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Mushroom Cloud Over Las Vegas - Pentagon to Test a Huge Conventional Bomb - Divine Strake -
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Did they give any thought about releasing more radioactivity from previous testing? Those poor souls downwind and elsewhere close by will be unwilling test subjects again!
[link to www.washingtonpost.com]
Pentagon to Test a Huge Conventional Bomb
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
A huge mushroom cloud of dust is expected to rise over Nevada's desert in June when the Pentagon plans to detonate a gigantic 700-ton explosive -- the biggest open-air chemical blast ever at the Nevada Test Site -- as part of the research into developing weapons that can destroy deeply buried military targets, officials said yesterday.
The test, code-named "Divine Strake," will occur on June 2 about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas in a high desert valley bounded by mountains, according to Pentagon and Energy Department officials.
"This is the largest single explosive we could imagine doing," said James A. Tegnelia, director of the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which is conducting the test.
The test is aimed at determining how well a massive conventional bomb would perform against fortified underground targets -- such as military headquarters, biological or chemical weapons stockpiles, and long-range missiles -- that the Pentagon says are proliferating among potential adversaries around the world.
Tegnelia said there is a range of technical hurdles to overcome. He suggested that big conventional bombs are unlikely to solve the overall problem of buried threats. "It's a lot easier to dig your tunnel 50 feet deeper" than to develop weapons that can destroy it, he told a meeting of defense reporters.
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