DIVINE STRAKE TEST CANCELED!
While I always remain skeptical of sudden government announcements, I am overjoyed over today’s announcement (below). I and dozens of others have been working hard on this for about a year now.
Cancellation of Proposed Divine Strake Experiment
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has decided to cancel the proposed Divine Strake experiment. ?I have become convinced that it?s time to look at alternative methods that obviate the need for this type of large-scale test,? said DTRA Director Dr. James A. Tegnelia. This decision was not based on any technical information that indicates the test would produce harm to workers, the general public, or the environment.
Divine Strake was a scientific experiment designed to significantly advance the nation?s ability to defeat underground facilities that produce and store weapons of mass destruction. The experiment would have entailed detonating a large amount of a common blasting agent over an existing tunnel at the Nevada Test Site. It was to be the largest in a series of experiments that relied on the specific geology at that location.
DTRA will attempt to develop alternative scientific means for obtaining the important data that this experiment would have provided. Such methods to assess capabilities to defeat underground facilities do not currently exist. The agency will develop advanced analysis techniques and conduct confirmatory experiments at a much smaller scale to assist in developing new capabilities to defeat underground facilities.
There is a national consensus on the need to improve conventional capabilities to defeat underground targets that pose a threat to the United States. ?DTRA remains committed to help develop non-nuclear means to defeat underground targets. I am optimistic that we will succeed,? said Tegnelia.
See more info at Dee’s ‘Dotes
February 22nd, 2007 at 7:22 pm
So they won’t test in Utah. If they did test, either an underground nuke, or the planned TNT conventional explosion, how would you know. Would the USGS tell you?
Either way now, it is obvious that these weapons are going to be built one way or another under this admin, and likely any future ones. So you win the battle Deanna, but perhaps lose the war. So there won’t be any tests in Utah we can read, but that is small comfort to anyone that defies us, hiding in their bunker.
Better yet, perhaps they have decicdered that shock and awe, applies to nukes now too, and maybe they will just use a proper big one, already bought and paid for, and tested well enough. 400 kilotons should be enough to reduce most any bunker, we have no end of those. Each Trident nuclear submarine holds 192 of them.
We have 18 active Tridents.
192 x 18 = 3456 Warheads. Makes one wonder why we test, huh?
February 22nd, 2007 at 9:07 pm
From and activist colleague who runs the http://www.stopdivinestrake.com site:
“We should we be so glad that Divine Strake is cancelled while the program that it was a part - which was designed to determine with 4-5 years of data what is the lowest yield callibration needed for a bunker buster nuke to destroy our enemy’s bunkers - is still going to go strong? We need to cancel the Tunnel Target Defeat ACTD, which is plain-old wrong in concept. It is all about bunker busters which is against Congressional intent about no new nuclear weapons or development. So the entire Tunnel Target Defeat ACTD needs to be stopped in its tracks by the same opposition that just cancelled Divine Strake AND hopefully Congress can muster the courage to prevent more data-gathering (computer, or large or small scall testing) to develop bunker busters.
There were tests in the Tunnel Target Defeat ACTD before Divine Strake (i.e., Discrete Gemini in Indiana: two 1.5 ton tests of ANFO) and there will certainly be others tests in this program, possibly small scale detonations in the future. (more about Discrete Gemini here http://stopdivinestrake.com/indiana.html ) We should stay vigilant to make sure that smaller tests such as Discrete Gemini don’t happen again - that set of two 3,000 lb ANFO tests happened with NO one even knowing about it in a populated area of Southern Indiana.
I will be slowly transitioning to re-purpose my efforts in this post-Divine Strake era. I will leave the CADS listservs open for your use. And, until such time that I can define the new efforts, I encourage you to recruit people to stop bunker buster research and military experimentation that is planned in disregard to public health. You can invite others to contact me to join CADS - maybe we can rename it Citizens Against Defense Stupidity - and an email list that I manage ( lists.riseup.net)
There will be more events like Divine Strake, I can assure you. DTRA has not folded. They just don’t want to attract too much attention to their bunker buster research program: the Tunnel Target Defeat ACTD. That is what needs to be stopped next. Myself and several of my allies have already hit the ground running to make headway on this next battle. Please stay tuned…and celebrate a little! “
February 22nd, 2007 at 9:51 pm
I’ll give a little smile ’cause it is progress. Good work everybody. Keep up the good work.
February 23rd, 2007 at 6:05 am
Whats funny Deanna, is that the Russians already have this mini nuke stuff figured out. They accomplished it with their superior mathetmatcians. They can test anywhere, anytime they want. Bunker busters? Only needed if you are expanding empire.
The Russian answer? Deadly accurate, unstoppable weapons, the most alarming the new ICBM’s and the SS-22 Sunburn, supersonic cruise missile. These are designed to “crater” a city, or military targe,t in the case of the former, or “crater” a carrier, in the case of the latter. That bushfraud is willing to risk this, and frighten the Russians in their own backyard, proves he and his are psychos. The Russian Ropadope, they have quietly produced what they need in the event we can’t stop our socio-psychopaths, and they step over the line. Our nation has its toes on the line.
The Russians have the hammer. We must stop scaring them, as scared as all of us are, imagine what those on the receiving end of our policies are thinking of. We are building a psychic imperative for our own destruction. The fact that we have not removed bush speaks to our helpless stupidity and spinelessness. While the left cheers pelosi, others in bushs’ sight, make plans. They won’t trifle at his hands. Would you?
Why are you then?
IMPEACH THIS MOTHERFU****!!!!!!
February 23rd, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Aside from Jim Mathseon’s scary mushroom cloud postcard, I haven’t seen much information about the anticipated public health consequences of raising dust from 50-year-old tests in Nevada. What seems obvious, though, is that there is already enough data from previous testing so that they can do virtual tests using computers. If the goal is to stop development of new U.S. nuclear weapons, the cancellation of Divine Strake may be mostly a symbolic victory.
February 23rd, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Be that as it may, 9-11 was mostly a symbolic act and we all know IT changed everything.