Comments on: Six places to nuke when you're serious

Six places to nuke when you're serious

lupus_yonderboy — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 23:27:59 -0800

Six places to nuke when you're serious

By: TheNakedPixel

TheNakedPixel — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 23:36:20 -0800

Bet this guy's a real hit at cocktail parties.

By: GooseOnTheLoose

GooseOnTheLoose — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 23:40:40 -0800

I'll take the frivolity of these "glass parking lots," wherever they are, thanks.

By: sien

sien — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 23:47:31 -0800

What about Beijing, Shanghai Moscow, Dehli, Mumbai and Chennai? Surely capital and very large cities of actual nuclear armed powers would be far more dangerous than Tehran. People should think about these things through more thoroughly.

By: Schlimmbesserung

Schlimmbesserung — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 23:47:58 -0800

Welcome, Mr. Anissimov, to the FBI watch list. Would you like your file in classic brown tones or a fashionable green duotang?

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 23:54:21 -0800

What if you weren't serious? If you were feeling jolly, for example, who should get nuked?

By: Joey Michaels

Joey Michaels — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 23:55:37 -0800

The way I figure Nuke the moon (with apologies to George Carlin)

By: wilful

wilful — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 23:56:24 -0800

If I was feeling jolly, I'd pepper a smiley face onto the moon. That would be neat.

By: lekvar

lekvar — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 23:57:06 -0800

I was with him up until he said Many of the intelligent people reading this post will agree with me without hesitation. If your essay doesn't say it well enough, you might want to consider a re-write.

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:03:20 -0800

I don't buy any of the geological ones. Too hard to do it right; you wouldn't be able to get it to work on the first try.

By: Schlimmbesserung

Schlimmbesserung — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:05:29 -0800

Mr. Roboto: Everything works on the first try when you're serious.

By: scodger

scodger — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:08:46 -0800

Everyone knows that you don't nuke the moon, you write your name on it with a laser.

By: sourbrew

sourbrew — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:34:44 -0800

chair...

By: Matt Oneiros

Matt Oneiros — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:35:15 -0800

#7: wherever assholes talking about nuking stuff and making humourless lists are.

By: sourbrew

sourbrew — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:36:21 -0800

damn it was just cha

By: Heywood Mogroot

Heywood Mogroot — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:47:47 -0800

" if other Muslim countries like Syria, Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey got involved, the West would be dealing with a force at least an order of magnitude more powerful than Hitler was" What a foookin' idiot. Germany had this thing called a military-industrial complex, an über-professional officer and NCO corps, and significant advantages in technology, equipment, doctrine, and training. Not to mention spiffy uniforms. All the muslim armies would be looking real stupid when we flip the IFFs over and cause their (our) war materiel to become inoperative. If it really came down to a 'totalkrieg' WW3, the muslim world would be find themselves self-interned in their own cities in short order (not to mention rounded up stateside like the Japanese-Americans were). This line though: "and Iranian troops would likely be dispatched to Israel under half an hour after the event" does illuminate why the neocons had a hard-on to oust Saddam: the Iranians have gotta go through us now to get to our Israeli pals.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 00:54:36 -0800

My plan is to lasso the sun and rope Earth into a fatal orbit! Many of the intelligent people reading this post will agree with me without hesitation. narf!

By: shoepal

shoepal — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 01:12:23 -0800

Someone's been listening to a little too much of the Moz.

By: Zack_Replica

Zack_Replica — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 01:13:00 -0800

sourbrew: "Later, the "C" is destroyed by the Tick as part of a partially successful mission to return the moon to the way it used to be.However, in a running gag, and an uncommon demonstration of continuity for a cartoon, the "HA" remains inscribed on the moon throughout the rest of the episodes of the series." Back to topic - I beleive that this subject is no different (though well less presented) than a couple of chapters in Douglas Coupland's book "Life After God", in which he writes about the "inevitable" nuclear attack that quite a few people, myself included, grew up under in the 1980's (scroll down to "The Dead Speak"). "I was in the mall when it happened..." and he goes on to write about what the last few seconds of life would be like. The article could've been prefaced with something a little more introspective and/or personal, and it wouldn't come off as being so much of another voice in the wilderness. I remember having read an article on the Chumbawamba site in regards to a potential terrorist strike, and how devastating it'd be if they'd actually have the wherewithall to hit an nuclear reactor. Any one. The fallout would devastate the surrounding area and everything within the prevailing winds for decades to come. After all, it isn't about the whole 'flash' thing, it's the cumulative effect that's deadly. Though the 'plosion looks so good for the cameras. Ha. Ha.

