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Ieuan Maddock
Sir Ieuan Maddock (29 March 1917 – 29 December 1988) was a Welsh scientist and nuclear researcher. He played a role in the nuclear weapons tests in Australia in the 1950s and the 1973 Partial Test-Ban treaty. Early life Ieuan Maddock was born in Gorseinon, Glamorganshire, Wales, the son of Evan Maddock, a miner, and his wife, a primary school teacher. He studied at Gowerton Grammar School before graduating from the University of Wales, Swansea in 1937 with a BSc in physics. With his First class honours, he received a postgraduate scholarship. His PhD, in which he was researching optical measurements, was postponed in 1940 when the government Department of Explosives Research and Development evacuated to Swansea during the Second World War. Maddock worked for this department as an experimental officer until 1944 when he transferred to the Armament Research Department in Fort Halstead. Initially, he studied the creation of common explosions here, and in 1947 he special ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Mosaic
Operation Mosaic was a series of two British nuclear tests conducted in the Monte Bello Islands in Western Australia on 16 May and 19 June 1956. These tests followed the Operation Totem series and preceded the Operation Buffalo series. The second test in the series was the largest ever conducted in Australia. The purpose of the tests was to explore increasing the yield of British nuclear weapons through boosting with lithium-6 and deuterium, and the use of a natural uranium tamper. Although a boosted fission weapon is not a hydrogen bomb, which the British Government had agreed would not be tested in Australia, the tests were connected with the British hydrogen bomb programme. The Operation Totem tests of 1953 had been carried out at Emu Field in South Australia, but Emu Field was considered unsuitable for Operation Mosaic. A new, permanent test site was being prepared at Maralinga in South Australia, but would not be ready until September 1956. It was decided that the best ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swansea
Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea ( cy, links=no, Dinas a Sir Abertawe). The city is the twenty-fifth largest in the United Kingdom. Located along Swansea Bay in southwest Wales, with the principal area covering the Gower Peninsula, it is part of the Swansea Bay region and part of the historic county of Glamorgan; also the ancient Welsh commote of Gŵyr. The principal area is the second most populous local authority area in Wales with an estimated population of 246,563 in 2020. Swansea, along with Neath and Port Talbot, forms the Swansea Urban Area with a population of 300,352 in 2011. It is also part of the Swansea Bay City Region. During the 19th-century industrial heyday, Swansea was the key centre of the copper-smelting industry, earning the nickname ''Copperopolis''. Etymologies The Welsh name, ''Abertawe'', translates as ''"mouth/es ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aldermaston
Aldermaston is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. In the 2011 Census, the parish had a population of 1015. The village is in the Kennet Valley and bounds Hampshire to the south. It is approximately from Newbury, Basingstoke, and Reading and is from London. Aldermaston may have been inhabited as early as 1690 BCE; a number of postholes and remains of cereal grains have been found in the area. Written history of the village is traced back at least as far as the 9th century, when the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicles'' showed that the Ealdorman of Berkshire had his country estate in the village. The manor of Aldermaston was established by the early 11th century, when the village was given to the Achard family by Henry I; the manor is documented in the Domesday Book of 1086. St Mary the Virgin Church was established in the 13th century, and some of the original Norman architecture remains in the building's structure. The last resident Lord of the Manor, Charles Keyse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atomic Weapons Establishment
The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) is a United Kingdom Ministry of Defence research facility responsible for the design, manufacture and support of warheads for the UK's nuclear weapons. It is the successor to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) with its main site on the former RAF Aldermaston and has major facilities at Burghfield, Blacknest and RNAD Coulport. AWE plc, responsible for the day-to-day operations of AWE, is owned by the Ministry of Defence and operated as a non-departmental public body. Until June 2021, AWE plc was owned by a consortium of Jacobs Engineering Group, Lockheed Martin UK and Serco through AWE Management Ltd, which held a 25‑year contract (until March 2025) to operate AWE, although all the sites remained owned by the Government of the United Kingdom which had a golden share in AWE plc. In November 2020, it was announced that the Ministry of Defence had triggered a contractual break point and would take ownership of AWE Plc in Ju ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Nuclear Tests At Maralinga
Between 1956 and 1963, the United Kingdom conducted seven nuclear tests at the Maralinga site in South Australia, part of the Woomera Prohibited Area about north west of Adelaide. Two major test series were conducted: Operation Buffalo in 1956 and Operation Antler the following year. Approximate weapon yields ranged from . The Maralinga site was also used for minor trials, tests of nuclear weapons components not involving nuclear explosions. Kittens were trials of neutron initiators; Rats and Tims measured how the fissile core of a nuclear weapon was compressed by the high explosive shock wave; and Vixens investigated the effects of fire or non-nuclear explosions on atomic weapons. The minor trials, numbering around 550, ultimately generated far more contamination than the major tests. Operation Buffalo consisted of four tests; One Tree () and Breakaway () were detonated on towers, Marcoo () at ground level, and the Kite () was released by a Royal Air Force (RAF) Vickers Valia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emu Field
