Castle-Bravo Test Botch

Scientists screwed up the Castle-Bravo test. The Castle-Bravo test was the largest nuclear explosion ever produced by the United States. They packed the explosive components of the bomb with what they thought was a “benign” substance. They miscalculated overtly and they ended up with an explosion much bigger than they intended and it almost killed the skeleton crew in the observation bunker. They estimated beforehand that the explosion would be somewhere in the range between 4 megatons and 8 megatons with 8 being the “scary” big end of the spectrum. Due to the unpredicted reaction of lithium-7, they ended up with a 15 megatons explosion.