50 Facts About
- Except where noted all figures are
in constant 1996 dollars -
1. Cost of the Manhattan
Project (through August 1945): $20,000,000,000
SOURCES: Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E.
Anderson, Jr., The New World: A History of the United States Atomic Energy
Commission, Volume 1, 1939/1946 (Oak Ridge, Tennessee: U.S. AEC Technical
Information Center, 1972), pp. 723-724; Condensed AEC Annual Financial Report,
FY 1953 (in Fifteenth Semiannual Report of the Atomic Energy Commission,
January 1954, p. 73)
2. Total number of nuclear
missiles built, 1951-present: 67,500
3. Estimated construction
costs for more than 1,000 ICBM launch pads and silos, and support facilities,
from 1957-1964: nearly $14,000,000,000
Maj. C.D. Hargreaves, U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers Ballistic Missile Construction Office (CEBMCO),
"Introduction to the CEBMCO Historical Report and History of the Command
Section, Pre-CEBMCO Thru December 1962," p. 8; U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers Ballistic Missile Construction Office, "U.S. Air Force ICBM
Construction Program," undated chart (circa 1965)
4. Total number of nuclear
bombers built, 1945-present: 4,680
5. Peak number of nuclear
warheads and bombs in the stockpile/year:
32,193/1966
Natural Resources Defense
Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project
6. Total number and types
of nuclear warheads and bombs built, 1945-1990: more than 70,000/65 types
7. Number currently in the stockpile
(2002): 10,600 (7,982 deployed, 2,700 hedge/contingency stockpile)
Natural Resources Defense
Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project
8. Number of nuclear
warheads requested by the Army in 1956
and 1957: 151,000
History of the Custody
and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons, July 1945 Through September 1977, Prepared by the Office of the
Assistant Secretary of Defense (Atomic Energy), February 1978, p. 50 (formerly
Top Secret)
9. Projected operational
10. Additional strategic
and non-strategic warheads not limited by the treaty that the
U..S. Department of Defense;
Natural Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project
11. Largest and smallest
nuclear bombs ever deployed: B17/B24
(~42,000 lbs., 10-15 megatons); W54 (51 lbs.,
.01 kilotons, .02 kilotons-1 kiloton)
Natural Resources Defense
Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project
Nineteenth Semiannual
Report of the Atomic Energy Commission, January 1956, p. 31
13. Fissile material
produced: 104
metric tons of
plutonium and 994
metric tons of highly-enriched
uranium
14. Amount of plutonium
still in weapons: 43 metric tons
Natural Resources Defense
Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project
15. Number of thermometers
which could be filled with mercury used to produce lithium-6 at the Oak Ridge
Reservation: 11 billion
16. Number of dismantled
plutonium "pits" stored at the Pantex Plant in
17. States with the largest
number of nuclear weapons (in 1999):
William M. Arkin, Robert S.
Norris, and Joshua Handler, Taking Stock: Worldwide Nuclear Deployments 1998
(Washington, D.C.: Natural Resources Defense Council, March 1998)
18. Total known land
area occupied by
19. Total land area of the
20. Legal fees paid by the
Department of Energy to fight lawsuits from workers and private citizens
concerning nuclear weapons production and testing activities, from October 1990
through March 1995: $97,000,000
U.S. Department of Energy
21. Money paid by the State
Department to Japan following fallout
from the 1954 "Bravo" test: $15,300,000
Barton C. Hacker, Elements
of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear
Weapons Testing, 1947 -1974, University of California Press, 1994, p. 158
22. Money and non-monetary
compensation paid by the the United States to Marshallese Islanders since 1956
to redress damages from nuclear testing: at least $759,000,000
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost
Study Project
23. Money paid to U.S.
citizens under the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act of 1990, as of
January 13, 1998: approximately $225,000,000 (6,336 claims approved; 3,156
denied)
U.S. Department of Justice,
Torts Branch, Civil Division
24. Total cost of the Aircraft Nuclear
Propulsion (ANP) program, 1946-1961: $7,000,000,000
"Aircraft Nuclear
Propulsion Program," Report of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy,
September 1959, pp. 11-12
25. Total number of
nuclear-powered aircraft and airplane hangars built: 0 and 1
Ibid; "American
Portrait: ANP," WFAA-TV (Dallas), 1993. Between July 1955 and March 1957,
a specially modified B-36 bomber made 47 flights with a three megawatt
air-cooled operational test reactor (the reactor, however, did not power the
plane).
