Underwater nuclear weapons

Nuclear weapons (war)d d Underwater construction d Sport parachutes d Coal mining accidents d General aviation... 

The Buccaneer, with its capacity to carry nuclear weapons, was central to the Admiralty s vision of the aircraft carrier as the modem equivalent of the capital ship. In a remarkable paper, dated 2 March 1954, the Admiralty set out its views on expected trends in naval weapons down to the end of 1965. The news of the American hydrogen-bomb tests came too late to influence the paper, which, however, assumed that atomic weapons would be plentiful that the importance of air attack would increase but that long-range detection of submarines and torpedo countermeasures would reduce the underwater threat to surface ships. It was predicted that by the 1960s carrier-borne aircraft would carry nuclear weapons and would contribute to the strategic air offensive aircraft and 200-mile-range anti-ship missiles would have begun to... 

Pauling won the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize for his activism and on August 5, 1963, a ban on testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, space, and underwater was signed in Moscow. 

In 1963, the first international treaty against testing nuclear weapons was signed and after that, only France (atmospheric and underwater tests until 1974) and China (until 1980) continued. After 1980, all the tests have been underground. One of the positive results of the G7 Group, enlarged to include... 

The emphasis on production of pure plutonium for weapons continued throughout the Cold War period. The successful control of the chain reaction to power submarines to cruise underwater for weeks rather than hours for the diesel-electric powered substitutes opened up a new option. The contractors that built the nuclear reactors and steam turbines for submarines also served the electric power utilities. Extension of this nuclear technology to domestic electric power production was obvious. President Eisenhower s Atoms for Peace initiative in 1954 opened the way for the nuclear power plants that followed that currently supply about 20% of the electric power to the U.S. power grid. 

Submarine development and construction involves a number of industries. Besides shipbuilding, submarines, especially military ones, require specialized equipment and materials to operate in their harsh underwater environment. Submarines need special hardened steel to survive the crushing depths, sophisticated communications and electronics gear, and modified weapons systems that no other naval vessel uses. None of this is cheap. The standard ballistic missile submarine of the U.S. Navy, the Ohio class, each cost more than 1 billion, and each of their twenty-four Trident D-5 ballistic missiles costs 29 million. The most modem U.S. attack submarine, the Virginia class, costs 1.8 billion. That high cost limits the number of submarines that a navy can acquire. Consequently, only a few countries can afford submarines, especially nuclear-powered ones. 

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