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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2008 : 20:45:22 [Permalink]
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Dude.....
| If you blow up some plutonium with conventional explosives, you are going to scatter it around a bit. They did not achieve a fission event, |
However...| the blast was equivalent to an earthquake registering 3.58 on the Richter scale,[20] which corresponds to the explosion of 100 tons of TNT. This was later revised to at least 800 tons,[21] corresponding to a blast wave of 4.2. The U.S. Geological Survey also estimates the blast wave at 4.2.[22] (Note that 4.2 is considerably more powerful than 3.58 because the Richter scale is a logarithmic scale.) |
Did they use 800 tons of TNT to blow up that plutonium? Hello........ Dude?
Next you state:
| nothing even you couldn't do in your garage for less than $100 in supplies. |
and
| Biotech doesn't require high energy physics labs! |
and
| Culturing out some ebola, anthrax, smallpox, or influenza is simple and cheap. Anyone familair with basic microbiology lab techniques can do it. They can also, with minimal effort, learn to separate spores(for anthrax), which is all you need to make it into a weapon. |
and
my point is that a terrorist could still use them to create fear. Infect 50 people in NYC with ebola... and people will freak.)
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I will briefly accept your expertise on biotech without question for purposes of this discussion, however your own earlier statement:| (If they had them)..They certainly would have used them instead of the crashing planes into buildings thing. Since that hasn't happened I am going with the "bullshit" call here as well. |
seems apt in this context also. I choose not to use the "bullshit" part!
If it is as easy and inexpensive to kill and sicken thousands of Americans and strike deep fear into our hearts as you indicate with the above comments:Why has Osama and Al Qaeda not completed a successful biotech attack upon the US by now?
My position on nuclear terror is that the terrorists have not yet found a way to obtain a bomb, but it is possible and may become likely in the near future!
If it is childishly simple and easy to make and employ a biotech weapon, Al Queda must certainly have possession of the simple household ingedients. It sure as hell isn't hard to get across our porous borders! Why haven't we been attacked by now?
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Does anyone besides Dude reading this thread have opinions on
these questions:
1. Will the US be vulnerable to a "smuggled nuke" attack in the reasonably near future (a few years)?
2. Is the US vulnerable to some form of biotech attack right now? |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 03/08/2008 : 21:05:13 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Does anyone besides Dude reading this thread have opinions on
these questions:
1. Will the US be vulnerable to a "smuggled nuke" attack in the reasonably near future (a few years)? |
Trick question: we're already vulnerable to such an attack, the real question is whether or not some terrorist group will be able to take advantage of the vulnerabilities.| 2. Is the US vulnerable to some form of biotech attack right now? |
Have there been any effective preventative measures put in place since 2001? In other words, your question assumes we've patched up our bioweapon security holes... have we (aside from creating a few tens of thousands smallpox vaccinations and telling postal workers to stay away from unknown white powders, that is)? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2008 : 22:39:58 [Permalink]
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Dave.....
Deve, I'll take that as a yes to both questions! Thank you!
Any others? |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/08/2008 : 23:53:48 [Permalink]
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bng said:Did they use 800 tons of TNT to blow up that plutonium? Hello........ Dude?
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Ok, I hadn't read that. But: Wiki also has a lot to say about this one.
| The apparent low yield of the test has raised questions as to whether it was a successful nuclear detonation, as the North Korean announcement claimed, or whether it was an unsuccessful nuclear detonation. Initially doubts existed as to whether it was a detonation of conventional explosives meant to appear like a nuclear detonation, but detection of airborne radioactive isotopes appears to have confirmed that it was to some degree nuclear |
| An official in France's Atomic Energy Commission reported that they estimated the blast was "about or less than a kiloton" and expressed uncertainty about whether or not the blast was actually nuclear |
On October 13, 2006, CNN reported that two U.S. government officials with access to classified information stated that the initial air sampling over North Korea shows no indication of radioactive debris from the event that North Korea says was an underground nuclear test. Some hours later, the report was reversed and stated there was evidence of radiation, though not enough data has been collected yet to be conclusive. The newspaper Hankyoreh reported an unnamed North Korean diplomat had acknowledged that the actual yield was smaller than expected.[30]
On October 14, 2006, the United States government reported that a test had found radioactive gas compatible with a nuclear explosion
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bng asked:
| Did they use 800 tons of TNT to blow up that plutonium? |
That is not off the table as a possible explanation. It is certainly possible.
