According to "Atomic Audit," since 1940 the United States has spent at least $5,481,083,000,000 -- that's nearly $5.5 trillion -- in constant 1996 dollars on its nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs. The figure does not include an estimated $320 billion for future and some present costs for the storage and disposal of nuclear wastes and weapons.
The study's contributors offer a more concrete way to visualize the numbers given:
| 1945 | 1955 | 1965 | 1975 | 1985 | 1995 | |
| UNITED STATES | 6 | 3,057 | 31,265 | 26,675 | 22,941 | 14,766 |
| SOVIET UNION | 0 | 200 | 6,129 | 19,443 | 39,197 | 27,000 |
| BRITAIN | 0 | 10 | 310 | 350 | 300 | 300 |
| FRANCE | 0 | 0 | 32 | 188 | 360 | 485 |
| CHINA | 0 | 0 | 5 | 185 | 425 | 425 |
| Source: National Resources Defense Council | ||||||
The kitchen window standard is this: A 1 psi blast wave is equivalent to the kitchen window being hit with 1,920 pounds of force when all doors and windows of the house are closed [1,920 = 30x64x1]. Similarly, a 3 psi blast is equivalent to the window being hit with 5,760 pounds of force. So you can see why not only windows break, but walls can come tumbling down with such overpressures.
October 1961: Soviet Mega-Bomb