By: Sir BoBoMonkey Pooflinger Esquire III

Sir BoBoMonkey Pooflinger Esquire III — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 01:25:55 -0800

I don't buy any of the geological ones. Too hard to do it right; you wouldn't be able to get it to work on the first try. --mr_roboto "Let's get some trustworthy nitwits to simultaneously hijack a handful of jets with boxcutters (intelligent people can see where I'm going with this) and fly them with little flight training past the scrambled US military jets and plop two of them smack dab in the perfect spots of the Twins to cause chain reactions from metal-moltening heat so that said buildings implode themselves better than professional demolition crews. Widespread pandemonium ensues pushing the world toward WWIII, which we all know is the real desirous dirty deed we are pushing for." "Osama, you been smokin' too much of the wacky weed again." Conversation heard near an air-conditioned desert brothel. /tin-foil hat cracker jack commentary.

By: kliuless

kliuless — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 03:12:00 -0800

can't remember what story it was from (i wanna say earth by david brin?) but in it there was a doomsday device that consisted of orbiting nukes that, when detonated at the poles, would tilt the earth off its axis... i remember thinking that was pretty admirable in its own geniously evil creative way :P cheers!

By: slimepuppy

slimepuppy — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 03:13:35 -0800

Carsonb gets a brownie point for the Pinky & The Brain reference. What are we going to do tomorrow, Brain? The same thing we do every day, Pinky: try to take over the world by exploding a 20-megaton nuclear device in the Yellowstone Caldera in order to activate multiple super-volcanoes that will induce the equivalent of nuclear winter around the world! Seriously!

By: slimepuppy

slimepuppy — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 03:17:03 -0800

And since we're talking WMD theory here, my favorite is kinetic harpoons.

By: pax digita

pax digita — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 03:23:01 -0800

I wonder what kinds of interesting repercussions would result if Jerusalem got nuked -- and nobody took credit for it.

By: biffa

biffa — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 03:31:59 -0800

Could we blame bevets?

By: spazzm

spazzm — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 04:09:05 -0800

AI is dangerous? The guy's a loon.

By: Atreides

Atreides — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 04:33:24 -0800

" if other Muslim countries like Syria, Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey got involved, the West would be dealing with a force at least an order of magnitude more powerful than Hitler was" Let me second the idiocy of the this statement. He never had me convinced, but when I read that, I flipped the switch to "whacko."

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 04:39:55 -0800

Why does he think Turkey would get involved on the behalf of Iran, rather then the west? Stupid.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 04:48:45 -0800

The rods from god/ project thor/kinetic harpoon idea is just stupid. It would cost millions and millions of dollars just to put a single rod into orbit. And although you'd have a huge amount of energy when it hit, it there is no guarantee that will 'explode' or do anything other then just get buried in a deep hole.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 05:14:20 -0800

I remember on 9/11 thinking it was sci-fi, no one would ever believe flying a plane into the Twin Towers would cause it to collapse.

By: Fuzzy Monster

Fuzzy Monster — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 05:20:05 -0800

Six places to nuke when you're serious What? No Amish Popcorn Factory?

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 05:40:32 -0800

He left out Muncie. Please?

By: spazzm

spazzm — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 05:48:44 -0800

And although you'd have a huge amount of energy when it hit, it there is no guarantee that will 'explode' or do anything other then just get buried in a deep hole. Since energy cannot be destroyed, only turned into other forms of energy, that hole would have to be very deep indeed. Where else would all that kinetic energy go?

By: ZenMasterThis

ZenMasterThis — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 06:15:13 -0800

I was just thinking about this this morning. Weird. I was thinking Jerusalem would be at the top of the Islamofascists' list.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 06:19:10 -0800

Since energy cannot be destroyed, only turned into other forms of energy, that hole would have to be very deep indeed. Where else would all that kinetic energy go? You answered your own question.

By: spazzm

spazzm — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 06:31:35 -0800

Uh-huh.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 06:31:35 -0800

Well duh, you'ld nuke the shield generator, then send fighters into the equitorial trench to drop a torpedo down an exhaust shaft. Come on people, do I have to draw you a picture?

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 06:40:52 -0800

You forgot Poland.