I will briefly accept your expertise on biotech without question for purposes of this discussion, however your own earlier statement:
(If they had them)..They certainly would have used them instead of the crashing planes into buildings thing. Since that hasn't happened I am going with the "bullshit" call here as well.
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seems apt in this context also. I choose not to use the "bullshit" part!
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You misunderstand me. The alleged window of opportunity to obtain those dastardly Russian "back-pack" nukes(or other russian nukes/materials) was 1990-2001. If they were so easy to obtain, as you seem to think, then why bother with the elaborate plot to fly planes into our buildings? Terrorist leader says... fuck these nukes, you 20 guys go to the US, learn to fly planes, after you can fly, go hijack some big planes and fly them into a building! 
If they had a nuke, they'd have used it instead.
If it is as easy and inexpensive to kill and sicken thousands of Americans and strike deep fear into our hearts as you indicate with the above comments:Why has Osama and Al Qaeda not completed a successful biotech attack upon the US by now?
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Maybe the desire of these people to kill us is a bit over-played and over-hyped?
Lets talk Anthrax: It occurs naturally in the soil. You can easily obtain some wild-type anthrax from environmental samples (soil, infected animals, etc). Anthrax grows just fine on good old agar plates. You get several samples, culture them out on agar. Find a culture that exhibits a good capsule and grow this one in a vat.(or if you have access to more advanced lab gear, run some diagnostics for virulence factors, pick the best strain you have) Once the vat culture has grown for a couple of days, stop adding nutrients and bring the temp down. This causes sporulation. Once you have achieved a high degree of sporulation (70% or so, determined by light microscope) centrifuge for an hour in low temp (<40F,>32F)(in a fridge, basically). Carefully remove the supernatant. Take the residue, add cold sterile water, some glass beads, and shake. Pour it back into whatever you are centrifuging it in, and centrifuge some more and drain off the supernatant again. By now the spores are pretty well packed at the bottom. Carefully add some sterile water to the centrifuge tube, swirl gently. The remaining vegatative layers should separate and you can easily drain them off. Repeat the cold water, shake, centrifuge, cold water swirl steps two to three times. Each centrifuge session should be for 90-120 minutes. You now have concentrated anthrax spores. Add some sterile water to wash them out of the centrifuge tubes onto a drying media (like sterile filter paper), dry them out, add to envelope, mail to your enemies.
You can probably get 1gram of purified spores for every two liter vat you culture.
I'd also reccomend wearing some biohazard gear if you try this at home. A splash resistant suit, latex gloves, goggles, and (for the drying part) a 5micron HEPA filter mask. Actually, I'd reccomend against trying this at all.... my point is that its something anyone with minimal lab skills can do, for almost no money.
For things like Ebola, it is a bit harder to get your hands on a culture. You'd have to travel or have access to a lab where some was stored. Lab strains of infectious diseases tend to be sub-optimal though, as they have pretty rapid genetic drift as they adapt to lab conditions (i.e. easy food, perfect growth environment, etc) that can reduce their virulence. Its also pretty nasty, not something you want to handle without strict protocols.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2008 : 03:17:21 [Permalink]
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Dude.....
You said...If they had a nuke, they'd have used it instead.
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and in the very next sentence said....Maybe the desire of these people to kill us is a bit over-played and over-hyped?
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I understand there are two different contexts here, but you are talking about the same "people"!
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2008 : 09:11:59 [Permalink]
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I know you aren't stupid, yet, for some reason, you appear to be suffering from that condition in this thread.
But let me clarify, just so any actually stupid people reading this won't suffer the same confusion.
If nuclear material were so easily obtainable from the old Warsaw Pact/Soviet Block nations after 1989, then it is reasonable to ponder why an elaborate plot to attack the US (which began in the 90s) didn't involve the use of nuclear weapons/material. Why airplanes if nukes were to be had?
Why hasn't their been a bioweapon attack on a larger scale than the post 9/11 anthrax letters when it is easy to obtain some dangerous biologicals?
Granting you, for the sake of argument, that nuclear materials were easy to obtain(for people with enough $$) post 1989, then why would it be unreasonable to speculate on the actual motivations and intentions of the "muslim jihadist"? Maybe they don't want to kill us all? Maybe the numbers of extremists are vastly smaller than we have been told?
