[quietolong]

This is a test to see if your design will work!
You do your math and make your bomb almost big enough to “ Explode “ But just a tat under.
Testing a Nuclear device in this manner is more exact that going with a full scale bomb. Because any small design errors or inefficacy will be masked in a full scale blast.
Look at the first “ Littleboy “ test. It was first tested in Japan. We knew it would work from subcritical tests. But did not need to waste the small amount of Uranium we had at the time to prove it first in the US. The Uranium that was used in the subcritical tests. Was then made into the first U bomb and shipped to Japan.

[piasa]

bttt

[Crowcreek]

So the fuel might survive the test and can be 'recycled'? Now it makes sense.

If I had grown up near Oak Ridge, instead of Hanford, I would have known that story about Littleboy -- Thanks.

[blam]

"Look at the first “ Littleboy “ test. It was first tested in Japan. We knew it would work from subcritical tests. But did not need to waste the small amount of Uranium we had at the time to prove it first in the US. The Uranium that was used in the subcritical tests. Was then made into the first U bomb and shipped to Japan."

On Monday morning July 16, 1945, the world was changed forever when the first atomic bomb was tested in an isolated area of the New Mexico desert. Conducted in the final month of World War II by the top-secret Manhattan Engineer District, this test was code named Trinity.