By: sonofsamiam

sonofsamiam — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 06:42:27 -0800

AI is dangerous? The guy's a loon. Well... he's a singulitarian and transhumanist. He's a very smart guy who is consistent within the framework of his beliefs. (personally, I'm a singuskeptic, but the mind-bending debates that crowd gets into make for excellent reading.)

By: mk1gti

mk1gti — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 06:43:59 -0800

You can tell he's not serious when he leaves out. . . Texas. . .

By: prostyle

prostyle — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 06:53:21 -0800

With the right tech, living conditions of persistent darkness is not difficult at all. I'm not talking tech from hundreds of years into the future, but only a couple decades. When you can be on the surface and everyone else is forced underground, it isn't hard to start establishing global superiority. And if you establish it really well, it can be preserved indefinitely - in the case of dictators taking advantage of extreme life extension, thousands of years. This sounds like science fiction, but the possibility is very real. Many of the intelligent people reading this post will agree with me without hesitation. Can anyone please explain exactly what the hell he is talking about? Too many comic books, kid...

By: empath

empath — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 06:57:14 -0800

I was just thinking about this this morning. Weird. I was thinking Jerusalem would be at the top of the Islamofascists' list. posted by ZenMasterThis at 9:15 AM EST on August 10 [+] [!] That's a whole lot of stupid packed into a short comment.

By: spazzm

spazzm — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:23:55 -0800

He's a very smart guy who is consistent within the framework of his beliefs. That doesn't help much if his beliefs are loony. And I see no evidence of him being 'very smart'.

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:26:50 -0800

This is just silly. He doesn't explain why he chooses these targets over others and the geological ones aren't thought through (hint, you'd have to bury the nuke foir these to work). And once any city in the US gets nuked, it's over for pretty much all of the middle east, and probably also anyone else who isn't a firm ally. The US has over 10,000 warheads that are on average 250 kilotons each. Anyone interested in a serious analysis of this topic should look for a early to mid 1980 public DoD assessment that includes cites, number of deaths, fires, nuclear winter, etc. for every major city in the world. It's exhaustive and unimaginably horrifying. This site is nonsense.

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:29:15 -0800

With the right tech, living conditions of persistent darkness is not difficult at all. I'm not talking tech from hundreds of years into the future, but only a couple decades. When you can be on the surface and everyone else is forced underground, it isn't hard to start establishing global superiority. And if you establish it really well, it can be preserved indefinitely - in the case of dictators taking advantage of extreme life extension, thousands of years. This sounds like science fiction, but the possibility is very real. Many of the intelligent people reading this post will agree with me without hesitation. There is help.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:31:11 -0800

he missed a couple 1 mecca ... that's pretty obvious 2 a nuke hundreds of miles above the east coast ... the electro-magnetic pulse fries every piece of electronic equipment and makes modern life impossible for awhile in many states

By: Dormant Gorilla

Dormant Gorilla — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:38:16 -0800

can't remember what story it was from (i wanna say earth by david brin?) Wasn't Earth the one where they created a black hole in a lab and it got loose and was threatening to eat the Earth's core, and also some stuff about the Maori? Because if that's Earth, now I want to know what book you're talking about, with the poles etc. Pretty neat. On topic, I think pretty much every problem we have these days arises from people being consistent within the framework of their beliefs. Nobody seems able or willing to preach outside the choir. Or to even step outside their choir to listen to what the others are saying.

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:41:58 -0800

Six candy bars to eat when you're serious

By: KirkJobSluder

KirkJobSluder — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:42:42 -0800

I wonder what kinds of interesting repercussions would result if Jerusalem got nuked -- and nobody took credit for it. There was an interesting Sheri Tepper novel in which aliens attempt to "clean up" the Earth. One of their more creative acts is the removal of Jerusalem with a statement along the lines of, "If you can't share it, you don't get to play with it.."

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:43:32 -0800

Well... he's a singulitarian and transhumanist. He's a very smart guy who is consistent within the framework of his beliefs. posted by sonofsamiam at 9:42 AM EST on August 10 [+] [!] He isn't smart. There's an arrogant little dig on the front page about "poorly educated fiction authors" doing the same speculation he does. It seems like this is a guy who's seen soo many movies and so many books about the subject that he's convinced himself that the singularity and transhumanism or whatever are inevitable. I lump in Ray Kurzweil in that group. It seems like all they do is talk about the subject with other people who are into it. On preview, what Dominant Gorilla said.

