Test Readiness Program
The Test Readiness Program was a United States Government program established in 1963 to maintain the necessary technologies and infrastructure for the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, should the treaty which prohibited such testing be abrogated. History of the program Events leading to the program From 1958 to 1961, as the world powers negotiated a treaty to ban all testing of nuclear weapons except underground, there was a major push in both the U.S. and the Soviet Union to complete as much development and testing of nuclear weapons as possible before such work was prohibited. Anticipating the upcoming treaty, a moratorium went into effect in 1961 halting all testing. However, in September, 1961, the Soviets broke the moratorium, performing 45 nuclear test events in two months, culminating with a 60-megaton blast on October 30, 1961, the largest at the time. When the Soviets broke the moratorium, the U.S. was not prepared to resume testing, and an immense effort was launch ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federal research facility in Livermore, California, United States. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in response to the detonation of the first atomic bomb by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It later became autonomous in 1971 and was designated a national laboratory in 1981. A federally funded research and development center, Lawrence Livermore Lab is primarily funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and it is managed privately and operated by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (a partnership of the University of California), Bechtel, BWX Technologies, AECOM, and Battelle Memorial Institute in affiliation with the Texas A&M University System. In 2012, the laboratory had the synthetic chemical element livermorium (element 116) named after it. Overview LLNL is self-described as a "premier research and development institution for sci ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Strypi
Strypi is a two-stage US sounding rocket. Its first stage consists of two Recruit, the second of one Castor (rocket stage), Castor. It is 31 inches (79 centimeters) in diameter, and has a maximum flight height of 124 miles (200 kilometers). It was originally designed and built in 1962 by teams from the Sandia National Laboratories in an around-the-clock program that was a part of a larger nuclear weapons testing program, undertaken prior to the imposition of the Partial Test Ban Treaty, Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) in October, 1963. It was designed to take a nuclear warhead into space for extra-atmospheric testing. Though it performed this function only once, in Test Checkmate of Operation Fishbowl, it became the "workhorse" of Sandia's rocket research program. The rocket's name came from the efforts of the Sandia teams, which had "taken the tiger by the tail". In 1968, a modified Strypi was used in Material Test Vehicle (MTV) booster tests. Although atmospheric nuclear testing wa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected to the office of president or vice president as well as the only president to date from Michigan. He previously served as the leader of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives, and was appointed to be the 40th vice president in 1973. When President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974, Ford succeeded to the presidency, but was defeated for election to a full term in 1976. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Ford attended the University of Michigan, where he was a member of the school's football team, winning two national championships. Following his senior year, he turned down offers from the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers, instead opting to go to Yale Law School. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pago Pago
Pago Pago ( ; Samoan: )Harris, Ann G. and Esther Tuttle (2004). ''Geology of National Parks''. Kendall Hunt. Page 604. . is the territorial capital of American Samoa. It is in Maoputasi County on Tutuila, which is American Samoa's main island. Pago Pago is home to one of the deepest natural deepwater harbors in the South Pacific Ocean, sheltered from wind and rough seas, and strategically located.United States Central Intelligence Agency (2016). ''The World Factbook 2016–17''. Government Printing Office. Page 19. .Grabowski, John F. (1992). ''U.S. Territories and Possessions (State Report Series)''. Chelsea House Pub. .Kristen, Katherine (1999). ''Pacific Islands (Portrait of America)''. San Val. . The harbor is also one of the best protected in the South Pacific,Leonard, Barry (2009). ''Minimum Wage in American Samoa 2007: Economic Report''. Diane Publishing. . which gives American Samoa a natural advantage because it makes landing fish for processing easier. Tourism, entert ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Los Alamos Science
''Los Alamos Science'' was the Los Alamos National Laboratory's flagship publication in the years 1980 to 2005. Its main purpose was to present the laboratory's research and its significance to national security to the scientific community, and US government policymakers. Special issues appeared on subjects such as particle physics, Stanislaw Ulam, and the Human Genome Project The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying, mapping and sequencing all of the genes of the human genome from both a .... "Pedagogical articles" were intended to explain difficult concepts in one field to scientists and students in other fields. References Science and technology magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1980 Magazines disestablished in 2005 Defunct magazines published in the United States Biannual magazines published in the United ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ionosphere
