One of my favorite "coffee table" books is Michael Light's, "100 SUNS".
Though many of the photos of atomic tests are in black and white,
Their power is no less chilling.

[mairs]

11:30 AM on 05/08/2011

My parents watched a nuclear test. They were coming out of a Las Vegas casino at dawn in the 1950's. People on The Strip were standing, watching this huge mushroom cloud in the distance. My mother got thyroid cancer in the early 60's and her doctors said it was probably from being that. She had the "necklace", the scar across her neck for the rest of her life. It eventually regrew and she had to have it removed again in the 80's. They knew back then but they didn't care. The government didn't care. Just like the Japanese government doesn't care now, not really. They have to be prodded to think of the health of people. They are simply large, soulless entities who's consciences are us the people.

[Rude Monk]

12:31 PM on 05/08/2011

Sad and true.
The bigger they get,the more detached they are.

[Roadrun]

11:03 AM on 05/08/2011

My favorite - Operation Greenhouse 1951 - I wonder if it was intended to be prophetic?

"If we knew then what we know now"

[mburgh]

05:48 AM on 05/08/2011

I just have to ask. All this national treasure, all this damage to our biosphere, all this broadcasting of radiation, was it worth it? What were these people thinking? It all looks like the worst that our species can produce worshiped by the least responsible people on earth. I am sad and sickened.

[uncc49er]

10:16 PM on 05/07/2011

Plain beauty. Physics is beautiful.

[termgirl]

01:02 PM on 05/07/2011

Having grown up in So CA, I had never heard of this incident that took place at Rocketdyne in 1959 until recently. The reactor suffered a partial nuclear meltdown. There was , (surprise, surprise,) a cover-up of what actually took place. It takes a few minutes to watch, so if you are interested, I would suggest bookmarking it and watching it when you have a chance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAHmaEs5cYU

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/ventura_county&id=8018106

[IanMHorn]

11:44 AM on 05/07/2011

Is the crater labeled Operation Dominic from 1962 is actually the Sedan Crater at the NTS?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedan_Crater

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Dominic.html

[tumbler snapper]

12:07 PM on 05/07/2011

You are correct. Although portions of Dominic were performed in Nevada in 1962, Sedan was merely contemporaneous. It was not a DOD project.

[tumbler snapper]

12:08 PM on 05/07/2011

F&F BTW.

[IanMHorn]

12:20 PM on 05/07/2011

Yeah, Sedan was part of Operation Plowshare - Potential civil uses for nuclear weapons.

[henrydeluxe]

11:42 AM on 05/07/2011

Put simply- nuclear power does not belong on the surface of the planet, but 8 light minutes away. Period.

[Lahonda]

11:08 AM on 05/07/2011

Never trust a party whose leader says "nukular."

[tumbler snapper]

11:12 AM on 05/07/2011

Or a leader that speaks with a Texas accent, when the rest of his family doesn't. I never could figure that one out.

[Lahonda]

09:14 PM on 05/07/2011

Living "lip to lip".

[CDRUSNret]

12:50 PM on 05/08/2011

Carter couldn't pronounce it either....and he was nuclear trained. Cuts both ways.

[hdohighdesertobserver]

04:56 PM on 05/08/2011

I dispute. Show us your proof.

[Rude Monk]

10:27 AM on 05/07/2011

Thirty years of destroying the sky,air and the general environment.
Now they want to fix it by dumping aerosols (chemicals) in the atmosphere.