By: CynicalKnight

CynicalKnight — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:46:39 -0800

If you were feeling jolly, for example, who should get nuked? Oh, oh, the Dutch! Please, please, let's nuke the Dutch!

By: fungible

fungible — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:51:00 -0800

I thought it was interesting. It's just one guy's opinion - don't take it like he's the world's authority on mayhem. Anyway, the key thing is there's not a damn thing we can do about any of it. So, whatever.

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 07:56:08 -0800

Anyway, the key thing is there's not a damn thing we can do about any of it. So, whatever. Sure there is. Just tell a good joke before they press the button and it'll no longer be serious!

By: Captaintripps

Captaintripps — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 08:00:05 -0800

What, no Bestoria?

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 08:01:58 -0800

I was just thinking about this this morning. Weird. I was thinking Jerusalem would be at the top of the Islamofascists' list. That's a whole lot of stupid packed into a short comment.

Yep. Ignorant may be the better word. But whatever it is, it's quite an accomplishment.

By: PlusDistance

PlusDistance — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 08:04:59 -0800

With the right tech, living conditions of persistent darkness is not difficult at all. I'm not talking tech from hundreds of years into the future, but only a couple decades. When you can be on the surface and everyone else is forced underground, it isn't hard to start establishing global superiority. And if you establish it really well, it can be preserved indefinitely - in the case of dictators taking advantage of extreme life extension, thousands of years. Strangelove: Nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain plantlife. Animals could be bred and slaughtered... Turgidson: I think we should look at this from the military point of view. I mean, supposing the Russkies stashes away some big bomb, see. When they come out in a hundred years they could take over...

By: prostyle

prostyle — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 08:23:50 -0800

Nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain plantlife. Animals could be bred and slaughtered... That's all well and good, until you realize that in his scenario everyone else is underground. This is why statements like "When you can be on the surface and everyone else is forced underground, it isn't hard to start establishing global superiority" are absolutely inane. It's like Atlas Shrugged with nukes - who is going to run these reactors, these greenhouses and these animal farms? Nobody, because you're a genetically engineered dictator and the only one free to roam the surface... what are you going to do, embody a post-apocalyptic Thoreau, living on the lake of fire with your thousand year self now that all the stupid little proles are forced underground? Stupid.

By: Zozo

Zozo — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 08:38:54 -0800

MetaFilter: Many of the intelligent people reading this post will agree with me without hesitation.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 08:49:21 -0800

"2 a nuke hundreds of miles above the east coast ... the electro-magnetic pulse fries every piece of electronic equipment and makes modern life impossible for awhile in many states" Thank you. I was wondering where the high-atmosphere EMP was on his list.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 08:55:05 -0800

CynicalKnight writes "If you were feeling jolly, for example, who should get nuked?

"Oh, oh, the Dutch!

"Please, please, let's nuke the Dutch!" What.

By: CynicalKnight

CynicalKnight — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 09:19:47 -0800

What. No, seriously, it'll be awesome. And I swear it won't hurt a bit. Just to be a good sport, I'll go first.

By: the ghost of Ken Lay

the ghost of Ken Lay — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 09:53:11 -0800

countries like Syria, Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey got involved, the West would be dealing with a force at least an order of magnitude more powerful than Hitler was In hell, I read that to Hitler during the brief pauses between his endless beatings. He sort of chuckled before blood ran down his little mustache. So I think he agrees. All the muslim armies would be looking real stupid when we flip the IFFs over and cause their (our) war materiel to become inoperative. Even Hitler doesnt know what that means. Iff? Identify friend or foe? Isn't all their shit old russian crap anyway?

By: freebird

freebird — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 09:53:57 -0800

6 Places to Nuke when you're Drunk: 6) Sealand. Fuck those guys. 5) One of those atolls they used to nuke back in the day - hah! 4) Burningman, man. Burningman! It'll be AWESOME! 3) How do you even know the nukes work? Try pressing

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 10:01:39 -0800

I'd agree with the bit about not having to be psychotic to do this. Which is really the worrying bit. Anyone who would actively (and sucessfully) work towards this level of destruction would have to be possessed of a stable intellect. Some rational people commit suicide or go on killing sprees, it's a matter of displacement. Something this big though would take a Bond villian level of work, and no one is going to get that kind of cooperation from anyone with any kind of savvy much less a mass of people without it being leak-o-rama. So most of the nuts like this get shunted into government work where their ambition is put on display. It's really a quite effective way of neutralizing them.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 10:53:28 -0800

sien writes "Surely capital and very large cities of actual nuclear armed powers would be far more dangerous than Tehran.

