Page 17 - Demo

Nuclear Weapons of the Atomic Agebombs on the Axis powers%u2014about one-third of Mike%u2019s power.The most powerful weapon ever tested by the United States was Castle Bravo, which yielded 15 megatons%u201415,000,000 tons. America also developed a B-41 three-stage device which could have had a maximum power equivalent to 25 megatons of TNT. However, the full-yield version was never built. This was only half the power of what the Soviet Union eventually created.The USSR%u2019s three-stage Tsar Bomba (Emperor of Bombs) was tested on October 30, 1961. It was the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated, with an extraordinarily massive power equivalent of 50 megatons of TNT, or 50 million tons. That single bomb had about 3,000 times the power of the very first Trinity bomb, and it was 15 times what the Allies dropped in all of World War II. Tsar Bomba's radioactive mushroom cloud rose to an altitude equal to 4.5 times the height of Mount Everest, and it sent out shockwaves that traveled around the globe three times. Glass shattered in windows 480 miles away. The bomb's flare was visible at a distance of more than 620 miles. Worst of all, its design was such that it could be modified to create a bomb of 100 megatons. Fortunately, Tsar Bomba was never intended to be a practical weapon. Rather, it was created exclusively to flaunt the USSR's nuclear superiority, and to exert psychological pressure on the United States. Only one of them was ever built.Nuclear Weapon TreatiesDuring the atomic era, there have been 25 different nuclear-weapon control treaties. The first was the 1959 Antarctic Treaty. Among other provisions, it banned any nuclear explosions or radioactive waste disposal on the Antarctic continent. While there were 116 nuclear tests worldwide in 1958, there was a voluntary cessation by the world's nuclear powers, which resulted in no tests in 1959 and only 3 in 1960 by France. Unfortunately, the cessation was brief, and testing soon resumed in earnest. By 1962, there were an appalling 178 tests. The year 1996 marked the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by the United States, the United Kingdom, former Soviet territories, and 90 non-nuclear countries. Although not fully ratified by all the signees, it has resulted in a significant drop in testing, and there have been only 13 nuclear explosions since 1996%u2014all by 3 countries that have not signed the treaty: India, North Korea, and Pakistan.The Soviet Union detonated its last nuclear test in 1990, Great Britain%u2019s last was in 1991, and on September 23, 1992 the United States exploded its last nuclear weapon%u2014in Nevada. Both France and China ceased testing in 1996, and India and Pakistan in 1998. North Korea conducted 6 tests between 2006 and 2017. During the Atomic Era, the United States tested 1,030 nuclear weapons, and the rest of the world tested 1,026. In 1986, there were a total of 70,300 nuclear weapons in the world. By 2022, that number had been reduced to about 13,000. Tsar Bomba, the largest explosive device ever detonated, was 26 feet long, almost 7 feet in diameter, and weighed nearly 60,000 pounds. The flight crew that dropped the bomb was told they had a 50% chance of being killed%u201a but they all survived the blast.