Word: bomb
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Pacific, the U.S. exploded its highest nuclear test some 260 miles above the earth. It was the first invasion of the fringes of outer space by a thermonuclear device, and what it proved militarily for the security of the U.S. was a carefully kept secret. But the one-megaton bomb that arched over tiny Johnston Island on a three-stage Delta rocket caused the most dazzling-and awesome-display of man's power ever seen...
...test was the most publicized, most debated and most postponed of the U.S. current test series. It had been called off seven times because of weather. Twice the booster rocket had roared off its pad with a great bomb in its nose, only to be destroyed deliberately because of malfunction. But now the countdown had begun again, and Hawaiian radio stations cut regular programs off the air to broadcast its final minutes. Residents hurried to the beaches, and on Diamond Head cars picked out vantage observation posts. Officials even opened the gates at Punchbowl Cemetery to allow crowds to view...
...Fear. As the countdown continued on the radio, the time dragged; a quarter-moon showed intermittently in the cloud-patched sky. At last the countdown dropped to seconds: ten, nine, eight . . . Finally, at exactly 11 p.m., the bomb exploded. The sky over Hawaii flared dazzling white, seemingly even brighter than noonday. The light turned pale lime green, then a delicate pink that darkened swiftly to a hideous meaty red. After seven minutes, the glow was gone, leaving the blue-black Pacific night. But when the moon next showed through the clouds, it was tinted an unnatural yellow...
...Soviet atomic tests with equal bitterness, but when he contrasted the freedom of SANE to criticize the U.S. Government with the regime-controlled propaganda of his peace congress hosts, there was only shocked silence. Later, when a group of British, U.S. and Scandinavian youths started a ban-the-bomb march near the meeting hall, police snatched their banners and threatened to deport them as "provocateurs...
...bitter and continuing argument about the possibility of detecting clandestine bomb tests took a turn last week in favor of the optimists-those scientists who believe a detection network to be feasible. The U.S. Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency issued a four-page booklet stating that "there may be substantially fewer earthquakes that produce signals equivalent to an underground nuclear explosion of given yield than had been expected." All by itself, that brief statement represented quite a switch; the Defense Department has usually favored the attitude that secret Russian underground tests could not be distinguished from natural...