Nuclear Photo Gallery

Rattling the Nuclear Saber
(lest we forget)

Robert Del Tredici worked for various corporations and always had a camera ready to shoot some interesting pictures that I present here for ATS viewers. The full gallery link is at the bottom. Just thought these were kind of telling and a pertinent reminder of things past, present and future if the world is not careful.

(Enjoy)

L1. The Amount of Plutonium in the Nagasaki Bomb. This glass ball is the exact size of the plutonium core in the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki. Plutonium is a man-made nuclear explosive; it is created inside all nuclear reactors when uranium is bombarded with neutrons. Some uranium atoms can absorb a neutron without fissioning; when that happens, they are transmuted into plutonium atoms. Plutonium has become the nuclear explosive of choice in the world’s nuclear arsenals. Nuclear power advocates also see plutonium as the fuel of the future, as a resurgence of nuclear power will make plutonium fuel a necessity when uranium supplies dwindle. Kansas City, Missouri. 22 September 1983.

This bronze Buddha was melted by heat from the Hiroshima bomb. Bronze melts at around 1600 degrees F. The temperature on the ground beneath the exploding Hiroshima bomb reached about 7000 degrees. Hiroshima Peace Museum, Hiroshima, Japan. November 13, 1984.

L5. All the Warheads in the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal. This field of ceramic nose cones represents, in miniature, all the warheads in the U.S. nuclear arsenal by the end of the Cold War. Estimates set that total at 25,000. We see in this picture the vertical proliferation of nuclear weapons within the arsenal of a single superpower. We stand on the threshold of a horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide as plutonium becomes more available. Many warheads have been dismantled in the US and Russia, but the long-term disposition of the plutonium extracted from the warheads has not yet been determined. Plutonium has a half-life of 24 000 years. There is no practical way to destroy it once it has been created. “Amber Waves of Grain” installation by Barbara Donachy, Boston Science Museum, Massachusetts. 13 February 1985.

E4. Infinity Room. There were more than 20 “infinity rooms” inside the Rocky Flats plutonium pit production facility. Plutonium pits are needed in nuclear weapons. These rooms at Rocky Flats were called “infinity rooms” because they became so contaminated with plutonium that the levels of alpha radiation were too high for standard monitoring equipment to measure. The radioactivity inside these rooms reached nearly 25,000 times natural background. Building 776/777, Rocky Flats Plutonium Pit Production Facility, near Denver, Colorado. 18 March 1994.

H5. Barnwell Tombstones. These granite burial markers sit at the back end of the ChemNuclear waste disposal site. Each is a headstone for a large clay trench containing metal drums, steel boxes, polyethylene containers, and carbon steel liners full of medical, industrial, and commercial low-level radioactive waste. The "institutional control period" for this site is 100 years. Barnwell, South Carolina. 7 August 1983.

Photo Gallery

reply to post by intrptr


Thx for sharing!

S&F

reply to post by Hellas

Sorry, forgot to reply to your post, glad you enjoyed it.

reply to post by intrptr


These are moving , i liked the Buddah most
Thanks for sharing these.
Lea
x

Very poignant pictures. Powerful and evocative.

The one showing the 25000 nuclear warheads in the US arsenal for me is the one that is most powerful. I find it bizarre that one country could sit on so much death and destruction. Then, in the same breath, tell other countries they are not allowed to have any.

vvv

reply to post by LeanneMarie

Sorry for the delay. Your'e most welcome.
Thanks for the reply.

reply to post by VreemdeVlieendeVoorwep

Sorry for the lag time to your reply. Yah, "He who has the most WMD..."

Very poignant pictures. Powerful and evocative.

Yes. Almost like they were planned and carefully created that way..

I am not saying the nukes were and are a hoax, I am only saying there are lots of fishy things about all of the official stories about them, and it's definitely a possibility.

It has been discussed in places like this:

cluesforum.info...

And I have found out there are some pretty good arguments for it having been just a hoax, for very good political reasons, too.

But I have reasons to remain relatively convinced that at least something about them is real.

However, I don't claim to know anything for sure - and I don't think anyone really can, either. Not with wisdom. To claim something like that, you'd have to really be witnessing it first hand, and know the differences between all kinds of fire bombs and other things, all the possibilities for faking, and so on.

Some in those forums have stated that the nuclear device couldn't work as the official story claims, and that there could never be two flashes, if the nuclear bombs do work as they are explained to the public. I have forgotten the details of this, but I think it had something to do with the first explosion being completely contained within a shell, and thus not ever being visible - or something like that.

