Please note this does not mean the USSR wasn’t that way. Just want to clarify I’m not a tankie, lol.

    • Null User Object@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      Continuing…

      The other bomb did not get as far into its firing sequence, but became deeply embedded in a muddy field, and one of its major weapons components (the thermonuclear “secondary” stage) was regarded as irrecoverably lost after an extensive, failed effort to recover it.

      Me: “IT’S STILL THERE?!?!”

      Continuing…

      In 1962, the landowner was paid $1,000 to grant the United States of America a perpetual 200-foot (61 m) radius circular easement over the remains of the buried second bomb.[56][57] The site of the easement, at 35°29′37″N 77°51′30″W, is visible as a disturbed area, and lies approximately 250 feet (76 m) north of an obvious circle of trees (and disused cemetery) in the middle of a plowed field visible on Google Earth.

      • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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        8 hours ago

        $1,000 to grant the United States of America a perpetual 200-foot (61 m) radius circular easement

        worst deal than selling Manhattan for some beeds.

      • VictorPrincipum@sh.itjust.works
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        9 hours ago

        Thermonuclear secondary stages, A.K.A. the “Fusion” portion don’t detonate unless the first stage has been propperly ignited. While Lithium Deuteride (the second stage fusion fuel) is not safe to handle (corrosive and explodes on contact with water) it’s not going to cause a blast comparable to even a fision bomb.

    • IntrovertTurtle@lemmy.zip
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      9 hours ago

      Holy shit, that close to Raleigh?! Most of the state would have been wiped off the map twice. Maybe parts of VA and/or SC!

      Edit: Apparently it would have only taken out a few cities. Hollywood is wrong again!

      • Tiresia@slrpnk.net
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        9 hours ago

        Raleigh would have been fine. VA and SC would have heard the explosion but nothing worse. I checked it with a nuclear blast simulator. Even the Tsar Bomba would have killed less than 5% of the population of Raleigh.

        “260 times the yield of the Hiroshima bomb” sounds impressive, but most of that energy is wasted heating the nearby air rather than increasing the blast radius. This is why modern nuclear weapons use cluster munitions with smaller yields.