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Gerboise Blanche (nuclear Test)
''Gerboise Blanche'' (or ''Opération Gerboise Blanche'') was the codename of the second French nuclear test. It was conducted by the Nuclear Experiments Operational Group (GOEN), a unit of the Joint Special Weapons Command on 1 April 1960, at the Saharan Military Experiments Centre near Reggane, French Algeria in the Sahara desert region of Tanezrouft, during the Algerian War. Name ''Gerboise'' is the French word for jerboa, a desert rodent found in the Sahara. The color white (''Blanche'') adjuncted is said to come from the second colour of the French Flag. Test Explosion ''Gerboise Blanche'' operation was carried out 3 months after the success of the first test, ''Gerboise Bleue''. Unlike the first attempt and the two others that were to come, this bomb was placed a few kilometres from ground zero, and detonated on a concrete pad. This was a voluntary act of the authorities as they feared the usual test site would have been too contaminated for the next tests. On 1 Apr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its Metropolitan France, metropolitan area extends from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea; overseas territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the North Atlantic, the French West Indies, and many islands in Oceania and the Indian Ocean. Due to its several coastal territories, France has the largest exclusive economic zone in the world. France borders Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Andorra, and Spain in continental Europe, as well as the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Netherlands, Suriname, and Brazil in the Americas via its overseas territories in French Guiana and Saint Martin (island), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ministry Of The Armed Forces (France)
, native_name_a = , native_name_r = , type = Ministry , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , logo = Ministère des Armées.svg , logo_width = 150 , logo_caption = Official logotype , image = Jielbeaumadier hotel de brienne exterieur paris 2008.jpg , image_size = , image_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = Ministry of War , preceding2 = Ministry of the Navy , preceding3 = Ministry of the Air , dissolved = , superseding1 = , superseding2 = , jurisdiction = Government of France , headquarters = Hôtel de Brienne Paris 7e, French Republic- Hexagone Balard Paris 15e, French Republic , coordinates = , motto = , employees = 271,268 , budget = €54.494 billion , minister1_name = Sébastien Lecornu , minister1_pfo = , minister2_name = Minister of the Armed Forces , minister2_pfo = , deputyministe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
French Nuclear Weapons Testing
France is one of the five "Nuclear Weapons States" under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, but is not known to possess or develop any chemical or biological weapons. France was the fourth country to test an independently developed nuclear weapon, doing so in 1960 under the government of Charles de Gaulle. The French military is currently thought to retain a weapons stockpile of around 300 operational (deployed) nuclear warheads, making it the third-largest in the world, speaking in terms of warheads, not megatons. The weapons are part of the national ''Force de frappe'', developed in the late 1950s and 1960s to give France the ability to distance itself from NATO while having a means of nuclear deterrence under sovereign control. France did not sign the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which gave it the option to conduct further nuclear tests until it signed and ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996 and 1998 respectively. France denies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear weapons possess enormous destructive power from nuclear fission or combined fission and fusion reactions. Building on scientific breakthroughs made during the 1930s, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and free France collaborated during World War II, in what was called the Manhattan Project, to build a fission weapon, also known as an atomic bomb. In August 1945, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were conducted by the United States against Japan at the close of that war, standing to date as the only use of nuclear weapons in hostilities. The Soviet Union started development shortly after with their own atomic bomb project, and not long after, both countries were developing even more powerful fusion weapons known as hydrogen bombs. Britain and France built their own systems in the 1950s, and the list of states with nuclear weapons has gradually grown larger in the decades since. Physics and politics in the 1930s and 1940s In the first decades of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of States With Nuclear Weapons
Eight sovereign states have publicly announced successful detonation of nuclear weapons. United Nations Security Council#Permanent members, Five are considered to be nuclear-weapon states (NWS) under the terms of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). In order of acquisition of nuclear weapons, these are the Nuclear weapons and the United States, United States, Russia and weapons of mass destruction, Russia (the successor of the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, former Soviet atomic bomb project, Soviet Union), the Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom, United Kingdom, France and weapons of mass destruction, France, and China and weapons of mass destruction, China. Other states that possess nuclear weapons are India and weapons of mass destruction, India, Pakistan and weapons of mass destruction, Pakistan, and North Korea and weapons of mass destruction, North Korea. Since the NPT entered into force in 1970, these three states were not parties to the Treat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Force De Frappe
The ''Force de frappe'' ( French: "strike force"), or ''Force de dissuasion'' ("deterrent force") after 1961,Gunston, Bill. Bombers of the West. New York: Charles Scribner's and Sons; 1973. p104 is the designation of what used to be a triad of air-, sea- and land-based nuclear weapons intended for ''dissuasion'', the French term for deterrence. The French Nuclear Force, part of the French military, is the fourth largest nuclear-weapons force in the world, after the nuclear triad of the United States, the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China. France has deactivated all land-based nuclear missiles. On 27 January 1996, France conducted its last nuclear test in the South Pacific and then signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in September 1996. In March 2008, French President Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed reports giving the actual size of France's nuclear arsenal and he announced that France would reduce its French Air Force-carried nuclear arsenal by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canopus (nuclear Test)
