{"id":49339,"date":"2025-11-02T21:11:50","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T03:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=49339"},"modified":"2025-11-02T21:11:53","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T03:11:53","slug":"energy-secretary-us-weapons-tests-wont-involve-nuclear-explosions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=49339","title":{"rendered":"Energy secretary: US weapons tests won\u2019t involve nuclear explosions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Sunday that the weapons testing that President Trump\u2002<\/u><\/a>ordered last week will not include nuclear explosions.<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the tests we\u2019re talking about right now are system tests. These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call noncritical explosions,\u201d Wright said on Fox News\u2019s \u201cThe Sunday Briefing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo you\u2019re testing all the other parts of a nuclear weapon to make sure they deliver the appropriate geometry, and they set up the nuclear explosion,\u201d Wright, whose agency oversees testing, continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump last week said on social media he directed the Defense Department<\/u><\/a> to begin testing U.S. nuclear weapons \u201con an equal basis,\u201d sparking confusion about the nature of the weapons tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked for clarification by reporters<\/u><\/a> later that day, Trump did not make clear whether he was calling for the U.S. to restart explosive nuclear weapons testing or ordering new testing of weapons systems that could deliver a nuclear weapon, which is more routine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

North Korea is the only country that has carried out nuclear testing since the 1990s. Russia has been conducting nuclear-capable weapons tests, which does not include setting off actual nuclear bombs. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been testing missiles capable of having nuclear warheads as recently as this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wright, on Sunday, shot down a question on whether the testing is \u201csomething where people who live in the Nevada desert should expect to see a mushroom cloud at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, no worries about that,\u201d he responded. \u201cNo worries about that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the U.S. works to modernize its nuclear stockpile, Wright said officials will be testing the new systems, not the existing stockpile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe testing that we\u2019ll be doing is on new systems. And again, these will be non-nuclear explosions. These are just developing these sophisticated systems so that our replacement nuclear weapons are even better than the ones they were before. They\u2019re reliable in all circumstances, under all conditions, and they deliver the performance they were designed for,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

thehill<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Sunday that the weapons testing that President Trump\u2002ordered last week will not include nuclear explosions. \u201cI think the tests we\u2019re talking about right now are system tests. These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call noncritical explosions,\u201d Wright said on Fox News\u2019s \u201cThe Sunday Briefing.\u201d \u201cSo you\u2019re testing all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":49340,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1153],"tags":[35137,35139,35138],"class_list":["post-49339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military","tag-energy-secretary","tag-nuclear-explosions","tag-weapons-tests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49341,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49339\/revisions\/49341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}