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The Blind Spots In the Nuclear Test Monitoring System
Lasrick writes The International Monitoring System managed by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization relies on detecting one or more of four distinct signatures from a nuclear explosion. Seismic detectors continuously listen for the shock waves passing through the earth from underground nuclear tests. Hydro-acoustic monitors listen for sound waves in the oceans from underwater tests. Infrasound detectors scan for pressure waves in the atmosphere. The fourth kind of signal involves radioactive gases generated by a nuclear explosion and released into the atmosphere. Ulrich Kuhn and Michael Schoeppner describe the system in detail, and point out that there are blind spots, particularly in the area of noble gas detection: "Our research has found that the noble gas detection part of the International Monitoring System is unlikely to work as it should because of the limited distribution of noble gas stations, neglect of important meteorological patterns in some areas, and the radionuclide background from emissions from the commercial production of medical isotopes." Kuhn and Schoeppner go on to describe possible fixes, and call on the 183 states that have signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and the CTBTO to provide the resources to build extra monitoring stations where they are required and to curb activities that might limit the global capability to monitor possible nuclear tests.
Right in the middle of the Indian Ocean, far from any monitoring stations.
You mean this kind of blind spots? http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view3/4289015/fallout-2-smoking-eyes-o.gif
My country will be happy to comply. We will spend whatever it takes to assure the world that we are not a nuclear threat. We know that when we do *not* have nuclear ambitions, we will benefit from the generosity of the nuclear powers and prosper in the years to come.
Ha, ha! Look around--the only countries who get any attention / financial support are those who are at the brink of being nuclear threats. We will threaten the shit out of you until you meet our demands!
...omphaloskepsis often...
Say what you will. In the old days Democrats knew how to use real nuclear weapons I won't tell the scorned woman joke out of respect for Hillary. But if any of you countries have plans about Bill being your ambassador... Well, you know Hillary's record on embassies. Hasn't the poor dear been through enough? What possible difference would a couple of live fire exercizes make?
An array of these should be able to detect a pulse of neutrinos produced by nuclear bombs.
Have gnu, will travel.
Another blind spot is the dark side of the moon.
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/...
The US launched a satellite to check if the Russian were doing nuclear weapons testing on the dark side of the moon.
If there is anything we've leatned from the War on Drugs, we've learned that bans don't work.
All they do is support a criminal underclass which serves no purpose.
Thus the solution is to repeal the ban and allow everyone to decide in a free market manner what nuclear testing they want.
It's like vaccines and traffic rules. Do you really want the government deciding for you? Or for your children? If you want to send your child to the middle of a busy highway to test your home made fusion bomb, should some bureaucract force you to inject your child with a poison that could cause retardation just because of some third world germs?
So if the other 3 detectors can detect the explosions under ground, under the sea, and in the atmosphere. Where exactly does that leave for a covert test that this gas sampling might miss?
Oh I see he thinks we need a world wide network of monitors to confirm what the other 3 sensors pick up. Gee if only there was some way to stick those gas detectors on something mobile.....
WC-135 Constant Phoenix
Technology, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.
> The Blind Spots In the Nuclear Test Monitoring System
The blind spots are NOT technological. In 1979, when the apartheid states of South Africa and Israel conducted a joint neutron bomb test by a tiny southern ocean islet, the US Vela observation satellite lighted up with warnings like an xmas tree and the free press made a scandal of it.
The White House soon issued a statement in the press, claiming the Vela was old, unreliable and even blind in one eye and the false alarm event was caused by the coincidence of a cosmic x-ray storm and a bolide meteorite exploding at the very same spot, while a subsea earthquake was happening... One dozen NASA researchers quit in protest over the blatant cover-up. A few weeks later New Zeland warned that its sheep are beeping through rad detectors with elevated cobalt and iodine isotope levels in the glands and records of wind directions incidate origin from the euphemistically named "Vela incident". In response, USA said shut up or face export-import ban on "dangerously radioactive" sheep meat. The Pentagon still continues to state to this day, that there was absolutely no davidian-salamonian nuke involved.
Yet, a few years after apartheid ended in South Africa, the country's then defence minister admitted they had allowed Israel to conduct a neutron-bomb test at their tiny islet in 1979 and also transport 550 tons of uranium ore to Dimona, in exchange for giving the white supremacy regime six "gun-type" uranium atomic bombs, similar to those of Hiroshima. After the apartheid fell, USA removed these dangerous nukes from Pretoria. None of such info was known previously before he spoke up. The following day, the same minister appeared in public and said he had been intoxicated, that's why he made such daydreaming statements. Hands up, who's not afraid of the Mossad!?
With this kind of AIPAC is "more equal" type of mindset and enforcement, there is no need for technical problems in the Nuclear Test Monitoring System. Suprisingly, in the case of North Korea, even the tests which have completely failed, are easily and promptly detected by the international community.
> sheep are beeping through rad detectors with elevated cobalt and iodine isotope levels in the glands
I think that's another C isotope: caesium instead of cobalt
(Cobalt-60 does occur in artificially "salted" bombs, but those are large sized three-phase uncontrolled fusion devices, meant to depopulate whole countries for decades. Those are not neutron bombs, which are mostly tactical kind of weapons, i.e. put a village or half of a town in the past tense.)
What about the NDS packages sailing around the planet in 11 hour 56 minute orbits that contain things like emp sensors, gamma-ray sensors, x-ray sensors, and other things that constantly watch the planet for nuclear detonations?
Having worked in the business, I know there is a lot more out there than ye olde article talks about when it comes to nuclear weapon test monitoring.
Suprisingly, in the case of North Korea, even the tests which have completely failed, are easily and promptly detected by the international community.
If you're talking about the first test, widely regarded as a fizzle (sub 1kt), I'd argue that even that one wasn't a complete failure, as it has certainly yielded valuable data.
(The timeline of N. Korean nuclear testing goes something like this: 2006 -- first test, fizzle (4kt expected, according to Chinese sources, less than 1kt yield); 2009 -- second test, success (4kt); 2010 -- intermediary test(s), probably of a very low yield U-235 device with D-T or Li-D boosting, seismically decoupled but suspected because of radionuclide signatures, as mentioned in TFA and explained elsewhere in fascinating detail; 2013 -- success (7kt or so).)
Do geiger counters dream of radioactive sheep?
The Physics and Nuclear Nonproliferation Goals of WATCHMAN: A WAter CHerenkov Monitor for ANtineutrinos - http://arxiv.org/abs/1502.01132
Gap is closing.