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Comment by defrost | Hacker News Reader

For context:

    The United States conducted around 1,054 nuclear tests (by official count) between 1945 and 1992, including 216 atmospheric, underwater, and space tests.

a good number of these were within USofA, in Nevada, and several drifted fallout across US population centres.

"Nearly bombed Nevada" is a small claim next to "actually bombed Nevada" .. or "detonated an atmospheric bomb and used it as a backdrop for a showgirl" (1953)

https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2012/05/18/friday-image-the-...

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I love the fact that the details of the photo were provided by a Russian. Are their archives of our nuclear tests better than ours?

That'd be an "Ask Alex" (nuclear weapons historian and blog author).

Hard to say, as an Australian I've managed in the past to provide some fresh details about tests back to US sources, it's certainly possible for outsiders to have a niche special subject.

It's easy to imagine Russian sleepers in the US tasked with cataloging anything and everything nuclear related .. and a whole lot more as a smoke screen. That'd make for a hoarder scale archive of newspaper clippings and a family versed in playing Trivial Pursuit on dates and descriptions.

Then again it may just be an expatriate Siberian obsessed with warm weather and bare legs.

I always wondered whether that Connie Willis short story “And Come From Miles Around” was about aliens or Russians.

> Are their archives of our nuclear tests better than ours?

Their archives don't have to be better for them to be more willing to publicize the information.

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