Yep, that's a nuclear detonation with a blimp in the foreground. The US Department of Energy ran some nuke tests back in 1957. The tests were run to see how airships reacted in a nuclear blast. Think about that for a sec-- our government was curious to know what happens to an aircraft in the blast zone of a nuclear explosion. What you can't see in the picture is that they military also wanted to see what would happen to a box of kittens as well... oh, never mind. Anyway, the test, codenamed "Stokes," was part of "Operation Plumbbob," a series of 29 above-ground detonations carried out at the Nevada Test Site between May and October 1957.I, for one, and thankful for their efforts. I just put my good-for-nothing, non-nuke-proof blimp on sale this morning. Yet again, government spending has gone somewhere useful!
