Drudge: WashPost to report US/Russian Team Seize 37-lbs of Highly Enriched Uranium ...

Drudge Report of WashPost ^ | Dec 23, 2003 | Drudge

[mikegi]

US/Russian Team Seize 37-Pounds Highly Enriched Uranium from Bulgarian Plant, WASH POST Planning To Report On Weds... Developing...

[No Blue States]

"So what could be done with 37 lbs of HEU today, any idea? Umm, maybe to power a Ford Ranger around the world 27 times? With appropriate tire and oil changes, of course."

The only way any Ford could make it around the world 27 times is if it were pulled by a Chevy.

[Southack]

"I think our real worry from terrorists are the 100 or so ADM (Atomic Demolition Munitions) produced by the now extinct Soviet Union. It is uncertain if all of these ADMs are accounted for... and some may be in circulation for sale to the highest bidder. These are only 1 kiloton nukes... but still can do a heck of a lot of damage."

Not a chance. Without sophisticated maintenance, the electronics have long since fried, the atomic trigger has decayed into a useless substance, and the conventional explosives in such devices have long since been altered. Likewise, impurities have been introduced into both the core as well as the shell/globe, among other things.

Such unattended (by professionals in top-notch labs) devices will fizzle. The CCCP has been gone since 1989, after all, so even some of their more "recent" devices would have expired long ago.

A terrorist could get a dirty bomb from such things, and a terrorist state or well-financed terror organization could possibly disassemble one of these devices to learn a few secrets, but to try to use such an old, unmaintained device itself is the stuff of Hollywood movies rather than of real science.

[Sender]

Hah! I pass by the same Chevy carcasses since about the 10th time around the globe. Like, um...rocks:)

[Righty1]

That is enough to make a real bomb.

[Quix]

TRUE, TRUE, TRUE!

[Prime Choice]

What...you going to go off on a nitpicking safari over the dumbing-down I did of that rather complex series of events too?

How many times do I have to go over this whole fission-fusion-fission thing? Sheesh...

[Pubbie]

Ulyses S Grant, a General and President during the US Civil War.

[Southack]

"How many times do I have to go over this whole fission-fusion-fission thing?"

Just until you finally get it right for once, then I suspect most posters will leave you be.

[hford02]

The simplest form of atomic weapon places a target of fisionable material at the end of a canon barrel the projectile is also made of fissionable material which is shot into the the center mass of the target creating a fissionable critical mass that produces the fission explosion instantly.

[DallasMike]

Are we going to ping-pong this dialogue the whole day now? It was boring two messages ago.

My eyes glazed over far more than 2 messages ago. The one thing that I know for certain is that it would be a Bad Thing for the sand Nazis to get any amount of HEU.

[pointsal]

how about toasting the private parts of the boys/girls involved.....maybe reducing the gene pool......

[cpdiii]

NO

The Hiroshima bomb was basically a cannon barrel with two sub critical U235 slugs in it. One was fired into the other making a critical mass and the it went BOOOOOM.

The bomb dropped on Nagasaki was a plutonium sphere with explosives around it. When fired it compressed the sphere into a critical mass and then in went BOOOOOOM.

[Lael]

About 140 pounds, but that was back when the equipment and methods were pretty crude. Today 37 pounds is enough.

In "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", it was mentioned that Little Boy needed about 2.5 "Critical Masses" to overcome the distortion of the 'target' U-235 by the so-called "gun".

The Nagasaki Fat Man required that there be less than a critical mass, which quickly became critical by implosive compression, and set off by the still classified "Initiator".

Today's nukes are more efficient by far, as consulting a photograph of a Reentry Warhead published as recently as the 1970's will show.

What must be clearly understood is that Nuclear Weapons are an almost 60 year old technology, and almost any nation could build one.

Slide Rules were the most advanced "computer" available, and indeed the dictionary definition of a "computer" was a Human Being skilled at Numerical Computations.

Nerve agents are even older, being pioneered as offshoots from Organophospate insecticide research in the 1920's.

And Anthrax??? It was developed, AND weaponized by Great Britain for possible use on the City of Dresden in WWII.

[dominic housatonic62]

I dunno how far you dumbed down your "facts", but you leave a lot to nitpick. First off, testing of the super started in 52 not 54. The first h-bomb test was NOT a fission-fusion-fission thingy at all. The first was Mike, or Sausage device. In US history we have deployed only One 3 stage weapon, the b-41 bomb. The two 3 stage tests conducted were during Op Redwing in 1956. Zuni and Tewa. Bassoon and Bassoon Prime. One clean, one dirty. Do you know what makes one clean and the other not so clean? Redwing Navajo was the cleanest thermonuclear test conducted by US. It was a two stage device. What made it the cleanest?
Three stagers are obsolete in the US. Have been for decades. We dont even have aircraft that could deliver a 41 anymore. One more nitpick. Fat Man, aka Trinity device, aka Mk-3 bomb yielded 20 kilotons not 12.5.
On a lighter note, I liked your mushroom head Dashheel on your user page. Looks like a Redwing shot. Mohawk to be exact.

[Prime Choice]

First off, testing of the super started in 52 not 54.

If you will re-read my message, you will note that I stated that it was the first thermonuclear bomb of 1954. I did NOT say that the first thermonuclear bomb EVER was set off in 1954.

[dominic housatonic62]

The first thermonuclear of 54 was Castle Bravo, on March 1. No 3 stage weps were tested during Castle. The first 3 stage test was in May of 56. Redwing Zuni