Emu Field is located in the desert of South Australia, at (ground zero Totem I test). Variously known as Emu Field, Emu Junction or Emu, it was the site of the Operation Totem pair of nuclear tests conducted by the British government in October 1953. The site was surveyed by Len Beadell in 1952. A village and airstrip were constructed for the subsequent testing program. The site was supported from the RAAF Woomera Range Complex. Two British nuclear weapon tests were conducted at the site. ''Totem I'' was detonated on 15 October 1953 and ''Totem II'' was detonated on 27 October 1953. The devices were both sited on towers and yielded 9 kilotons and 7 kilotons respectively. The site was also used in September–October 1953 for some of the Kitten series of tests, which were conventional (rather than nuclear) explosions used to evaluate neutron initiators. It was later found that the radioactive cloud from the first detonation did not disperse as expected, and travelled north-ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Totem
Operation Totem was a pair of British atmospheric nuclear tests which took place at Emu Field in South Australia in October 1953. They followed the Operation Hurricane test of the first British atomic bomb, which had taken place at the Montebello Islands a year previously. The main purpose of the trial was to determine the acceptable limit on the amount of plutonium-240 which could be present in a bomb. In addition to the two main tests, there was a series of five subcritical testing, subcritical tests called "Kittens". These did not produce nuclear explosions, but used conventional explosives, polonium-210, beryllium and natural uranium to investigate the performance of neutron initiators. Background During the early part of the Second World War, Britain had a nuclear weapons project, code-named Tube Alloys, which the 1943 Quebec Agreement merged with the American Manhattan Project to create a combined American, British, and Canadian project. The British government expected t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monte Bello Islands
The Montebello Islands, also rendered as the Monte Bello Islands, are an archipelago of around 174 small islands (about 92 of which are named) lying north of Barrow Island (Western Australia), Barrow Island and off the Pilbara region of Western Australia, Pilbara coast of north-western Australia. The islands form a marine conservation reserve of administered by the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation (Western Australia), Department of Environment and Conservation. The islands were the site of three British atmospheric nuclear weapons tests in 1952 and 1956. Description The islands of the archipelago have a collective land area of about . The largest islands, Hermite and Trimouille, have areas of and respectively. They consist of limestone rock and sand. The rocky parts are dominated by ''Triodia (grass), Triodia'' hummock grassland with scattered shrubs, while the sandy areas support grasses, Cyperaceae, sedges and shrubs, mainly ''Acacia''. Pat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Hurricane
Operation Hurricane was the first test of a Nuclear weapons of the United Kingdom, British atomic device. A plutonium Nuclear weapon design#Implosion-type weapon, implosion device was detonated on 3 October 1952 in Main Bay, Trimouille Island, in the Montebello Islands in Western Australia. With the success of Operation Hurricane, Britain became the third List of states with nuclear weapons, nuclear power, after the United States and the Soviet Union. During the Second World War, Britain commenced a nuclear weapons project, code-named Tube Alloys, but the 1943 Quebec Agreement merged it with the American Manhattan Project. Several key British contribution to the Manhattan Project, British scientists worked on the Manhattan Project, but after the war the American government ended cooperation on nuclear weapons. In January 1947, a United Kingdom cabinet committee, cabinet sub-committee decided to resume British efforts to build nuclear weapons, in response to an apprehension of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1953 New Year Honours
The New Year Honours 1953 for the United Kingdom were announced on 30 December 1952, to celebrate the year passed and mark the beginning of 1953. This was the first New Year Honours since the accession of Queen Elizabeth II. The ''Honours list'' is a list of people who have been awarded one of the various orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom. Honours are split into classes ("orders") and are graded to distinguish different degrees of achievement or service, most medals are not graded. The awards are presented to the recipient in one of several investiture ceremonies at Buckingham Palace throughout the year by the Sovereign or her designated representative. The orders, medals and decorations are awarded by various honours committees which meet to discuss candidates identified by public or private bodies, by government departments or who are nominated by members of the public. Depending on their roles, those people selected by committee are submitted to Ministers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ministry Of Supply
The Ministry of Supply (MoS) was a department of the UK government formed in 1939 to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Minister of Supply. A separate ministry, however, was responsible for aircraft production, and the Admiralty retained responsibilities for supplying the Royal Navy.Hornby (1958) During the war years the MoS was based at Shell Mex House in The Strand, London. The Ministry of Supply also took over all army research establishments in 1939. The Ministry of Aircraft Production was abolished in 1946, and the MoS took over its responsibilities for aircraft, including the associated research establishments. In the same year, it also took on increased responsibilities for atomic weapons, including the H-bomb development programme. The Ministry of Supply was abolished in late 1959 and its responsibilities passed to the Ministry of Aviation, the War Office, and the Air Ministry. The latter two ministries were subsequently ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operation Crossroads
Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity in July 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The purpose of the tests was to investigate the effect of nuclear weapons on warships. The Crossroads tests were the first of many nuclear tests held in the Marshall Islands, and the first to be publicly announced beforehand and observed by an invited audience, including a large press corps. They were conducted by Joint Army/Navy Task Force One, headed by Vice Admiral William H. P. Blandy rather than by the Manhattan Project, which had developed nuclear weapons during World War II. A fleet of 95 target ships was assembled in Bikini Lagoon and hit with two detonations of Fat Man plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapons of the kind dropped on Nagasaki in 1945, each with a yield of . The first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
