Labs Compete to Build New Nuclear Bomb

An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that two labs are currently competing to design the first new nuclear bomb in twenty years. The new bomb was approved as a part of the 2006 defense spending bill. From the article: 'Proponents of the project say the U.S. would lose its so-called "strategic deterrent" unless it replaces its aging arsenal of about 6,000 bombs, which will become potentially unreliable within 15 years. A new, more reliable weapon, they say, would help the nation reduce its stockpile.'"

Comments

Strangelove

[Jediman1138]

Yeeehaw!

Re:Strangelove

[Nefarious Wheel]

I am so glad they spelled "lose" correctly there...

AYBABTU

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody Set Up Us The Bomb?

Re:AYBABTU

[Poltras]

For great justice!

Perhaps...

[Microsift]

If there were a greater investment in grammar checking programs, the article's headline would be readable.

Re:Perhaps...

[TaggartAleslayer]

Take a swig of Vodka and pronounce it with a Russian accent. It sounds ok.

"Labs Compete to Built New Nuclear Bomb"

Take another couple of swigs of Vodka and it somehow sounds even better.

"Lab Completes two Built Nude Nuclear Boobs"

Now finish the bottle as you ponder how the term 'fall-out' would apply to the last reading.

Re:Perhaps...

[RsG]

Weapons of mass distraction? :-P

Re:Perhaps...

[x2A]

"Weapons of mass distraction?"

Weapons of mass terbation?

Old hat

[DigiShaman]

Pfftt, please! Such old technology. Shouldn't we be building anti-matter bombs these days?

Re:Old hat

[RsG]

Antimatter is so old fashioned. Bring on the singularity weapons and matter-energy conversion beams, I say!

Actually, can you imagine what a pain in the ass antimatter weapons would be? One power failure, and BOOM - say goodbye to your stockpile, and most of the continent you were storing it on.

Reduce its stockpile?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right. Building more bombs will help reduce the stockpile. Makes perfect sense to me...

The Headline is Wrong

[SpottedKuh]

I think they meant, "Labs Compete to Built New Nuke-u-ler Bomb."

So now it's official

[Trogre]

The US is confirmed to be producing weapons of mass destruction.

Who's up for 'liberating' them?

Re:So now it's official

[Frangible]

Hey, you're not supporting the troops. It's ok for the US to do it, because the US would never use a weapon of mass destruction like a nuke against a civilian population.

Re:So now it's official

[kcbanner]

You forgot the accent:

Libratn'

Re:So now it's official

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's up for 'liberating' them?

No no no, we only need to liberate countries that are run by mad men. You know the type that torture people, spy on their citizens, and violate international law.

Labs Compete to Built New Nuclear Bomb

[Anonymous Coward]

The design is so advanced it suspends causality.

Reduce?

[camperdave]

A new, more reliable weapon, they say, would help the nation reduce its stockpile.

I see four possibilities:

• They are building the new weapons out of the old ones
• This must be some new meaning of the word "reduce" I was previously unaware of.
• They're planning on testing the new weapons by blowing up the stockpile of old ones.
• Someone in the government got confused

Cruiser Ammunition

[PromANJ]

Might come in handy when the Ur-Quan hierarchy arrives...

Many new designs in past 20 years

[HermanAB]

Why doesn't the US just buy some new designs from South Africa, Israel, India or Pakistan?

Re:Many new designs in past 20 years

[Apraxhren]

Well I am fond of the Iranian design myself. Thats the real reason Bush wants to invade Iran

Re:Sweet

[mattjb0010]

No, "All your base are belong to US".

Suggested tags

[nacturation]

Suggested tag: hypocrisy
Suggested misspelling doubling as political commentary on the US government: hypocracy

Re:I wonder who is the target

[ShaunC]

I dont think Al Qaeda attacks would be reduced, nor would Iran, North Korea etc cease to build bombs. They'll only be encouraged. Makes me wonder whats the point.

To begin with, you need to clear your head of the misconception that Al Qaeda is any more of a threat to the world than drunk driving. Next, realize that the point of this research is to remain on top, which is the only way to "win" when nuclear is an option. Nuclear ordnance is not built to be used, at least not in the last half-century. It's built to be bragged about.

In the global power economy, who would you rather be:

a) The USA with 6,000 supernukes

b) North Korea with 20 maybenukes

c) Iran with an "energy program" that "might" be capable of producing deployable nuclear munitions

If you ask, "who the fuck cares, when one nuke is all it takes?" then you're not getting it. All the world knows that one nuke is all it takes, and at least for the time being, nobody in the world wants to fire that nuke for fear of MAD. Not even in the middle east, not even Kim Jong or his cousin Menta Li. And so it devolves into a dick-measuring contest, as these things tend to do. And so the United States wants to show it has the biggest dick[1], as it tends to want.

[1] There is a Bush joke here that I will abstain from making.

expiration date?

[Anonymous Coward]

Blast! The old nukes are going to expire? Well just as with the milk, we'd better use them up before they do!

outsource

[Fry-kun]

hey, let's outsource this project...
xD

Re:Remember Iran:

[Gorshkov]

No, at this point it's eminently clear that Iraq was invaded because we knew they didn't have WMD's. If they'd had nukes (not sure if chemicals or biologicals would have stopped us, although they sure could have made things rough) we'd still be saber-rattling.

If that's the case, why isn't Canada a state yet?

We don't have nukes.
We have a shitload of oil
We have less of a military than Granada, albiet worse weather, so an invasion wouldn't be costly
And you'd finally be able to field a half-decent hockey team

Re:Remember Iran:

[x2A]

"If that's the case, why isn't Canada a state yet?

We don't have nukes.
We have a shitload of oil"

And a bunch of french to surrender!

(sorry, know that one's getting old, just couldn't resist... I'm british, it's in my blood :-)

Re:Parable...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that how his hunger strike began? Fascinating.

DRM?

[spaceturtle]

Five bucks says these new nukes will have DRM. Doesn't everything these days?

Carbon Nanotubes can do it!

[CFD339]

Of course they can. Carbon Nanotubes can apparently do everything else, so of course they can do it. They'll be used to bring us free fusion (the engery of the future, and always will be) and we can just fly our car down to fusion-r-us and plug one of these little antimatter watchamacallits in and charge it up like cheap cell phone. Badabing, all set.

Re:Remember Iran:

[nytes]

Yeah, but you've got Quebec. Get rid of that and we'll consider assimilating the rest of you into our collective.