It is just a simulation

[EndtheMadnessNow]

"It is just a simulation." Dan Rather introduces a report on the fictional nuking of Omaha. CBS EVENING NEWS, June 12, 1981.



This is wild: the linear implosion device named Cleo I, the first really compact nuclear weapon, was delivered to Nevada Test Site for the Teapot Tesla test (7 kilotons), March 1, 1955, in two large suitcases. The guy carrying them — and eating lunch on one of them — is known only as "summer intern Tommy."







"The Cleo was split into two parts, each placed into a reinforced Samsonite suitcase. Walt Arnold, a mechanical engineer responsible for putting the device together in Nevada, was assisted by a young man named Tommy, an electrical-engineering student from San Jose State University hired as a summer intern. Arnold ordered Tommy to manhandle two hefty suitcases out of the Laboratory’s assembly building and put them into the back of a 'woody' station wagon."

"Then he gave the intern an Army-issue .45-caliber pistol and told him to guard the suitcases."

"The intern sat in the back of the vehicle with the Cleo; a priceless photograph shows Tommy eating a sandwich while using one of the suitcases as a lunch table."

(Poor Tommy probably got laughed out of the room trying to later convince people this really happened.)

Quote and first image are from Tom Ramos, From Berkeley to Berlin (new book on LLNL). Second image (nuclear lunch detected) is from Bruce T. Goodwin, "Nuclear Weapons Technology 101 for Policy Wonks," Figure 26, PDF book. Third is a standard shot photo of Teapot Tesla.

The details about the device (CLEO) are still highly classified. It is interesting to note that the two recent sources I cited (2021 and 2022) were allowed to talk about it a little bit and reproduce these photos that emphasize how small it was, though not the most compact warhead design developed.

I recently discovered that New Jersey still gives a small tax break for fallout shelters...


Exemption of blast or radiation fallout shelters


Oppenheimer vs. Barbie, who would win in a fight?

My money would be on Barbie, who was presumably trained for combat during her stint with the Army in the early 1990s. Oppenheimer could *design* an atomic bomb, but in a one-on-one fight, that isn't going to cut it.


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