by haujobbz 5 Replies latest jw friends
Its seems that according to statistics uranium or plutonium could easily be smuggled and used by terrorists almost anywhere to assemble a weapon of mass destruction.
Also as u know it seems to be easy when you got the simple materials to assemble an atom bomb according to numerous sources.
Is this true that it is very simple to build a an atom bomb,reminds me of the forth protocol
It is NOT easy to construct an atomic bomb, a fission weapon. It is even harder to build a hydrogen bomb, a thermonuclear fusion weapon.
The hard part to building a fission weapon is setting up the initial explosion which squeezes the fissionable material into critical mass. This initial set of explosions has to be timed so that the fissionable material is squeezed into critical mass without being blown apart. This is tricky to the point of impossibility absent a thorough knowledge of shaped charges and a supply of Klystron switches which make these charges explode at just the right time so that all the fissionable material is pushed inward producing the critical mass.
The hard part to building a fusion weapon is that you have to have a perfect fission weapon in order to produce the temperatures required to start a fusion reaction (thus THERMOnuclear reaction).
I'm no physicist, but I do understand that much. However if I'm an out of work Russian nuclear physicist with a family to feed, and you are a rogue state with plenty of money, a supply of fissionable material, and enough determination, we could likely reach some kind of understanding. This sceanario is likely to have been played out in the middle east more than once already. And perhaps in North Korea already also.
Unless all nations come to realize the ultimate soverignty of God, or whatever Higher Power you like, some nation is likely to feel its own soverignty to be threatened such as to be able to rationalize use of nukes on someone. I seriously doubt any nation could use a nuclear weapon on another country again absent immediate nuclear response from some other country. The circumstance surrounding our use of nuclear weapons on Japan, when we alone had the bomb, won't come again I don't think.
My two cents.
francoiss
And in the eyes of a Jackal I say ,
KAAAA-BOOM
Another hard part is obtaining weapons grade plutonium. Ordinary plutonium must be enriched before it can be made to produce an explosive reation. Fuel grade plutonium used in power plant reactors has only something like 1/30th the concentration of its fissionable isotope (P239) as weapons grade plutonium does.
Conventional methods for producing enriched plutonium require a breeder reactor, which is not an easy beast to construct and even harder to conceal. (Although it can be disguised as a power plant reactor as our freinds the North Koreans apparently were able to do with a little help from Bill Clinton)
With the downfall of the Soviet Union, it is theorized that it might be possible for rogue states to obtain small amounts of weapons grade plutonium or even perhaps a fully functional nuclear device. However these states don't want to be "one shot wonders" as using a single nuclear device would be suicide. They want to be full-blown nuclear powers themselves, so any plutonium they manage to obtain is far more valuable as the basis for their own enrichment program.
Francois
While the technology required to build a fission weapon like "Fat Man" is pretty high level, the technology required to build a fission weapon such as "Little Boy" is pretty simple. Getting weapons grade material might be tough, but the economic situation in Russia could make it pretty easy. I understand that some of their soldiers haven't been paid for awhile.
The High Energy Weapons Archive, A Guide to Nuclear Weapons offers a " Nuclear Weapons Frequently Asked Questions" (NWFAQ) zip file :
<http://gawain.membrane.com/hew/Nwfaq/Nwfaq.zip>
See especially section 4.0, "Engineering and Design of Nuclear Weapons" --VM44
Edited by - VM44 on 1 November 2002 3:22:33
