That's a great way to reintroduce nuclear tests discretely (well, sort of discretely). The cold war is back!
I doubt that Russia or the US needs to really test nuclear weapons at this point, it is all about the delivery mechanism.
>Air-launched weapons like cruise missiles must endure hours of sub-freezing temperatures at high altitudes while riding their carrier aircraft. Weaponeers successfully subjected the W-80’s components – including the IHE – to temperatures down to -65 Fahrenheit – during development.
>But when actually tested in Shot Baseball during Operation Guardian in January 1981, the W-80 fizzled. The new nuke failed to ignite its fusion secondary and produced only a fraction of its intended yield. The IHE proved to be the culprit. It didn’t burn well at very low temperatures.
http://warisboring.com/articles/america-had-a-problem-with-i...
Ditto for the Russians and other nuclear powers.
Not to say the models are actually wrong: I certainly wouldn't bet my hometown on it.
All launch vehicles until Apollo were ICBM's. The moon landing was originally planned to be a diplomatic stunt by JFK who wanted a peaceful mission to open a larger diplomatic dialog.
Space programs have always, and likely will always be a way to project power. And test high end military weapons under the guise of peace and science.
The second thing I'd like to say: I never contradicted any facts you state here. Likely they will be using the data to improve their ICBM's, it would be an enormous waste of resources if they didn't. (and so does every other country that has ICBM's)
I said: nothing indicates that they will use a nuclear weapon, "it is all about the delivery mechanism" -> they will use ICBM's but without the warhead, which does not break any treaties to my knowledge.
Do you have a source for that? I'd think there were a multitude of reasons in reality, a specific defense purpose being but one.
Funny enough, high-altitude nuclear testing proved to be a serious concern for the safety of manned space flight.[0]
IIRC, there's still some need to test in order to evaluate the performance and other aging characteristics of old warheads. The US, at least, is trying to accomplish that testing via simulation rather than actual detonations. though.
If you had access to the entire arsenal of the US or Russia and wanted to destroy the planet, how would you do it?
They aren't capable of destroying the world; their definitely, OTOH, capable of really dealing a severe blow to human civilization and might even manage to wipe out humanity entirely.