''Canopus'' (or ''Opération Canopus'') was the codename of the first French two-stage thermonuclear test. It was conducted by the Pacific Carrier Battle Group (nicknamed ''Alfa Force'') on 24 August 1968, at the Pacific Experiments Centre near Fangataufa atoll, French Polynesia. The test made France the fifth country to test a thermonuclear device after the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and China. History In 1966, France was able to use fusion fuel to boost plutonium implosion devices with the Rigel shot. Robert Dautray, (real name : Ignatz Koushelewitz) a nuclear physicist, was selected by the CEA to lead the development effort to construct a two-stage weapon. France did not have the ability to produce the materials needed for a two-stage thermonuclear device at the time, so 151 tons of heavy water was purchased from Norway and an additional 168 tons from the United States. This heavy water went into nuclear reactors in 1967 to produce tritium need ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agate (nuclear Test)
''Agate'' was the codename of the first French nuclear underground test. It was conducted by the Joint Special Weapons Command on 7 November 1961, at the Oasis Military Experiments Centre near In Ekker, French Algeria at the Tan Afella in the Hoggar Mountains, during the Algerian War. It is named after the Agate, a rock formation used in jewelry. History ''Agate'' was the first test of the jewel designation series running from 1961 until 1966. Minor and major incidents occurred during these experiments, the most important being the Béryl incident on May 1, 1962, where the nine militarymen of the ''621ème Groupe d'Armes Spéciales'' unit were heavily contaminated (600 mSv) as portrayed in the 2006 docudrama '' Vive La Bombe!''. The French Defence Minister Pierre Messmer and other officials and civilians were present in the command post and were contaminated too (around >200 mSv). Programme *1961-11-07: Agate (Agate): 10 kt *1962-05-01: Béryl (Beryl): 40 kt *1963-03-18: à ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caesium-137
Caesium-137 (), cesium-137 (US), or radiocaesium, is a radioactive isotope of caesium that is formed as one of the more common fission products by the nuclear fission of uranium-235 and other fissionable isotopes in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Trace quantities also originate from spontaneous fission of uranium-238. It is among the most problematic of the short-to-medium-lifetime fission products. Caesium-137 has a relatively low boiling point of and is volatilized easily when released suddenly at high temperature, as in the case of the Chernobyl nuclear accident and with atomic explosions, and can travel very long distances in the air. After being deposited onto the soil as radioactive fallout, it moves and spreads easily in the environment because of the high water solubility of caesium's most common chemical compounds, which are salts. Caesium-137 was discovered by Glenn T. Seaborg and Margaret Melhase. Decay Caesium-137 has a half-life of about 30.05 years. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Atomic Energy Agency
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was established in 1957 as an autonomous organization within the United Nations system; though governed by its own founding treaty, the organization reports to both the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations, and is headquartered at the UN Office at Vienna, Austria. The IAEA was created in response to growing international concern toward nuclear weapons, especially amid rising tensions between the foremost nuclear powers, the United States and the Soviet Union. U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's " Atoms for Peace" speech, which called for the creation of an international organization to monitor the global proliferation of nuclear resources and technology, is credited with catalyzing the formation of the IAEA, whose treaty came into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curie (unit)
The curie (symbol Ci) is a non- SI unit of radioactivity originally defined in 1910. According to a notice in ''Nature'' at the time, it was to be named in honour of Pierre Curie, but was considered at least by some to be in honour of Marie Curie as well, and is in later literature considered to be named for both. It was originally defined as "the quantity or mass of radium emanation in equilibrium with one gram of radium (element)", but is currently defined as 1 Ci = decays per second after more accurate measurements of the activity of 226Ra (which has a specific activity of ). In 1975 the General Conference on Weights and Measures gave the becquerel (Bq), defined as one nuclear decay per second, official status as the SI unit of activity. Therefore: : 1 Ci = = 37 GBq and : 1 Bq ≅ ≅ 27 pCi While its continued use is discouraged by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and other bodies, the curie is still widely used throughou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khartoum
Khartoum or Khartum ( ; ar, الخرطوم, Al-Khurá¹Å«m, din, Kaartuɔ̈m) is the capital of Sudan. With a population of 5,274,321, its metropolitan area is the largest in Sudan. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile, flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile, flowing west from Lake Tana in Ethiopia. The place where the two Niles meet is known as ''al-Mogran'' or ''al-Muqran'' (; English: "The Confluence"). From there, the Nile continues north towards Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea. Divided by these two parts of the Nile, Khartoum is a tripartite metropolis with an estimated population of over five million people, consisting of Khartoum proper, and linked by bridges to Khartoum North ( ) and Omdurman ( ) to the west. Khartoum was founded in 1821 as part of Egypt, north of the ancient city of Soba. While the United Kingdom exerted power over Egypt, it left administration of the Sudan to it until Mahdist forces took over Khartoum. The British atte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
