Standing below a 2KT Nuclear Test

[Homer J Simpson]

[apis]

 

[John Coloccia]

Good times.   

[helius]

As long as they didn't look directly at the flash, there is no immediate danger. For a neutron bomb the situation would be different.

[warp_foo]

Not a huge amount of detail, but I think the aircraft firing the missile is an F-89, followed by a B-57 Canberra.

[Mr.B]

My Father witnessed nuclear tests at Christmas Island in 1962 while serving with the New Zealand Navy.
I cannot remember if they were British or American tests as both were experimenting around the same time.
I don't have any more detail than that...

I was born in the late 60s... and there is nothing wrong with me...

Was that a man in a white coat...?

[John_ITIC]

I was in Las Vegas over the 4th of July weekend. Managed to convince the wife and kids to visit the National Atomic Testing Museum, which is just a few blocks down from the strip. I recall watching one of their movies where they said that they used to have bus tours from the casinos out to the testing grounds so people got to see the spectacle!

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=National+Atomic+Testing+Museum

[Circlotron]

Probably could have tested one in your school playground in those days without undue concern from anybody.

[ez24]

I was in Las Vegas over the 4th of July weekend. Managed to convince the wife and kids to visit the National Atomic Testing Museum, which is just a few blocks down from the strip. I recall watching one of their movies where they said that they used to have bus tours from the casinos out to the testing grounds so people got to see the spectacle!

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=National+Atomic+Testing+Museum

Ah the good old days

[German_EE]

I thought that when a nuclear device went off there was a burst of gamma rays? If so I wouldn't like to be underneath.

[hamster_nz]

I thought that when a nuclear device went off there was a burst of gamma rays? If so I wouldn't like to be underneath.

An online calculator gives 50% mortality (500rem) at 928m, so at approx 3km they should have got 50 rem or so. They were standing up so would have presented minimal cross section and got far less.

Lying out sun-bathing under one might not have been a smart idea.

[rs20]

An online calculator gives 50% mortality (500rem) at 928m, so at approx 3km they should have got 50 rem or so. They were standing up so would have presented minimal cross section and got far less.

Lying out sun-bathing under one might not have been a smart idea.

How far do these rays penetrate through human tissue? Because if they're not attenuated greatly by 1.8m of human tissue, it doesn't matter which orientation you adopt.

[SeanB]

They go right through, but the area exposed is the important thing, not the volume. Which gets hotter, a flat plate lying normal to the sun, or a steel bar standing up in the noon sun? Both the same mass of steel, and no wind.

It is the radiation on the exposed surface which is the major factor, so standing up under the blast is minimal exposure. Standing 5km away will give a higher dose of whole body radiation, just because it hits almost the whole front of the body.

[rs20]

They go right through, but the area exposed is the important thing, not the volume. Which gets hotter, a flat plate lying normal to the sun, or a steel bar standing up in the noon sun? Both the same mass of steel, and no wind.

That's absurd. If the gamma rays go right through you, how can any given cell in your body tell whether it's "on the exposed surface" or not? What does "exposed" even mean in the context of radiation that can go right through you?

And this is why your analogy is broken; infrared radiation does not go right through steel, so my argument for why volume matters does not apply to your analogy.

It is the radiation on the exposed surface which is the major factor, so standing up under the blast is minimal exposure. Standing 5km away will give a higher dose of whole body radiation, just because it hits almost the whole front of the body.

Disagree. Standing 5km away will induce r^2 attenuation, and the posture of the person is irrelevant if gamma rays go right through a person.

Again, if it turns out that gamma rays don't go right through you, then everything I've said is irrelevant.

[VK5RC]

The exposure is rem per m^2 of presented area, so head on is better. I bet you the nuclear scientists were many 10s of kms away!!
 If the radiation goes straight through you it won't hurt you. Its the radiation that your body stops and absorbs (and ionises your DNA etc) that is the worry.
 O0 I  use to have straight hair! HiHI

[Srbel]

50 Rem? That is about 53,5 Roentgens. In the Soviet Union, 50 Roentgens was the maximum allowed dose for a military personnel to receive during his lifetime. For civilians it was 25. That was considered "safe" ("only" a very small chance of developing cancer).

[Homer J Simpson]

Did some more reading. For those interested........

The plane use for the launch was a F89J.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_F-89_Scorpion

The Rocket was a Genie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIR-2_Genie

The warhead was a W25.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W25_(nuclear_warhead)

[Hypernova]

I was born in the late 60s... and there is nothing wrong with me...

Hate to break it to you, but despite what your dad told you, it's not normal for men to have three balls 

Sometimes I envy those who live in the days when you can buy radium laced glow in the dark paint, those were fun times.

[digsys]

Ahhhhhh memories ...
I remember, in the late 60s, the back pages of comics were full of ads for all sorts of "dangerous" toy kits (including things like X-Ray specs which lied)
We bought a 2W die laser kit, boosted it to 10W (10KV xenon flash gun, 100% silvered mirror tube etc etc, die pumped etc etc), It was AWESOME !!
Always seemed to be based in QLD, still even now.

[helius]

I did business with a concern like that in the '90s. They're still around: http://www.amazing1.com
Got plans for railguns, N₂ lasers, and various other things.

[apis]

I would have thought volume matters as well, as long as most of the radiation passes right through the body like gamma radiation does?

[SeanB]

Area exposed is the important one, as the flux will be constant per unit area at a particular distance. thus the less you expose to that flux the less the total dose. Volume of the body does not matter, it is the area exposed to the blast that matters.

[apis]

Yes, but how much of the radiation is absorbed, or cause damage, to the body? Consider the body as several slices of the same thickness, if most of the gamma radiation passes through each layer to the next, all the slices would be exposed to the same flux... it would be essentially the same as if you put all the slices next to each other, then they would also receive (almost) the same flux.

[hamster_nz]

Yes, but how much of the radiation is absorbed, or cause damage, to the body? Consider the body as several slices of the same thickness, if most of the gamma radiation passes through each layer to the next, all the slices would be exposed to the same flux... it would be essentially the same as if you put all the slices next to each other, then they would also receive (almost) the same flux.

Yes, for gamma. But for small bombs that is less of a concern.

I once fixed a workstation for a electron beam radiotherapy suite, and got talking with one of the doctors. The damage isn't done by the radiation itself, but by the high energy ions that it form when it interacts with the flesh - you can tune the energy level of the source to control the depth of treatment.

I assume it is the same with neutron pulse from the weapon....

By far the worst form of radiation from bombs is neutron, which lasts only as long as the blast and expanding heat bloom itself. High energy neutrons act like tiny bullets that literally rip through living tissue on the microscopic level, causing damage as it goes. One Neutron can do 20 times more damage than one Gamma "click". Also, the neutrons turn living tissue its own radioactive source for additional exposure. Fortunately, after the blast wave from the explosion passes and dissipates, almost no neutron radiation remains.

(http://www.hiroshimasyndrome.com/confusion-about-fallout.html)

And

Up to about 10 kilotons in yield, all nuclear weapons have prompt neutron radiation as their most far reaching lethal component, after which point the lethal blast and thermal effects radius begins to out-range the lethal ionizing radiation radius

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb

[dexters_lab]

interesting video, 2KT from 3km away? doesn't sound much to me.

the initial nuclear explosion would have made X, Gamma and Neutrons but from that distance it would be massively attenuated and it would have been for a fraction of a second (much less than the light flash). Most of the longer lasting nasties would be up in the cloud TBH.

would i do the same? Yes i probably would if i had the opportunity!