Maybe, just maybe, they don't represent the level of threat that Bush et al claim.
Or maybe nuclear material has never been so easy to get. Maybe none of them have ever taken a university level microbiology class. And if those are true, then the same conclusion seems obvious: They don't represent the level of threat that we have been told they do.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2008 : 15:55:59 [Permalink]
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Dude.....
| I know you aren't stupid, yet, for some reason, you appear to be suffering from that condition in this thread. |
Dude, my lack of stupidity is at least equal to yours! It would be stupid for both of us to not just leave it at that!If nuclear material were so easily obtainable from the old Warsaw Pact/Soviet Block nations after 1989, then it is reasonable to ponder why an elaborate plot to attack the US (which began in the 90s) didn't involve the use of nuclear weapons/material. Why airplanes if nukes were to be had?
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You, I, and others here have pondered that very question. Obviously, for reasons which may or may not have been mentioned here, if an intact, functional nuclear device capable of being smuggled into this country had been available, 1990-2008, at a price that Bin Laden, et.al. could handle, New York (or much more likely Washington), would be history now, and it is difficult to completely imagine the rest. Even my remarkably high stupidity in this thread does not prevent my understanding that! So the only really logical guess is that nukes have not been available to terrorists for some reason up to now!
History very seldom accurately predicts the future. Consequently, my position is that some of the critical parameters of the complex paradigm of {Nukes to Terrorists} may change in the not too distant future, and then we will be confronted with a very serious threat indeed!
I have been attempting to ask you and others, repeatedly, in this thread - what is your view of that probability?! | Why hasn't their been a bioweapon attack on a larger scale than the post 9/11 anthrax letters when it is easy to obtain some dangerous biologicals? |
I don't know, but my best guesses are these two:
Guess No. 1 -It isn't nearly as easy as the rolling off a log and picking the mushrooms scenario that you detailed! Other educated corroborating opinions please? Here or on the Internet? I am sure that your's is an educated opinion and therefore there must be many other biological scientists that agree with your contention that it is a simple matter to obtain and widely distribute bioweapons with devastating effect! All I need to agree with you, Dude is a few corroborating, fully credible expert analyses stating, in effect, that what you have described truly represents the situation and I'm in your boat!
Guess No. 2 - Bioweapons are not really anywhere near the "weapons of mass destruction" hyped by Bush et.al. and would not create either the huge symbolic victory that the terrorists want nor cause anything like the degree of destruction and death that the terrorists need to be seen as a Jihadist "victory".
I am in no way sophisticated as to the true terror potential of biological weapons. Biology and the logistics of biowarfare are not subjects that I am learned in. If this method of killing is anywhere near as dangerous and easy to inflict as you say, I most certainly will redirect my concern from the possibility of a nuclear attack to the probability of a biological attack!
Again, all I would like, in order to be convinced of the potential seriousness of this type of warfare, is the strong corroboration of a number of experts - that your statements accurately reflect the danger posed by a potential biological weapons attack!| why would it be unreasonable to speculate on the actual motivations and intentions of the "muslim jihadist"? Maybe they don't want to kill us all? Maybe the numbers of extremists are vastly smaller than we have been told? |
My personal speculation is that they really do want to kill a whole lot of us, and I base that primarily on the efforts, both successful and not, that they have made to date. Particularly 9/11!
In retrospect, I do not think president Roosevelt was wrong in concluding that the Japanese wanted to kill a whole lot of us, after the evidence of Pearl Harbor! Nor do I think that any leader of the US would be wrong in assuming that jihadist extremists do indeed want to kill a whole lot of us! And he/she would be justified in trying in every way reasonable to prevent that from happening!
As to their numbers, our goddamn military and CIA "Intelligence" seems to be so abysmally bad that apparently no one knows how many terrorists there are, where they are, whether they are growing or declining, etc. Anybody's guess is as good as the next! Our Intelligence may improve when we get some intelligence in the White House and Congress!
And perhaps terrorists offer little or no threat to the welfare of the citizens of the United States. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that 9/11 and other terrorist activities have been greatly exaggerated, manipulated, "spun", and viciously exploited by Bush-Cheney and the neocons - to enormously expand their own power and affluence! That does not speak one way or the other as to the nature or extent of the actual threat, however!
But 9/11 was a very serious event. Based on it alone, I feel that we must take the "terrorist Jihadist threat" quite seriously and if we err; err on the side of caution - not possibly underestimating their abilities and intent.Or maybe nuclear material has never been so easy to get.
