Pentagon seeks a nuclear digger

SMH.com.au / via Anti-War.com ^ | 3/10/2003 | Unknown

[ex-Texan]

Washington: The Pentagon is about to take the first public step to produce an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon that could be aimed at North Korea's underground nuclear and missile production facilities, Bush Administration officials say.

[ex-Texan]

Tomorrow's news today on Free Republic ...

[chance33_98]

Next we will be working on a bio weapon which will utilize DNA to only affect certain groups of people - and if not we should make them think we are.

[RandyRep]

There was an article yesterday on FR about a similar weapon - but it suggested that we should not put any weapon on it - just let it bore a hole or two in the Yongbyon reactor site - they wouldn't be able to fix it, it wouldn't blow up, just be useless. Unfortunately, I didn't bookmark the article. It was very intriguing.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

It develops a lot of paranoia among proliferating states...

Then we're getting our money's worth.

If they're talking about this now, they probably developed it 20 years ago.

[ex-Texan]

We already have such a bioweapon. Tough to be an N.K. obsolete Stalinist today, isn't it?

[bart99]

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science andInternational Security and an expert on North Korea, said, "It is a bad idea to develop these things, which probably would never be used, and do so openly. It develops a lot of paranoia among proliferating states who believe the US is planning to attack them."

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and perhaps omething like this will keep them from being 'proliferating' states, which would NOT be a bad thing. If it works on North Korea, we could use it on Iran next.

God - I'm turning into a war-monger. Sorry. I'm really not. I just REALLY believe in a strong national defense and a world filled with countries that would make and sell their nukes to terrorists just terrifies me.

[Defiant]

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and an expert on North Korea, said, "It is a bad idea to develop these things,

Gee, there's a surprise. I wonder what adopted Jewish kid is his sister?

[Interesting Times]

Old news.

[John Valentine]

Here you go! Playing Poker with Korea. Tungsten carbide tipped GPS guided spears made of solid steel 4 inches in diameter and forty feet long.

By my calculation, after a 50,000 foot freefall, they will be going about 1,150 miles per hour as they enter the reactor core.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/858707/posts

[Bogey78O]

I doubt an object dropped at 50k would break mach speeds

but I think test of reactor walls withstood impact by flying aircraft...

Reinforced concrete several feet think is a tough nut to crack.

[RandyRep]

Thanks for the find. I was really intrigued by this.

However, the velocity is questionable. For a 50,000 foot free fall with gravity being the only accelerator, it would take 55.7 seconds to reach the ground, and would be going 897 feet per second when it hit. That's only 612 miles per hour. Still really fast.

But - any projectile has aerodynamic drag, which depends on the shape of the projectile. The projectile would likely have small fins for stabilization, which would increase drag. The likely velocity would probably be in the 300 to 400 mph range. That's still a decent spped.

[RandyRep]

Oops - used the wrong equation for the velocity...too early for me I guess.

The freefall velocity (without any drag) would be 1794 feet/second, or 1223 miles/hour (pretty close to John's 1150 mph). With drag accounted for (a difficult calculation without knowing mass, surface area, drag rise at transonic speeds, etc), the terminal velocity could be in the 600 to 800 mph range, I think.

The bigger problem is the control of this projectile. With a GPS to direct it, you need to control the flight path to hit the target. This implies some sort of control mechanism (thrusters, flaps, ailerons, rudders, etc) to get the projectile to the target. All of our smart bombs do this, but it's a lot more complicated than just a freefall dumb projectile.