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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.'"
Fusion bombs can be clean. The great misconception is that they are always clean, or even that they are desired to be clean by the military. Take a fusion bomb and wrap it with Uranium-238--under these conditions, this so-called "depleted" Uranium suddenly becomes very fissile indeed, and the resulting explosion will be many times bigger. As an added bonus, extremely intense neutron radiation is produced, enough to instantly kill anyone lucky enough to survive the blast (even those in fallout shelters, unless their shelters have many feet of lead shielding or buried very deeply underground) and generate amounts of fallout.
But it gets better. Instead of U-238, you can surround the fusion stage with "salt", a non-radioactive isotope that is transmuted into a highly radioactive isotope from the resulting neutron bombardment. The most infamous candidate is Cobalt-59. In a fission-fusion-fission bomb with the last "fission" stage omitted and a Cobalt-59 jacket substituted, the neutron flux will turn most of it into Cobalt-60 and the blast will scatter it across the land. Cobalt-60 is very unique, in that it puts out enough gamma rays to be very lethal (as in you *will* die if exposed to it for longer than a month or so. Not die as in die of cancer 20 years from now--you'll succumb to radiation poisoning), yet it has a relatively long half-life--around five years.
In another thread someone joked that nuclear weapons were passe--that we should be moving on to antimatter or something. Trust me, nuclear is quite scary enough. Depending on the wind conditions, a single bomb could quite literally destroy all life on the east coast of the USA. Make no mistake about it, if we really wanted to we could build enough Cobalt bombs to destroy all life on the planet. We take comfort in the fact that we're not crazy enough to do something like that, but I am not entirely convinced that Iran is similarly sane. MAD (Mutually Assured Distruction) worked against the relatively rational, aetheistic Soviets... but now we're up against cultures and ideologies that glorify martyrdom and kamikaze attacks to a ridiculous degree. I'm really not sure what's going to happen, but I feel most people in this country have become far to complacent, far too comfortable with the idea of nuclear weapons that everyone has but no one uses.
Let me hasten to say that on the other end of the spectrum are the retards who become hysterical every time the word "radiation" or "nuclear" is mentioned (fun fact--a single coal power plant pumps more radioactive particles into our atmosphere and water supply in a year than the three mile island accident), but we shouldn't forget that in the wrong hands, these weapons have very real potential as doomsday devices.
The nuclear stockpile in the United States needs to be reduced for a whole other reason than "it's old". It needs to be reduced because there's not a single nuclear threat to the United States today that isn't kept in check by every other nation in the world, or that wouldn't be kept in check with maybe a dozen nukes, versus the number of ICBM's currently stockpiled in the USA. You can't use nukes in a war on terror (unless you're a complete idiot and decided to blow away every country that "could" harbour terrorists), and most nuclear-capable nations are either friendly or so new into the "nuclear community" that it really doesn't matter, since they don't have the capability to actually deliver the payload. The only way it could possibly happen is through black-market sales of some sort, and even then, the USA nuclear stockpile doesn't exactly deter a terrorist organization.
The United States should be more focused on fighting 'conventional' (specifically urban and desert) warfare than nuclear warfare. The fact that there is currently no superpower poised to take over the world makes these relics of the Cold War era obsolete both in technology and in practice. They simply aren't needed. If even half of the USA nuclear stockpile were to be dismantled tomorrow, there would still be more than enough deterrent to wipe out any prospective enemy that might arise in the foreseeable future. As it stands, America has the power to blow most all countries on the planet to kingdom come and have some left over for the Martians, too.
Nuclear weapons have their purpose, but to have so many is insane. Deterrence is fine; Hell, even tactical nuclear weapons are fine, but why so many? And why bother researching more into the subject? The only possible plus I can see to research into new nuclear weaponry is to reduce the amount of radioactivity left over from the blast (or to increase the rate at which it dissipates or decays). Aside from that, it's still just new technology to do the same thing.
I say that if keeping the stockpile is that important, then just dismantle the ones that are ready to fall apart, and upgrade/repair the newer ones. Saves a lot of time, effort, and money.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
Finally, the stability of the US government is much greater [fundforpeace.org] than that of Iran.,/p>
Interesting list, I notice all the states in the green (best) section of the list do NOT have nuclear weapons.
"If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes should fall like a house of cards. Checkmate." - Zapp Brannigan
After 9/11, Pakistan freaked out and began to lock the locks on their nuclear arsenal. A year afterward, reports that Pakistan had been helping North Korea develop nuclear weapons comes out. In international speak this says, 'we are unstable (we have security concerns regarding our nuclear arsenal), we crave war (peaceful nations don't share nuclear secrets with countries that are technically still at war) and we still have not taken steps to prevent a nuclear exchange despite these serious concerns (they're fighting a grudge that has lasted for half a century, armed with nukes and bedding with known terrorist groups.)'