Very probably true! How long will this condition hold?
Maybe none of them have ever taken a university level microbiology class.
I, personally, wouldn't count on it!
And if those are true, then the same conclusion seems obvious: They don't represent the level of threat that we have been told they do.
Nothing of the endless lies we have been told for many years represents anything resembling the truth. That is why I believe that people who can think, and are not "stupid", must think these matters through and not leap to conclusions on one side or the other! |
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JohnOAS
SFN Regular
Australia
800 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2008 : 17:55:08 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
Originally posted by Dude
Good old fertilizer bombs. Cheap, easy to make, and unstoppable in the hands of a suicide driver. Not nearly as destructive as a nuke, but much more likely to happen, imo. |
Quite possible, even probable on a one at a time small scale Iraq-street-explosion scale. But it would take hundreds or even thousands of trucks stuffed with ammonium nitrate to explode simultaneously and equal the power of even a small portable nuke! |
The efficiency isn't really the issue though, is it? You could get far more bang for your buck with a bunch of fertiliser bombs than a single man portable (or similar) nuke. If you want to scare and disrupt, a distributed low-tech attack is probably going to be more effective. You don't have to level a city to stop it in it's tracks and paralyse it's inhabitants.
I would argue that the multiple passenger aircraft into multiple targets scenario is more terror-inducing than a single aircraft filled with some sort of explosives. I'd rather not have those experiments conducted, however.
I believe that in general, our response to terrorist threats is more accurately described as inappropriately reacting than "over reacting". Specific behaviours, such as subjecting every passenger on commercial flights to invasive searching and/or questioning, are IMHO, over-reacting. I don't think many people would advocate no passenger screening ("Excuse me sir, you'll have to stow that automatic rifle in the overhead locker for take-off"), but how much freedom are people willing to sacrifice in order to maybe prevent a fairly low-probability attack?
Originally posted by bngbuck
But 9/11 was a very serious event. Based on it alone, I feel that we must take the "terrorist Jihadist threat" quite seriously and if we err; err on the side of caution - not possibly underestimating their abilities and intent. |
We should take it seriously. In fact, a reasonable chunk of my livelihood is based on taking the bad guys seriously. However, one of the biggest "fuck you"'s we can give to these morons is for most of us to get on with our lives, not letting them impact our day to day living in any significant fashion.
Essentially, this comes back to the OP ("We are in a struggle for our civilization against Muslim jihadists.") I don't think our civilisation is under threat from these people. The violent attack vectors being discussed, while horrible in their own way, aren't the most effective tool for destroying a free civilisation. As many others have discussed, the real threat is eradication from within.
bngbuck, your desire to investigate the relative probability of different attack methodologies is a good thing, and I for one am enjoying the discussion. However, even with much better data than we have access to, an accurate determination is almost certainly going to elude us. We should keep trying though. What do the actuaries say?
Originally posted by bngbuck
Nothing of the endless lies we have been told for many years represents anything resembling the truth. That is why I believe that people who can think, and are not "stupid", must think these matters through and not leap to conclusions on one side or the other! |
I think this is pretty much spot on. The problem is, we're going to disagree on what constitutes "leaping to conclusions". At this point in time, I've got to agree with dude, that the evidence doesn't warrant a significant increase in preparing for terrorist nuclear attack, at the expense of other, more tangible threats. It could happen tomorrow, and that would really suck for a lot of people, but hindsight is always a little too late for my liking.
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John's just this guy, you know. |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2008 : 19:11:52 [Permalink]
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OK,
I have a bit of conjecture concerning a few items
1) Why haven't terrorists used a biological weapon?
It possibly has to do with competence level of handling biological agents. Think Russian rocketry compentence before and after October 1960. General Nedelin took a smoke break and ka-friggin-boom. 96 rocket scientists become flambe.
In this case, the terrorists screw up while handling the stuff and kill the entire research staff.
2) "suitcase nukes" we were worried about the Soviet officers selling small nukes on the market because they weren't getting paid. It's why we fronted some tall cash during the Clinton administration to fund the recovery and security of these nuclear devices under UN oversight. I'm also of the opinion that Dude has that if terrorist already have this stuff, they would have already used it. preferrably in the Green zone.
