To: Little Pig
So. What do you think would deteriorate quickly? The explosive used for the implosion? (Nope) The electronics that sets the detonators off? (Nope) The detonators? (Nope) The battery? (Replaceable) The fissionable material. (Slowly) Seems to me that this notion of "rapid rot" is floated in an attempt to quell fear. If the fissionable material were to decay below critical levels, it would still supply a lot of radioactive contaminates.
37 posted on
07/14/2005 12:37:22 PM PDT by
GingisK
To: GingisK
"What do you think would deteriorate quickly? The explosive used for the implosion? (Nope) The electronics that sets the detonators off? (Nope) The detonators? (Nope)" 
Incorrect. The Russians had to steal British RDX to get their nukes to work, as RDX is one of the few conventional explosives that can survive radiation long enough to take a bomb from the lab into the field.
Electronics are fried by radiation, too...as are electric wires.
56 posted on
07/14/2005 12:44:15 PM PDT by
Southack
(Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
To: GingisK
Tritium. It decays into deturium relatively quickly.
106 posted on
07/14/2005 1:08:42 PM PDT by
Little Ray
(I'm a reactionary, hirsute, gun-owning, knuckle dragging, Christian Neanderthal and proud of it!)
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