India is just as bad. Pakistan border both Afghanistan AND Iran, two of the most unfriendly nations currently (remember all those reports about Al Qaeda reportedly escaping into India through the mountains?), so India is paranoid of the radicals/terrorists/refugees that have recently come into Pakistan. If the reports about Pakistan helping North Korea develop nuclear weapons is true, this could set nuclear talks back DECADES. In international speak this says, 'we are paranoid of Pakistan launching a first strike/pre-emptive attack against us (Pakistan has fewer nukes so they would want to do this to minimize damage in a nuclear counter-attack), we believe Pakistan is socially and politically unstable due to recent events (U.S. invasion of Afghanistan) and we do not believe that the international community would come to our aid in a serious confrontation (the U.N. is still in a pissing match against the U.S. for invading Iraq, North Korea has everyone second-guessing their intelligence agencies to avoid another "Iraq has WMDs!" fiasco and Iran has everyone kicking the crap out of each other trying to figure out what to do without losing their precious oil/without military action/without having the U.S. go off on its own again).
"There is no comparable threat to Iran (yeah, you might say the US, but the only thing Iran has to worry about from the US is caused directly by their nuclear weapon ambitions in the first place)."
Yeah, right. Tell that to Saddam Hussein.
I'm not going to bother digging out the links, but take a few minutes to google "petrodollar" and "petroeuro" and read up on it. Notice what happens to countries that consider selling oil for something other than dollars. Iraq--invasion on trumped up charges. Venezuela--attempted coup with US backing. Iran?
"the US maintains its stockpiles of nuclear weapons solely to serve as a deterrent against other nations, while Iran's leadership has publicly and repeatedly declared that Israel should not exist as a state and has funded terrorist acts in order to remove it - it may very well use nuclear weapons in a first-strike effort against Israel [...]"
Oh, "we've got that bomb and that is good 'cause we love peace and motherhood?"
Iran's Ayatollah Khameini has explicitly stated that using nuclear weapons is against Islamic rules. Believe him or not, but remember that the US has explicitly stated that "all options are on the table" and has not explicitly ruled out a nuclear first strike.
Well, one good thing, though. The United States of America has never funded terrorists. We fund "freedom fighters." Big difference.
"And for a third, Iran's government maintains a stranglehold over its people - the people are fairly Westernized as the region goes, and they are interested in legitimate democracy. [...] Finally, the stability of the US government is much greater than that of Iran. The chances of Iran's government collapsing at some point in the future, relegating their nuclear weapons to whoever can get their hands on them first, are significant."
Okay, okay. Now I'm a bit confused.
The reason the current leaders of Iran are in power is because of their stranglehold over their citizens. If it were up to their citizens, they'd throw the bums out and have a legitimate democracy. So, in other words, the biggest threat to "stability" in Iran is...the forces of democracy? And these people might get ahold of nuclear weapons?
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
The last serious redesign of the atomic bomb produced the fusion bomb, which gave off less radiation for the same bang.
Ummm, no. A fusion bomb is called a staged thermonuclear weapon. It uses a plutonium trigger to ignite a fusion reaction. The yield of the weapon is adjusted by manipulating the amount of deuterium injected into the weapons core milliseconds before the trigger is set off. It is in reality a fission bomb augmented with fusible hydrogen.
Fission bombs typically yield in the kilo-ton range. They produce fallout of radioactive decay products (radioactive strontium, iodine, etc) and unspent plutonium. They also create what is known as an electro-magnetic pulse which is deadly to computers and electronics.
H-bombs are every bit as dirty as fission bombs. They yield in the mega-ton range. As they are souped-up fission bombs, they have similar fall-out. As the fusion reaction is much more energetic than a fission reaction, there are even worse effects. If the H-bomb hits the ground, ordinary materials- dirt, bricks, motor, etc- is irradiated causing even more problems. The gamma-flash of an h-bomb will kill any exposed persons for a radius of many miles. The optical flash will blind anyone looking in its direction for 10s of miles. EMP effects from H-bombs are equally impressive creating massive power, electronic and computer disruptions.
The biggest h-bomb ever set off was ~50 megatons by the Russians on a small island off Kamchatka. That particular bomb could theoretically yield as much as 100 megatons. They toned it down for testing purposes.