3) DHS is a bloated and inefficient department which hinders far more than it assists. It assaults civil liberties in the name of temporary or percieved security. It's the Republican's way of dressing up in a sheet and scaring the daylights out of the electorate so that it can keep power. Fortunately, like the boy who cried wolf, the public has started ignoring the panic levels that the government wants us to believe in and change is happening.
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Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2008 : 22:37:05 [Permalink]
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bng said:
| I am sure that your's is an educated opinion and therefore there must be many other biological scientists that agree with your contention that it is a simple matter to obtain and widely distribute bioweapons with devastating effect! |
That isn't what I said at all. Most biologicals are impossible to "weaponize" beyond the crude "anthrax letter". Anthrax has never been used with any success as a WMD because the spores are very difficult to aerosolize. They tend to not float in the air, but drop to the ground. They are difficult to disperse over wide areas. But they served as an effective terror weapon when mailed to a few people. How many billions of dollars have we spent to screen mail for anthrax? How many people do you know who rushed down to their doctor demanding a rx for an antibiotic that can treat anthrax infections? It worked well in that regard.
If you wanted to create an ebola panic in NYC, just get a job as a bartender or a waiter and contaminate some food or drink (or dishware about to be used) with it. It would kill the people you targeted, and maybe a few others, but nothing massive like a nuke. You'd shut NYC down though. DHS and the CDC would probably quarantine the whole damn place once they ID'd ebola as a cause of death for a dozen people. The financial impact would adversely effect the entire world economy, there could be panic in the streets, riots of people trying to escape the quarantine.
I am in no way sophisticated as to the true terror potential of biological weapons. Biology and the logistics of biowarfare are not subjects that I am learned in. If this method of killing is anywhere near as dangerous and easy to inflict as you say, I most certainly will redirect my concern from the possibility of a nuclear attack to the probability of a biological attack!
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I'm confident that I could obtain 10grams of purified anthrax spores, using the method I described (that was a reader's digest version, but the whole procedure wouldn't take up more than 3 or 4 typewritten pages), in about a week with $1000 in supplies and used lab gear, using less space than my spare bathroom, and never arouse the suspicion of any law enforcement agency. (well, after posting this to the internet, who knows... not that I am ever growing anthrax spores outside a real lab with containment policies and procedures)
So the only really logical guess is that nukes have not been available to terrorists for some reason up to now!
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I've been saying that for two pages of this thread. So you now agree? Good!
Then you also agree that this is the starting position to work from when deciding if a nuclear terror attack is possible. So the question you have to ask is: Has anything changed that makes me think some nation's nuke arsenal/material is at risk of being stolen now and have we failed to react to that? Nope, can't think of a thing. So whatever we have been doing to date has worked! Lets keep doing it! As long as we can respond to changes, as we obviously have in the past, then the probability of a nuclear attack on the US remains where it has been. Very low, as long as we at least maintain the current status quo in our anti-nuke efforts.
Obviously I have no way of quantifying that down to some numerical value, but nor does anyone else.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 03/09/2008 : 23:23:09 [Permalink]
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One thing I haven't noticed in the thread is that atomic bomb technology itself is over 60 years old. Of course it was initially developed at enormous expense and manpower, (the Manhattan Project.) The first nuclear weapons tested in New Mexico had hardware mostly consisting of metal boxes on towers, electrical generators and cables. The crucial nuclear explosion itself was initiated by a preliminary conventional blast that forced fissionable material together in a precise way so as to create a chain reaction. I'm sure bombs today are much more sophisticated.
The point is, aside from the crucial and expensive radioactive material and the very crucial apparatus and processes that permit the physics to work, the rest is commonly available hardware. If there's no concern for how old the tech is, the machinery could be built over time in a basement. However, this gradual buildup has not happened because the final steps and processes required to make even an old fashioned atomic bomb are guarded on many levels including the knowledge itself.
Or - is that a false assumption?
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Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2008 : 00:22:41 [Permalink]
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Chippewa asked:
| Or - is that a false assumption? |
For the fission initiated fusion bombs in modern nuclear warheads, no.
For a crude uranium fission event, yes. The design of these weapons is not complex.
Obtaining the enriched uranium, on the other hand, is a major roadblock.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2008 : 02:38:14 [Permalink]
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Chippewa......