The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays an important role in atmospheric electricity and forms the inner edge of the magnetosphere. It has practical importance because, among other functions, it influences radio propagation to distant places on Earth. History of discovery As early as 1839, the German mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss postulated that an electrically conducting region of the atmosphere could account for observed variations of Earth's magnetic field. Sixty years later, Guglielmo Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic radio signal on December 12, 1901, in St. John's, Newfoundland (now in Canada) using a kite-supported antenna for reception. The transmitting station in Poldhu, Cornwall, used a spark-gap transmitter to produce a signal with a freq ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cosmic Ray
Cosmic rays are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Solar System in our own galaxy, and from distant galaxies. Upon impact with Earth's atmosphere, cosmic rays produce showers of secondary particles, some of which reach the surface, although the bulk is deflected off into space by the magnetosphere or the heliosphere. Cosmic rays were discovered by Victor Hess in 1912 in balloon experiments, for which he was awarded the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics. Direct measurement of cosmic rays, especially at lower energies, has been possible since the launch of the first satellites in the late 1950s. Particle detectors similar to those used in nuclear and high-energy physics are used on satellites and space probes for research into cosmic rays. Data from the Fermi Space Telescope (2013) have been interpreted as evidenc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Solar Eclipse
A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of the Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs during an eclipse season, approximately every six months, during the new moon phase, when the Moon's orbital plane is closest to the plane of the Earth's orbit. In a total eclipse, the disk of the Sun is fully obscured by the Moon. In partial and annular eclipses, only part of the Sun is obscured. Unlike a lunar eclipse, which may be viewed from anywhere on the night side of Earth, a solar eclipse can only be viewed from a relatively small area of the world. As such, although total solar eclipses occur somewhere on Earth every 18 months on average, they recur at any given place only once every 360 to 410 years. If the Moon were in a perfectly circular orbit and in the same orbital plane as Earth, there would be total solar eclipses once a month, at every new moon. Instead, because the Moon ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the American southwest. Best known for its central role in helping develop the first atomic bomb, LANL is one of the world's largest and most advanced scientific institutions. Los Alamos was established in 1943 as Project Y, a top-secret site for designing nuclear weapons under the Manhattan Project during World War II.The site was variously called Los Alamos Laboratory and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. Chosen for its remote yet relatively accessible location, it served as the main hub for conducting and coordinating nuclear research, bringing together some of the world's most famous scientists, among them numerous Nobel Prize winners. The town of Los Alamos, directly north of the lab, grew extensively through this period. After ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nuclear Testing
Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine nuclear weapons' effectiveness, yield, and explosive capability. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detonations are affected by different conditions, and how personnel, structures, and equipment are affected when subjected to nuclear explosions. However, nuclear testing has often been used as an indicator of scientific and military strength. Many tests have been overtly political in their intention; most nuclear weapons states publicly declared their nuclear status through a nuclear test. The first nuclear device was detonated as a test by the United States at the Trinity site in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, with a yield approximately equivalent to 20 kilotons of TNT. The first thermonuclear weapon technology test of an engineered device, codenamed "Ivy Mike", was tested at the Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands on November 1, 1952 (local date), also by the U ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Boeing NC-135
The Boeing NC-135 and NKC-135 are special versions of the Boeing C-135 Stratolifter and Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker modified to operate on several different programs. Operational history Readiness Program In support of the U.S. Test Readiness Program that was initiated in response to the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) of 1963, Sandia National Laboratories configured three NC-135 aircraft as flying laboratories to support atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, should testing resume. These aircraft were based at Kirtland Air Force Base. Work was initiated in 1963 and the aircraft remained in service until 1976, flying principally for Sandia, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) maintained controlling oversight of the NC-135 flight test aircraft. After 1976, the aircraft flew for Air Force Weapons Laboratory. Airborne astronomy missions While flying simulations for the Test Readiness Program, t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |