Shortage Slows a Program to Detect Nuclear Bombs-(fantastic)

nytimes ^ | November 22, 2009 | By MATTHEW L. WALD

[Flavius]

The Department of Homeland Security has spent $230 million to develop better technology for detecting smuggled nuclear bombs but has had to stop deploying the new machines because the United States has run out of a crucial raw material, experts say.

[Mister Muggles]

Gee, maybe we can buy what we need from the CHINESE.

[null and void]

It’s a good thing the NYT doesn’t know.

They’d tell our enemies it’s safe to smuggle in nukes...

[Thunder90]

Remember now, Obama wants to let in the Nukes, both terrorist born and suitcase nukes from the Russian Federation/Neo-Soviet Union. He doesn’t want to anger a guy named Vladimir...

[LegendHasIt]

Maybe they could do the same thing as they do for the 'shovel ready jobs'.... Just put up signs;

"NO NUKES ALLOWED"

[GOPJ]

Oh come on - Homeland Security’s spending too much going after vets and right wing Christians to have money for real terrorists... Besides the “PC” issues...

[DrDavid]

This was completely foreseeable. Tritium has a half life of about 12 years. If no tritium is remove from the stockpile, after 12 years, half of it would be gone.

There are some other strategic questions this brings up too. I’m surprised they weren’t mentioned directly in the the NYeT imes.

[garjog]

“The government wanted 1,300 to 1,400 machines, which cost $800,000 each, for use in ports around the world to thwart terrorists who might try to deliver a nuclear bomb to a big city by stashing it in one of the millions of containers that enter the United States every year.”

1,400 detectors? Wow. They must really think that the treat of smuggles nukes is significant.

Remember the slogan during the “nuclear freeze” craze in the 1980s: One Nuclear Bomb can Ruin Your Whole Day?

It was meant to stoke fear of Reagan. Now the libes don't talk much about the treat since it might be insulting to Muslims.

[Greysard]

Mr. Miller estimated that demand for helium 3 was about 65,000 liters per year through 2013 and that total production by the only two countries that produce it in usable form, the United States and Russia, was only about 20,000 liters.

In other words, the government spent $230 million to develop a machine that needs an ingredient that is not obtainable on this planet even if Obama bows to Putin. Great work!

[LegendHasIt]

This'll work:

[spunkets]

"the United States has run out of a crucial raw material, experts say.'

Did they forget how to spell money?

[john in springfield]

That's exactly what I was thinking.

I don't know why the government has WASTED $230,000,000 in the first place when they could've gotten the same results and saved a TON of money just by issuing a prohibition and putting up these signs:

I mean, it works for guns, doesn't it?

[Names Ash Housewares]

Helium 3 is rather abundant on the moon in minable quantities. Too bad we can’t get to it right now.

[Cobra64]

[givemELL]

Paragraph on the source of Helium-3:

http://www.allsolarproducts.net/helium3-energy.html

[HiTech RedNeck]

Is it in underground pockets or where? Anything that got to the surface would be quickly gone in the moon’s near vacuum.

[Names Ash Housewares]

It’s embedded in the lunar regolith on the surface.
Another H3 bonus is it can be used to fuel future fusion reactors. Assuming we make a sustainble fusion reactor breakthrough one day, I think that is likely. The stuff could end up quite the energy source. Harrison Schmitt the Apollo astronaut/scientist has done the homework and it could be an economically viable solution one day. Anyways the way things are going, China, India or Russia will be mining it all instead of us.

http://www.searchanddiscovery.net/documents/2004/schmitt/index.htm

[Ender Wiggin]

Helium 3 is rather abundant on the moon in minable quantities. Too bad we can’t get to it right now.

............

That was one reason for the Chinese Lunar Program, mining Helium 3 for a future fusion reactor.

[Clint Williams]

Remember the slogan during the “nuclear freeze” craze in the 1980s: One Nuclear Bomb can Ruin Your Whole Day?

I think Congress might need a less-than-good day once in a while. Sorta like term limits, but enforced. / sarc

[EternalVigilance]

Just put up signs; "NO NUKES ALLOWED" ?

You bet. In Arabic and Farsi. That'll work!