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US Forgets How To Make Trident Missiles
Hugh Pickens writes "The US and the UK are trying to refurbish the aging W76 warheads that tip Trident missiles to prolong their life and ensure they are safe and reliable but plans have been put on hold because US scientists have forgotten how to manufacture a mysterious but very hazardous component of the warhead codenamed Fogbank. 'NNSA had lost knowledge of how to manufacture the material because it had kept few records of the process when the material was made in the 1980s, and almost all staff with expertise on production had retired or left the agency,' says the report by a US congressional committee. Fogbank is thought by some weapons experts to be a foam used between the fission and fusion stages of the thermonuclear bomb on the Trident Missile and US officials say that manufacturing Fogbank requires a solvent cleaning agent which is 'extremely flammable' and 'explosive,' and that the process involves dealing with 'toxic materials' hazardous to workers. 'This is like James Bond destroying his instructions as soon as he has read them,' says John Ainslie, the co-ordinator of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, adding that 'perhaps the plans for making Fogbank were so secret that no copies were kept.' Thomas D'Agostino, administrator or the US National Nuclear Security Administration, told a congressional committee that the administration was spending 'a lot of money' trying to make 'Fogbank' at Y-12, but 'we're not out of the woods yet.'"
Having worked at this facility in the '80's as an engineer, I can say definitively that this scenario is either misunderstood, or incorrectly reported, or deliberately obfuscated, or a lie, or postulated from sketchy evidence, but it is factually and wholly wrong.
Every project for every material or product, special or otherwise, was properly documented. These files would not be destroyed. (Note here that I'm assuming the files on "fogbank" were not lost in an accident or by malicious destruction.)
Now, has the practical and hands-on knowledge of the step-by-step, moment-by-moment synthesis reaction to make this material been lost? Perhaps in the course of 25 years it has. Lots of people have left the plant since then. But all the information, notations and observations necessary to reconstruct the process/project do exist, I assure you.
Not that the US did not create the situation, but more Iraqis killed other Iraqis than US soldiers killed anyone in the past 8 years.
At its heart, radical, fundamentalist Islam is a death cult.
They're not really clean. They're "clean" from the perspective that they kill all the people while leaving the buildings *mostly* intact. However, they greatly increase the amount of radioactivity in the area. All those buildings that are penetrated with neutron radiation become radioactive themselves. A significant "rest" period is required before the city can be inhabited again. (Which is arguably unwise anyway.)
Air-burst nukes are already relatively clean. Putting aside the fact that they mow over cities, the detonation event happening in mid-air leaves very little ground material in a highly radioactive state. Topsoil still should be replaced and drinking water checked for possible contamination, but the long term effects of an area that is properly cleaned up are usually fairly minimal.
It's the interim before cleanup that's the big deal. With plenty of short-term radiation to go around, the bombs do a pretty good job of turning any area into a hell-hole. Which is a far more deterring effect than turning a city into a ghost town.
Ground detonations are another matter altogether. Those are just about as nasty as you can get. The fallout does an extremely good job of making the area unlivable for a very long time. (As the US found out after it unhelpfully blasted dozens of islands into nothingness during nuclear testing.)
You still haven't answered the question: WHY? What possible use could such weapons be?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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Yes, but why would you want to cast shells for the large 16" guns on the Iowa class battleships? The last Iowa battleship was decommissioned in 1992.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
"The origins of the group can be traced to the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The United States viewed the conflict in Afghanistan, with the Afghan Marxists and allied Soviet troops on one side and the native Afghan mujahedeen on the other, as a blatant case of Soviet expansionism and aggression. The U.S. channelled funds through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency to the native Afghan mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation in a CIA program called Operation Cyclone."1
Cited, yo.
It's been a long time.
iraqbodycount.org is based on news media reports and they themselves state that: "Gaps in recording and reporting suggest that even our highest totals to date may be missing many civilian deaths from violence." How much undercounting that IBC does no one knows. So your figures are, as you say, bunk.
No offense, but stuff it. The US does not set out to kill as many people as possible.
I certainly hope not. But unfortunately what one "set out to do" isn't what counts. What counts is what actually happens, especially when it was a forseeable result of one's actions. "I didn't mean to" is okay for children, but not so good for adults.
91,060 - 99,433 is the complete total for civilian deaths in Iraq.
No, actually it's the number of documented deaths. That is, it's actually only a lower bound. The true number is certainly higher. No one knows how much higher. It would seem that there has been a studied effort by the governments involved not to determine the true number of men, women, and children killed.
