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Stimulated Gamma Decay Weapons
ExRex writes "New Scientist is reporting on a USDOD project to produce super explosives. 'An exotic kind of nuclear explosive being developed by the US Department of Defense could blur the critical distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons. The work has also raised fears that weapons based on this technology could trigger the next arms race.'"
Dr. Evil not available for comment.
However, this will soon be appearing in an online marketplace near you: http://www.villainsupply.com/superweapons.html
My basic question concerning this is two-fold, is this realy needed, and if it is created will we be able to control the techology. With world events the way they are now it seems like one of the last things that we end is a small high yeild weapon that can fall into the worng hands. At least with nuclear weapons there are some means of detecting their presence, but it seems that these weapons will not have the same signature.
New warfare technology has ALWAYS triggered a new "arms race", starting with the first human being who ever beat another to death with a rock.
Imagine their terror when the first knives, attlatls, and later bows & arrows started to be used in combat?
This is simply the latest iteration of an age-old phenomenon.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Right. I'm sure the President himself told the DOD to go spend money on more nuclear weapons.
Give it a rest.
The military is (and rightfully should be) interested in weaponry that focuses on several key factors, in roughly prioritized order from most to least important:
1) Damage potential (military reasons)
2) Minimizing risk to friendly forces and the delivery systems (political reasons)
3) Accuracy and Precision (cost and political/humane reasons)
4) Cost
This new weapon is a breakthrough in the #1 department, and may be a better technology in every category except for the "accuracy" category, due to the fallout factor. If they can figure out how to maximize the energy release (analagous to how complete the combustion is in a conventional fuel-air combustion), they may be able to bring this factor down to levels that equate it with (for example) using depleted uranium ammunition and armor.
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
If I hear one more hulk joke, I'm going to get very angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
> Anyone still asking where you really have to search if you want to find WMD? Small hint: not in the middle east...
Current theory is that Saddam's dog ate them.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The article claims that the AF supplier, SRS Technologies, said that technology to provide the materials needed in "gram quantities" would be about five years away (he say they "would exist within five years").
;).
Certainly, for a project such as this, it is completely unbelievable that one of the key entities in the weapon development would give anyone and everyone a remotely precise estimate as to when larger scale production (and real weapon production) could possibly begin.
The true timeline must be years away from that. In one of the two directions possible... Which poses an interesting question: are real weapons based on this technology available today already, and did they agree to participate in the story simply to "prepare" the general public for real-world testing which will happen in the following year or two? Or do they know that others are working on this technology as well, and therefore need to tell their nation that "they're right on it", when some other country launches their tests within the next year or two?
That's speculation. Time will show.
What will be interesting to see, too, is how the real testing will commence. Currently they are working on three possibly viable materials. Most likely they will have different characteristics, and their exact effects in a real-world scenario will be impossible to simulate.
In 1945, there were two materials available for fission weapons - uranium and plutonium. One bomb was made with each, and the two bombs were dropped on each their civilian target. Hiroshima got Uranium, Nagasaki got Plutonium.
Which three cities will this new weapon be tested on? And to raise the bar, which city will get Hafnium, which one will get Thorium, and which one will get Niobium?
Oh, and don't tell me war has gone soft and that the weapon would not be tested on civilian targets this time... A gamma discharge weapon has many of the properties of a neutron weapon - it is extremely useful mostly against people (and electronics - it will kill you *and* your Aibo, oh the wonders of modern civilization
On a second note... Did anyone notice how there is no longer anything called a "neutron bomb"? It is, today, called a "low yield" bomb. In the media at least. Because it's blast and heat isn't as great as "real" fusion weapons. Neutron weapons are now almost politically correct - at least, the public wouldn't raise an eye if they were told a low-yield bomb was dropped to stop riots in some third-world city.
Now, to go find lead coating for my tinfoil hat.