There was a big difference in the design philosophy between nukes of the US and USSR. American missile technology was much more precise than the Soviets with the early ICBMs so the US made smaller, cleaner warheads. The Soviets on the other hand designed their nukes for the biggest possible bang. Although Soviet missile accuracy improved in the late 70s and 80s, their warheads were essentially the same- big, honking H-bombs.
Another type of nuke was designed in the 70s called a neutron warhead. It was designed not for its explosive potential but the ability to cause a deadly pulse of radiation which would kill all humans (I've always wanted to work that into a conversation somehow.) who aren't in hardened shelters. This is a very "clean" but ghoulish weapon designed in anticipation of a super-power conflict in Europe. [Since Europeans were tired of being bombed flat, I suppose being zapped like a frog in a microwave was an easier sell.]
As an old Cold Warrior era fossil, I hate nukes. They suck in every conceivable way. They are NOT a warrior's weapon. They are weapons of indiscriminate murder killing warrior and innocent alike. Their cost is obscene considering all the other uses that money could be put too.
IMHO there is no such thing as a good nuke, only the ones necessary to make retaliation to an attack suicidal.
It seems reasonable that another redesign would try to produce more efficient fusion bombs
The nukes that are being considered are small: 20-60 kilotons. NOT fusion weapons. They are essentially bunker busters on steroids.
which is only a good thing.
I don't think it's a good thing at all. Creating a small, battlefield nuke makes using one more likely.
Nukes aren't battlefield weapons. They are political weapons. Using one could start a chain reaction that no one could possibly predict.
Is that a SCSI connector or are you just glad to see me?
Yeah, getting little things like "facts" wrong tends to be a common theme amongst those who take pleasure in blaming the US for everything.
Incorrectly stating a date is not "facts", it's details. When it happened is not relevant to this debate. But I'm not defending someone elses post, nor should it be valid critism of the central point here.
The UK came up with the plan and pursued it, the US agreed to assist. So why, pray tell, is the US the country being blamed?
Who said the UK wasn't to blame? It was the UKs idea but "agreed to assist" grossly downplays the USA's involvement. The CIA did most of the work, managed by Americans.
Ofcourse, the revisionist historians who see this as some blatant power-grab, or the removal of a "democratic" regime for political purposes, all fail to acknowledge the realities of that time period.
How much hypocracy can you get in one sentance? You refer to the time period (start of the cold war); how could this be anything other than a "power grab"? It's a power grab if the soviets take the country and it's exactly the same when you do it. The entire cold war was one big power grab; the later invention of the ICBM changed all that of course. Back then, power was territory. Turkey, Afganistan, Cuba, they all had conflicts due to these cold war power grabs. They also had short-range missles stationed on them, pointing at the enemy. But hey, the US had the Iranian peoples best interest in mind all along, right?
Back then Global Communism under a totalitarian USSR was much more threatening and terrifying than the prospect of a Global Islamist Caliphate is today.
Bull. This is before the legacy of Stalin. Prior to that asshat, there was no reason to fear Communism. The fact that you capitalise "Global Communism" suggests that you disagree with me on this for ideological reasons. If Stalin wanted to promote Communism, he'd have been better off never being born!
By the way, there is no threat of a "Global Islamist Caliphate". Never was. All we have here is a bunch of people screaming "get out of my country" then after 40 years of that some fly some planes into some buildings. They have no desire to take over the world. They don't want the whole world to be islamic (well, a couple do, but we have our own Christian equivalents in Fallwell etc). Their goals are clear and stated every other month. Get out of the middle east. Stop dicking around with their goverments. Stop supporting repressive brutal dictatorships. Never once have I seen Al Qaida say "global islam" or anything along those lines.
A revolution in an Iran increasingly leaning towards communism (and sharing a border with the USSR) was a logical way to avoid more intense warfare later on. And, as history shows, NATO nations won the Cold War without having to fight much.
Complete conjecture. Would Iran being communist be any worse than the current state of affairs? Without a time machine we cannot answer that. I'd argue that the cold war turning into real war was always unlikely, due to the M.A.D. brought about by the nukes. The 1953 revolution in Iran is largely responsible for the anti-US feeling over there. It could be argued that the majority of terror has roots in this event.
As for the rest of your nonsense, the time for diplomacy in Iraq came and passed in the 1990's. Sadam survived one war, years of inspections and negotiations, followed by years of sanctions. Negotiating any more at that point was sheer lunacy.
No, thinking that invading was an improvement was lunacy. I'll argree that the situation was pretty dire over there with Saddam in charge. But I'd like to see anyone make a convincing argument that the current situation is better. Or that it will be better in five years. You do realise that we are now there forever? We have built 15 or so permament bases. Most of the US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia (long term deterent stationing) have been moved to Iraq. And the his