The best information and description I could find of the tested method (Hiroshima -Little Man to detonate U235 is this:According to the website Nuclear Weapon Archive,[2][3] inside the weapon, the uranium-235 material was divided into two parts, following the gun principle: the "projectile" and the "target". The projectile was a hollow cylinder with 60% of the total mass (38.5 kg). It consisted of a stack of 9 uranium rings, each 6.25 inches (159 mm) in diameter with a 4-inch-diameter hole in the middle, pressed together into a thin-walled canister 7 inches (180 mm) long. At detonation, it would be pushed down a short section of smooth-bore gun barrel by a tungsten carbide and steel plug. The target was a 4-inch-diameter solid spike, 7 inches long, with 40% of the total mass (25.6 kg). Made of a stack of 6 washer-like uranium rings somewhat thicker than the projectile rings, it was held in place by a 1-inch-diameter steel bolt that ran through the rings and out the front end of the bomb casing.
When the projectile and plug reached the target, the assembled super-critical mass of uranium would be completely surrounded by a tamper and neutron reflector of tungsten carbide and steel. Neutron generators at the base of the spike would be activated by the impact.
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With a large machine shop and skilled machinists to operate the lathes and milling machines necessary to produce the precise definition and dimensions necessary for the rings and plug described above; and the shielding (or remote control machining) necessary to prevent radiation burns to the people machining and assembling the components, and the foundry ability to produce a six-inch+ bore cannon barrel with appropriate breech strength to contain the large explosive charge propelling the plug down the barrel, and the ability to shape and form tungsten carbide steel into precise shapes and sizes, and the exact information as to the dimensioning necessary for the combined plug and ring to reach critical mass when joined -- with all of this and a great deal of skill and experience in working a casting operation for a six inch bore cannon, and the machining of highly radioactive material to extremely fine dimensions--in a very large basement and with some highly skilled craftsmen you could possibly dupicate the original fission bomb -Little Boy!
I do not see this procedure as child's play, or simple, or easy! Particularly for an amateur or weekend tinkerer. Oh,yeah - you also have to produce four polonium-beryllium neutron initiators, and install them in exactly the right place!
The implosion device, requiring plutonium, is much more complicated as it utilizes precisely located shaped charges of conventional explosive focusing their combined explosive power on a spherical target of plutonium. One definitely could not build this one in a basement!
When I was in college in Boulder, back in the '50's, I worked for one summer in the Rocky Flats plant operated by Dow chemical. This plant produced the trigger mechanism for fusion bombs, which was a small fission bomb.
There were very few buildings that I had authorization to enter, but my work did allow me to be in the main machine shops. Everyone wore special HazMat suits and all the machine tools were operated by one form or another of remote control, with very little actual handling of the highly radioactive material being worked there.
I do not know to this day the precise nature of those triggers for the early hydrogen bonbs. But they certainly took a great deal of machining and a great deal of care and shielding to prevent radiation injury! I am sure anyone building any kind of fission device would need to have high skills in metal forming and shaping, and a lot of machine shop equipment, in addition to protection from radiation!
I emphatically do not agree with Dude that it is would be a simple matter for anyone, possessing enough poundage of WG U235 to be capable of fission, to transform that weapons-grade material into a workable fission bomb!
A fusion, or "hydrogen" bomb is vastly more complicated and it is foolish to even think about building one in a basement!
As you state, constuction of fission bombs and fusion bomb triggers is undoubtedly much more sophisticated and complicated (and classified) today! But the fact that the early fission bombs were relatively simple by today's standards, or, as compared to fusion bombs, does not in any way connote that a elementary fission bomb is a simple thing to build, even after you have the requisite weapons-grade U235
Please go to this link to get much more detail and diagrams on the construction of a "missle to target' or Little Boy type fission bomb as of 1945.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2008 : 08:00:33 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by bngbuck
I emphatically do not agree with Dude that it is would be a simple matter for anyone, possessing enough poundage of WG U235 to be capable of fission, to transform that weapons-grade material into a workable fission bomb! |
You misread his comment. Chippewa's assumption is not false in the case of fusion weapons. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 03/10/2008 : 08:21:50 [Permalink]
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I am coming into this late. From what I gather the debate is over some kind of portable nuclear bomb. But isn't the most likely scenario a dirty bomb? A conventional bomb filled with a dangerous radioactive material of some sort spread around by an explosion? If the materials could be had, this kind of device would be fairly easy to build, transport and detonate.
Sorry if this has already been covered... |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
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"Muslim jihadists"