"People should think about these things through more thoroughly." It would be a bit of a boring list though don't you think? Like someone listing their 20 favourite songs and including all the songs from the white album individually[1]. delmoi writes "And although you'd have a huge amount of energy when it hit, it there is no guarantee that will 'explode' or do anything other then just get buried in a deep hole." Where do you think all that earth that used to be where the hole is now is going to go? What temperature do you suppose it'll be at? [1] Yes, all 30 tracks.

By: Sparx

Sparx — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 14:45:44 -0800

I lump in Ray Kurzweil in that group. It seems like all they do is talk about the subject with other people who are into it. That's unfair. From ^:

Kurzweil was the principal developer of the first omni-font optical character recognition system, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first CCD flatbed scanner, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first electronic musical instrument capable of recreating the sound of a grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition system.

Sure, the guy has his singularity hobby horse. But he's more than earned his riding time. Of course, when the darkness spreads across the planet, his army of fanatical blind followers will be in the perfect position to take over.

By: Cyrano

Cyrano — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 15:40:04 -0800

goodnewsfortheinsane, I took it as a reference to this. But since I work for a Dutch-owned company, I'm not entirely against the idea.

By: goodnewsfortheinsane

goodnewsfortheinsane — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 17:13:21 -0800

Yeah I got that, I'm just being wilfully obtuse. (In fact, I saw that film in a tent together with close to a thousand Dutch, but I digress.) So, um, okay, I'll just crawl back into my, uh, shell.

By: paulsc

paulsc — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 17:34:32 -0800

I'll just say that the guy clearly thinks 1 megaton bombs are several hundred times as destructive as they are known to be, if he thinks planting one, even optimally, in Yellowstone is going to do anything spectacular. Some geysers might burp a little, and there'd be an additional groundshock on that day due to the explosion, in a place that has hundreds of minor groundshocks a day. Otherwise, nada, I bet. A supervolcano is hard to start on any human schedule, and impossible to stop once it accumulates the necessary force itself.

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 18:04:53 -0800

Yeah, what paulsc said. This has come up before on MeFi. There's a huge gulf between even the most powerful nuclear weapons—even the combined force of all existing nuclear weapons—and geological events. Sure, perhaps someday we might understand a complex system like the geology of Yellowstone well enough that we'd be able to place a 10MT bomb just exactly right such that it creates a chain of events that leads to the explosion of the supervolcano. And, perhaps, such a futuristic analysis would find just such a weak spot to conveniently be where a nuke could feasibly be placed. So maybe, just maybe, when that unlikely future day comes, we can worry. Right now, supposing such a thing is possible or these energies are comparable is just stupid. People vastly overestimate the destructive capability of nuclear weapons when they put them in the realm of geologic releases of energy. One way to get a reality check on this would be to look at how the Chinese proposed to use nukes in the early Three Gorges proposals in the fifties and sixties—look at how many they would have needed, and how little effect they would have had compared to fantastical thoughts of blowing mountains out of the way.

By: Cyrano

Cyrano — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 20:54:43 -0800

So, um, okay, I'll just crawl back into my, uh, shell. *tips hat* Well done, Sir.

By: squidfartz

squidfartz — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 22:02:44 -0800

God, what a facinating article.

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 22:23:04 -0800

there was a doomsday device that consisted of orbiting nukes that, when detonated at the poles, would tilt the earth off its axis... Isn't that Damnation Alley, or at least the movie thereof? Starring the Landmaster, and also George Peppard and that guy, always wore a shirt.

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 01:25:58 -0800

It occurs to me that if you have a nuke...you are serious.

By: supremefiction

supremefiction — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 10:13:20 -0800

If you'd like some fascinating reading, check this out: http://www.blackvault.com/documents/ADA359603.pdf It is a Cold War report from MIT detailing how Russia could use many small nuclear weapons pinpointed at key economic targets (e.g. refineries) to send the US back to the Stone Age.

By: prostyle

prostyle — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 10:36:21 -0800

Underground Nuclear Explosion youtube

The approximately 80-kiloton LONG SHOT device, buried 2300 feet underground, was detonated on October 29, 1965. As part of the Vela Uniform Program, LONG SHOT's primary purpose was to find ways to detect nuclear explosions underground using ground-based seismic instruments.