Launch Nuclear Strike On Nukemap By Alex Wellerstein

Click to see full-size image

Launch a nuclear strike HERE

Who created the NUKEMAP?

The original NUKEMAP was created in February 2012 by me, Alex Wellerstein, a historian of nuclear weapons. I have a B.A. in History from UC Berkeley, a Ph.D. in History of Science from Harvard University, and I am finishing a book on the history of nuclear secrecy in the United States from the Manhattan Project through the War on Terror. At the time I created the NUKEMAP, I was an Associate Historian at the American Institute of Physics in College Park, Maryland. In 2014, I began working as an Assistant Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Stevens Institute of Technology, in Hoboken, New Jersey. As of 2021, I am an Associate Professor (with tenure).

Note: I am a historian of physics, not a physicist — people seem to sometimes get confused on this because of the subject matter I study and where I have worked. You can read more about my research on my blog, Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog.

In July 2013, I unveiled NUKEMAP2 and NUKEMAP3D. NUKEMAP2 allows for many more effects visualization options, and the display of casualties and fallout information. NUKEMAP3D allows for the visualization of mushroom cloud sizes in a 3D environment. In December 2013, I upgraded the blast model of NUKEMAP2 to account for arbitrary-height detonations. In April 2015, I performed a major algorithm upgrade to the casualty model to give it much finer-grade calculation of people over small areas and to generally increase its speed of calculation.

Various other tweaks and additions have been made over the course of the intervening years. In 2018 the underlying map engine was converted to Mapbox and Leaflet, because Google changed their pricing scheme in a way that meant my costs went up by a factor of ten, which was unaffordable.

NUKEMAP3D’s development has been put on hold after Google announced its deprecation of the Google Earth Plugin API, on which NUKEMAP3D relies.