26. Number of secret
Presidential Emergency Facilities built for use during and after a nuclear war:
more than 75
Bill Gulley with Mary Ellen
Reese, Breaking Cover, Simon and Schuster, 1980, pp. 34- 36
27. Currency stored until
1988 by the Federal Reserve at its Mount Pony facility
for use after a nuclear war: more than $2,000,000,000
Edward Zuckerman, The Day
After World War III, The Viking Press, 1984, pp. 287-88
28. Amount of silver in
tons once used at the Oak Ridge, TN, Y-12 Plant for electrical magnet
coils: 14,700
Vincent C. Jones, Manhattan:
The Army and the Bomb, U.S. Army Center for Military History, 1985, pp.
66-7
29. Total number of U.S.
nuclear weapons tests, 1945-1992: 1,030 (1,125 nuclear devices
detonated; 24 additional joint tests with Great Britain)
U.S. Department of Energy
30. First and last test: July
16, 1945 ("Trinity") and September 23, 1992
("Divider")
31. Estimated amount spent
between October 1, 1992 and October 1, 1995 on nuclear testing activities: $1,200,000,000
(0 tests)
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost
Study Project
32. Cost of 1946 Operation
Crossroads weapons tests ("Able" and "Baker") at Bikini
Atoll: $1,300,000,000
Weisgall, Operation
Crossroads, pp. 294, 371
33. Largest U.S. explosion/date:
15 Megatons/March 1, 1954 ("Bravo")
U.S. Department of Energy
34. Number of islands in
Enewetak atoll vaporized
by the November 1, 1952 "Mike"
H-bomb test: 1
Chuck Hansen, U.S.
Nuclear Weapons: The Secret History, Orion Books, 1988, pp. 58-59, 95
35. Number of nuclear tests
in the Pacific: 106
Natural Resources Defense
Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project
36. Number of U.S. nuclear
tests in Nevada: 911
Natural Resources Defense
Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project
37. Number of nuclear
weapons tests in Alaska [1, 2, and 3], Colorado [1 and 2], Mississippi and
New Mexico [1,
2 and 3]: 10
Natural Resources Defense
Council, Nuclear Weapons Databook Project
38. Operational naval
nuclear propulsion reactors vs. operational commercial power reactors (in
1999): 129 vs. 108
Adm. Bruce DeMars, Deputy
Assistant Director for Naval Reactors, U.S. Navy; Nuclear Regulatory Commission
39. Number of attack (SSN)
and ballistic missile (SSBN)
submarines (2002): 53 SSNs and 18 SSBNs
Adm. Bruce DeMars, Deputy
Assistant Director for Naval Reactors, U.S. Navy
40. Number of high level
radioactive waste tanks in Washington,
Idaho and South
Carolina: 239
U.S. Department of Energy
41. Volume in cubic meters
of radioactive waste resulting from weapons activities: 104,000,000
U.S. Department of Energy;
Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
42. Number of designated
targets for U.S. weapons in the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) in
1976, 1986, and 1995: 25,000 (1976), 16,000 (1986) and 2,500
(1995)
Bruce Blair, Senior Fellow,
The Brookings Institution
43. Cost of January 17,
1966 nuclear weapons accident over Palomares, Spain
(including two lost planes, an extended search and recovery effort, waste
disposal in the U.S. and settlement claims): $182,000,000
Joint Committee on Atomic
Energy Interoffice Memorandum, February 15, 1968; Center for Defense
Information
44. Number of U.S. nuclear
bombs lost in accidents and never recovered: 11
U.S. Department of Defense;
Center for Defense Information; Greenpeace; "Lost Bombs,"
Atwood-Keeney Productions, Inc., 1997
45. Number of Department of
Energy federal employees (in 1996): 18,608
U.S. Department of Energy,
Office of Worker and Community Transition
46. Number of Department of
Energy contractor employees (in 1996): 109,242
U.S. Department of Energy,
Office of Worker and Community Transition
47. Minimum number of
classified pages estimated to be in the Department of Energy's possession
(1995): 280 million
A Review of the
Department of Energy Classification Policy and Practice, Committee on Declassification of
Information for the Department of Energy Environmental Remediation and Related
Programs, National Research Council, 1995, pp. 7-8, 68.
48. Ballistic missile
defense spending in 1965 vs. 1995: $2,200,000,000 vs. $2,600,000,000
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost
Study Project
49. Average cost per
warhead to the U.S. to help Kazakhstan dismantle 104 SS-18 ICBMs carrying more
than 1,000 warheads: $70,000
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost
Study Project; Arms Control Association
50. Estimated 1998 spending
on all U.S. nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs: $35,100,000,000
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost
Study Project
