MovieChat Forums > By Dawn's Early Light (1990) Discussion > Idiots who looked at the nuclear blast

Idiots who looked at the nuclear blast

posted 13 years ago by snafuone
3 replies | jump to latest

Cassidy told the crew on the B-52 to shut the curtains as they first encountered a nuclear blast. Moreau, his lover and sidekick, looks out the window as she's doing it and gets blinded in her right eye. DUMB DUMB DUMB! The president, being flown in the huey after leaving the White House, looks at the blast as another Russian ICBM detonates. DUMB DUMB DUMB! I see a recurring amount of idiocy. Perhaps that would happen in real life. It would pretty much be unavoidable if you are facing the direction where a nuke blast occurs. If i saw even a little bit of a super bright flash, i'd try my best to duck and cover, as taught during the Cold War.

[–] JSouth1 12 years ago

DO keep in mind...that at the precise instant of detonation(Fission and/or fusion burn) just before the fireball starts to form...the flash of a nuke is probably 1000 times brighter than the SUN on a bright day -if not more----so just "shutting you eyes"
--would NOT likely do much good--if you were in the direction of the blast. Also, by the time you "saw something of a flash--"in your direction" it would likely be ALL OVER for your sight.

[–] Muttley_McLad 12 years ago

Further to this ^^^ there are many accounts of those involved in the early atmospheric test shots of nuclear weapons who reported that, despite wearing protective darkened goggles and facing away from the blast, when the initial detonation flash took place they could see the bone structure of their own hands, as if they were looking at an X-ray image. As JSouth says, your eyelids would provide very little to no protection for your retinas if you were facing the direction from which the flash came from.

SEX - Breakfast Of Champions!

[–] SpiltPersonality 12 years ago

Further to this ^^^ :)

We have to remember that these are pilots who are trained to search the skies for other aircraft. It would be amlost instinct to look directly at a flash in the sky because it might be reflection off glass or a wing etc indicating another aircraft. Sure, you would TRY to train to avoid looking at a nuclear explosion BUT these people would have thousands of hours real time training looking TOWARDS a glint in the sky (esp if they were combat pilots) and a few 'try to remember' lectures saying 'don't look at a glint in the sky coz it may be a nuclear explosion.

Instinct is a VERY hard thing to over-ride

SpiltPersonality