A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
President Trump said on Thursday that he wants to test a nuclear weapon.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The decision could have huge ramifications. The U.S. hasn't conducted such a test in decades.
MARTÍNEZ: So how would a test like that be done? Let's ask NPR science and security correspondent Geoff Brumfiel. So, Geoff, where, like, first would these tests be?
GEOFF BRUMFIEL, BYLINE: Well, there's only one place these tests can be done. And that's on the desert outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, at a place called the Nevada National Security Site. It's this big, sprawling complex. It's bigger than the state of Rhode Island, actually. Scientists would drill a shaft, probably thousands of feet into the ground. They'd drop a nuke down there. Then they'd fill it up with dirt and rock and hit the button.
MARTÍNEZ: So why has it been so long since the U.S. tested a nuke?
BRUMFIEL: The world's major nuclear powers have observed a moratorium on testing since the 1990s. That was the end of the Cold War, of course. And it was kind of a goodwill gesture - also helped to ensure stability, that there wasn't an arms race. The U.S. embarked on a program that uses science at that time. And so the idea was to make sure the weapons work without testing. And a lot of that science has been done in the very same tunnels in Nevada where they used to test. And I had the very, very unusual opportunity to go underground last year, 1,000 feet. I saw these sophisticated experiments the U.S. was doing down there instead of nuclear testing. And while I was there, I met Don Haynes, a physicist from Los Alamos National Laboratory. That's, of course, the lab that made the first bomb. At the time, Haynes told me there was no need for a systems test of a nuke.
DON HAYNES: Our assessment is that there are no system questions that would be answered by a test that would be worth the expense and the effort and the time.
BRUMFIEL: But Haynes was very quick to add that, you know, a decision on testing was above his pay grade, as he put it, and it was down to people like President Trump to make that choice.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. So why does President Trump want to test now?
BRUMFIEL: We're not actually sure. But earlier this week, Russia said it had tested some very controversial systems. One was a nuclear-powered cruise missile. The other was a nuclear-powered underwater torpedo that could be used to attack U.S. cities. Both of these weapons could evade Trump's proposed Golden Dome missile defense systems, and many experts thought that could be the reason why, you know, Trump wants to test. Now, I should point out they're nuclear-powered. Those weren't nuclear weapons tests, but still.
MARTÍNEZ: So if the U.S. does indeed resume nuclear testing, I mean, what could the possible consequences be?
BRUMFIEL: Many experts basically said the consequences would be bad. For one thing, the U.S. did way more nuclear tests during the Cold War than Russia and China. So Jon Wolfsthal at the Federation of American Scientists told me this.
JON WOLFSTHAL: We have a huge technical advantage over both those countries. And if we were to start explosively testing nuclear weapons again, so would Russia and China, and they would be able to close the technical gap with the United States.
BRUMFIEL: And there are environmental consequences as well. You know, Las Vegas has expanded massively in the past 30 years. Even if the radiation is contained underground, as scientists expect, the shaking from a bomb, even all that way away, could be enough to damage buildings near the site.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Geoff Brumfiel. Geoff, thanks.
BRUMFIEL: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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