Just a heads up - nukes MAY be a hoax, and none of us can confirm it 100%. Thus, I recommend leaving some room for that possibility instead of just taking it for granted that the official story is the truth (it wasn't the truth in 11.09. (there ARE other ways to write the date than what's used in america), or in the Kennedy assasination - so it certainly can't be regarded as a trustworthy source of information).

Good pictures; nice shots of the "road less traveled" sort. I have a few nits with the captions, though:

Nuclear power advocates also see plutonium as the fuel of the future, as a resurgence of nuclear power will make plutonium fuel a necessity when uranium supplies dwindle.

However, if it takes an atom of uranium to make an atom of plutonium (as it does in a nuclear reactor), then that's not going to ease the shortage of uranium, is it?

What is being hinted at here is the fast breeder reactor, which creates plutonium from common U238, about 100 times more abundant than U235, the fissile part. But reactor fuel is only enriched to perhaps 20%, not pure, so even then it is only a 20% increaser. A more likely fuel is thorium, which breeds to U233. Thorium is much more abundant than uranium of either sort.

There is no practical way to destroy it [plutonium] once it has been created.

No, it can be burned in a liquid fuel reactor. A solid fuel reactor's fuel quickly becomes clogged with fission products, only less than 1% of fuel actually gets used. Then it must be remanufactured to get the wate out and use another 1% of the fuel. Up to this point fuel has been cheap enough that users just store the used fuel as "waste" rather than recycling it. A liquid fuel reactor can have the fission products filtered out continuously, and so the whole fuel load (uranium, plutonium, thorium) can be consumed, including waste from older reactors and even reclaimed warheads, with a huge efficiency increase and waste product decrease.

These rooms at Rocky Flats were called “infinity rooms” because they became so contaminated with plutonium that the levels of alpha radiation were too high for standard monitoring equipment to measure. The radioactivity inside these rooms reached nearly 25,000 times natural background.

Sounds scary, doesn't it? Plutonium as a pure metal has some characteristics that make it alien to us: like most metals it is poisonous (plutonium has potency similar to arsenic), and it is pyrophoretic - it will burn (oxidize) in air, particularly if hot or in powdered form, similar to but less readily than sodium or potassium. And, of course, it is radioactive, with its long half-life. But such a long half-life means it is not very intense. There is a picture of an Army sergeant carrying the Trinity pit in a padded, unshielded box (dougkerr.net...). Numerous people have handled the plutonium sphere (called a bomb pit), with only a nickel plating on the sphere to prevent spalling and oxidization.

Plutonium gives off a highly energetic particle called an alpha particle, two neutrons and two protons bound into a package together. They are charged and massive, and give up their kinetic energy in bouncing off molecules and easily ionizing them, which can cause humans chemical problems, hence radiation sickness. Although they are energetic, alphas have little penetrating power; they bang off 100,000 molecules or so and their energy is spent; they gather up some loose electrons and become helium gas - this is where all the helium on Earth originated. They do this within a couple of centimeters (an inch or so) of air, within the depth of the dead cells on everyone's skin surface, within the thickness of a sheet of paper or metal foil.

Therefore, one could approach a solid wall of plutonium (far more than a merely extremely contaminated wall, and assuming a critical mass is prevented) with good ventilation and at the range of a foot, have no worries about the radioactivity.

Does the infinity room sound quite as bad now? If not, read the wikipedia article on Plutonium, headings Precautions, Toxicity for an overview with references. Also you can read

Plutonium Toxicity

Russia had just as many as well. It would be nice to see that photo today...it owuld look MUCH different.

Originally posted by VreemdeVlieendeVoorwep
Very poignant pictures. Powerful and evocative.

The one showing the 25000 nuclear warheads in the US arsenal for me is the one that is most powerful. I find it bizarre that one country could sit on so much death and destruction. Then, in the same breath, tell other countries they are not allowed to have any.

vvv

reply to post by Shoujikina


What's "fishy" about nuclear weapons? Their effects; that they exist?

Very nice Pics.

There is a generation now that has no idea about the real danger and the threat of these weapons. It is almost sad that some youngsters today have no concept of the real damage and consequences that these weapons cause.

They only see Mini Nukes that make short work of the mutants in the "wasteland"..... They don't see the Irony.

Originally posted by where2oceansmeet
Very nice Pics.

There is a generation now that has no idea about the real danger and the threat of these weapons. It is almost sad that some youngsters today have no concept of the real damage and consequences that these weapons cause.

They only see Mini Nukes that make short work of the mutants in the "wasteland"..... They don't see the Irony.

