Exactly, this article is pretty goofy. There was never a real possibility that the Trinity test would ignite the atmosphere; the idea was proposed largely in jest and dismissed with the briefest of calculations. The modern-day equivalent would be the protesters who argued that the LHC (and before it, the RHIC at Brookhaven) shouldn't be powered up because it might create a black hole that swallows the Earth. Or those who argued that the RTG on the Cassini probe might break apart in a launch accident and poison vast swathes of life on Earth. Why didn't the author mention those concerns? They had just as much merit.

The Cuban Missile Crisis, on the other hand, was no joke. We were amazingly lucky that Murphy was on vacation that month. Our reliance on luck to avoid destroying humanity is much, much scarier than our reliance on reason.