But having a hundred thousand people die due to being killed by their own people (#1 cause) and accidental deaths during live fire
If these people would still have been alive had the US not acted, the US bears a responsibility. It might be true that this was the best of the available alternatives, but this case has not been seriously made at this point. "It's not our fault" is a pretty pathetic substitute.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -George Orwell
Not to be pedantic (well, OK, it's thoroughly pedantic, but I'll point it out anyway), but there's no evidence that Orwell ever actually said this. I see this quote all the time, but it's never sourced or dated. More info here. (And yes, I'm aware of the irony of pointing to wikiquote to debunk a quotation that's not sourced. I think the burden of proof is probably on the person attributing the quote, though.)
That said, misquote or not, I agree with the sentiment 100%.
Scorched fucking earth in Afghanistan. The American people called for retaliation, and they got it.
That's generally what happens when you provide logistical support and a base of operations to a terrorist organization that attacks a Great Power. You think Afghanistan would have come out better if Bin Ladin had murdered ~3,000 Chinese or Russians instead of ~3,000 Americans?
Bin Laden was in Afghanistan not because the Taleban invited him but because the CIA did. He was an American puppet for as long as it suited the US to stir up Muslim fundamentalists against communism. Then the US 'won the war against communism', and suddenly their CIA trained and CIA funded fundamentalist friends were looking around for a new target.
The Taleban were anything but nice people, of course - they were also CIA clients, after all - but you really cannot blame the people of Afghanistan for Bin Laden. He isn't Afghani, andthe Afghans didn't invite him.
It would be a bit like - oooh, I don't know - blaming Fidel Castro for Guantanamo.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Kipling said it, and he has been badly paraphrased. Orwell wrote a piece on Kipling, and thought well of Kipling expressing this idea. Here is what Orwell said "He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them." Orwell in general wasn't keen on Kipling. His article is a good read, though long for some. Kipling's poem that said it best is Tommy.
You should consider updating Wikipedia then. It currently says you have no idea what you're talking about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United_Kingdom
Well... the truth is considerably more nuanced.
Here's a quick summary (which is itself nowhere near the full story)
Afghanistan was ruled by a king, but then it had a Communist student revolution. They happened. Lots of people saw Communism as a way to eliminate social injustice and more than one country had themselves a Communist revolution spearheaded by idealists (and no doubt encouraged and supported by the Soviets with whom they shared a border)
But like a lot of revolutions, it is one thing to be outraged by social inequity and take action to overthrow a government; it is quite another to sucessfully pick up the controls of state machinery and run an effective government - student revolutionary committees aren't particularly good at training adminstrative skills (they do better with sloganeering and inspirational poetry). The new Afghan Communist government simply wasn't very good at governing. And they did themselves no favours by trying in fix every single perceived social problem (some of which were real, like poor education amongst rural women) all at once. In particular, the Communist outlawing of religion did not go over very well in a nation where the majority self-identify as devout Muslims.
So in very short order, they were having to get increasingly heavy-handed when it came to ruling the population, and as a direct side effect, were soon facing a counter-revolution. Backed into a corner, the Afghan government called for Soviet help, and the Red Army rolled in.
Of course, Russia had had Afghan ambitions since the days of the Czar....
The problem was that the Red Army was not particularly suited for fighting counter-insurgancy warfare. It was comprised primarily of undertrained conscripts, and was much better off fighting large-scale manouvre warfare that required mass and firepower but little finesse or skill. The Red Army started taking horrific casulties, and inflicting horrific reprisals (which only fueled the insurgency)
And then the West (primarily the US) realized that the USSR more-or-less had its own Vietnam on the go (there are many similarities) and started arming and supporting the insurgents, providing them with weapons well suited to the kinds of battles they were fighting. Of course, most of these insurgents were motivated by a radical Islamic worldview... but the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?
The bleeding of the Red Army got worse and worse and worse, and finally the whole operation reached the point of untenability, and the Soviets left. But they left behind the Afghan Communist government that had invited them in the first place. The Mujahadeen kept fighting the remnents of the Afghan government, and soon started fighting each other.
The fighting in Afghanistan never really stopped after the Soviets left... it just kept right on going, and what little was left of any sort of state infrastruture was pounded into mush.
Of course, once the Soviets pulled out, the West stopped paying the area any attention. The goal was "bleed the Soviets dry" not "Help restore Afghanistan".
Eventually, Mullah Omar and the Taliban took over - that's a fascinating story in of itself - the Taliban started out as the good guys - but after corruption set in, they allowed Al Quaida to operate in their territory (and they weren't really very big on rule of law either)
There hasn't been a real, true, functional Afghan government since the early 80s - and the life expectancy is *** 35 *** years. The place is a mess. This is state-building in the rawest sense.
Progress IS being made. Things ARE getting better. But Lord O Mercy is there a long way to go.
DG
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