And on the other hand, many believe that any first thermonukes can wipe out life, or that weapons exist which can split the Earth in two; that irradiated sea water from Crossroads/Baker is the cause of today's "cancer epidemic" and expanding deserts. I agree with you about the dangers, and I'm glad they are under, at least, tentative control. I also think that without them we'd be slowly reconstructing from WWIII at this point in time.

reply to post by intrptr


intrptr, the photos were well put together and you could feel the energy from some of them. This world must remember its past in order to preserver in the future. This in turn will provide globally a safer social environment for future generations of EA*RTH.

NAMASTE*******

reply to post by Shoujikina

So sorry for the delay. I loved your link to the nukes...

They are real, by the way.

reply to post by puncheex


Thank you so much dropping by and helping everyone to understand about the most toxic substance known to man. I would only augment what you said about its toxicity in metallic form (like a "pit" for a bomb). In metal form it is most stable like you said.

I think the difference with the "infinity rooms" is that is where pit production occurred. When refining metal from Plutonium Oxide there would be smelting from the dust form (oxide) which produces vapors. Then the end product undergoes machining to finished dimensions and this whole process results in a lot of contamination. The difficulty in cleaning that up is what do you do with it? Better to abandon in place. One of the legacies. Hence the name "Infinity Room".

No one goes there anymore.

Edit: Your link seems to be broken, Hope you don't mind if I fix it...

atomicinsights.com...

I would counter that with some info about PU in living cells:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by princeofpeace

I don't know about photos, but there are charts. And they all differ depending on who you google.

This one is more believable because it includes categories others don't. Like "retired intact" (moth balled?) weapons:



Though fewer in number, still enough to set the world on fire. I guess just the bombs are "smarter" nowadays.

reply to post by where2oceansmeet

There is a generation now that has no idea about the real danger and the threat of these weapons.

When I was young we learned about the bomb from class room drills and siren tests, what not. That is what stoked my curiosity about them. They have since discontinued any kind of Civil Defense in schools these days. As stupid as "duck and cover" and Tommy Turtle were, it was better than a complete information vacuum.

Thank God for the internet...

And thanks for your reply.

reply to post by Ophiuchus 13

...the photos were well put together and you could feel the energy from some of them.

You too, huh?

Originally posted by intrptr
reply to post by puncheex

 

Thank you so much dropping by and helping everyone to understand about the most toxic substance known to man. I would only augment what you said about its toxicity in metallic form (like a "pit" for a bomb). In metal form it is most stable like you said.

I agree with that last, but I have to argue about that"most toxic substance known to man" bit. Botulism toxin and Anthrax spores beat it hollow. When speaking, most nuclear biologists assume the plutonium is already ingested and in the blood system, in whatever chemical form it needs to be to exist there.

I think the difference with the "infinity rooms" is that is where pit production occurred. When refining metal from Plutonium Oxide there would be smelting from the dust form (oxide) which produces vapors. Then the end product undergoes machining to finished dimensions and this whole process results in a lot of contamination. The difficulty in cleaning that up is what do you do with it? Better to abandon in place. One of the legacies. Hence the name "Infinity Room".

Yes, indeed. I agree that the rooms are super-contaminated. But they are not as dangerous as an equivalent room, say, inside a nuclear reactor (as in the Chernobyl basement) or if the plutonium were to be replaced with the same mass of typical fission products.

There is a place in the Nevada Test Site where the AEC in 1958 (somewhat foolishly) tested bomb safety by intentionally misfiring a bomb, hopefully causing the HE to spread the plutonium core over an area some hundreds of yards wide, as opposed to a failure, in which the bomb explodes with anything from tens to thousands of tons equivalent. Only four such tests were conducted (all successful) before they decided, reluctantly, that it would be a good idea to do that 1/2 a kilometer underground. The place is called Plutonium Valley, for obvious reasons. It is on the side of the cratered area, not fenced or otherwise marked. Visiting there involves dressing in a paper suit and a filter respirator, to handle the dust and to keep from tracking it elsewhere. There are other places in the NTS that are much more problematic.

No one goes there anymore.

Au contraire. If you have Google Earth handy, send it to 39.89344,-105.20160. That's the Rocky Flats plant now, a nature conservancy area. Open the "Show Historical" tool, and dial back to 1999 to see what it looked like. Your cursor is resting on building 776/777. There's a site map at

Rocky Flats Site Map

Edit: Your link seems to be broken, Hope you don't mind if I fix it...

atomicinsights.com...

No, indeed. My thanks.

I would counter that with some info about PU in living cells:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I'll read it over and if appropriate, will comment there.