U.S. Nuclear Weapons "Fun facts" :
Did You Get Your Money's Worth?
Cost of the Manhattan Project (through August 1945): $20 billion
Current cost of nuclear weapons activities, 1995: $33 billion
Cost of nuclear testing in 1985 (16 tests): $825 million
Cost of testing in 1995 (O tests): $410 million
Total number of U.S.-built nuclear warheads and bombs, 1945-present: 70,000
Total number of nuclear weapons used in war: 2
Total number of nuclear bombers built, 1945-present: more than 4,000
Total number of nuclear missiles built, 1951-present: 67,500
Total land area occupied by Defense and Energy Department nuclear weapons installations: 12.603 square miles
Total combined land area of Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia: 11,834 square miles
Number of nuclear tests conducted in Nevada: 935 Number of nuclear tests conducted in the Pacific: 106
Number of Pacific islands still contaminated: 8-26
Number of Pacific islands totally vaporized: 1
Number of U.S. nuclear bombs lost in accidents and never recovered: 11
Cost of the nuclear-propelled aircraft program: $6 billion
Number of hangars built for nuclear-propelled aircraft: 1
Number of nuclear-propelled aircraft built: 0
Number of secret facilities built for presidential use during and after a nuclear war: more than 75
Currency stored until 1988 in Culpeper, Virginia, by the Federal Reserve to be used after a nuclear war: more than $2 trillion
Minimum number of pages still classified as secret by the Energy Department: 280 million
Estimated total cost of nuclear weapons and infrastructure, 1940-1995: $3.9 trillion
All figures converted to fiscal 1995 dollars. Adapted from "50 Facts About U.S. Nuclear Weapons," by the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists November/December 1995