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Operation IVY ( 1952)
About this film
"The island of Elugelab is missing!" President Eisenhower heard this short report on the Mike shot in Operation IVY from Gordon Dean, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. Mike was the first full-scale hydrogen explosive device to be tested, yet was only a scientific test of a thermofusion implosion device concept. Mike was not a deliverable weapon. The island where the device was detonated was vaporized. The hole Mike left was big enough to accommodate 14 Pentagon-size buildings and deep enough to hold 17 story building under water, in a crater one mile in diameter and approximately 175 feet deep. Mike's yield was an incredible 10.4 megatons, signaling the proof-tested expansion of the nuclear explosive technology concepts from nuclear fission to thermofusion. Thermofusion is the same process that occurs in the core of the Sun. This test, however, was not the first test of a liquid thermonuclear explosive. The first test ever conducted into the fusion principle occurred during Operation GREENHOUSE at Eniwetok in 1951, with the 225 kiloton George test. Another test of hydrogen in the center of a nuclear weapon before Mike was during the GREENHOUSE Item test at Eniwetok, proving…
Directors & creators
United States Air Force
Subjects
Operation IVY; IVY; atomic; nuclear; Cold War; atomic testing; nuclear testing; 1952; military; Eniwetok; Enewetak; Eniwetak; Bikini; Bikini Atoll; Pacific Proving Ground; national defense; Department of Defense; Department of Energy; radiation; radioactivity; fallout; radioactive; thermonuclear test; thermonuclear; Reed Hadley
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