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U.S. Selecting Hybrid Design for Warheads
New York Times ^ | January 7, 2007 | WILLIAM J. BROAD, DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER

Posted on 01/07/2007 7:07:44 AM PST by infocats

WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 — The Bush administration is expected to announce next week a major step forward in the building of the country’s first new nuclear warhead in nearly two decades. It will propose combining elements of competing designs from two weapons laboratories in an approach that some experts argue is untested and risky.

Skip to next paragraph The new weapon would not add to but replace the nation’s existing arsenal of aging warheads, with a new generation meant to be sturdier, more reliable, safer from accidental detonation and more secure from theft by terrorists.

The announcement, to be made by the interagency Nuclear Weapons Council, avoids making a choice between the two designs for a new weapon, called the Reliable Replacement Warhead, which at first would be mounted on submarine-launched missiles.

The effort, if approved by President Bush and financed by Congress, would require a huge refurbishment of the nation’s complex for nuclear design and manufacturing, with the overall bill estimated at more than $100 billion...................

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS: miltech; missile; nuclear; warhead
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To: null and void

If there is a God in Heaven, that will never happen ;-)


41 posted on 01/07/2007 9:43:47 AM PST by infocats
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To: null and void

She is a lawyer and appears to have no love for this country. It's a bad combination.


42 posted on 01/07/2007 9:44:57 AM PST by RightWhale
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To: kabar

There is nothing in my statement, either explicit or implicit, that said don't update with proven technologies well known since 1945. Who knows, perhaps some day we will regain the balls that President Truman had the last time they were used on our enemies.


43 posted on 01/07/2007 9:46:56 AM PST by infocats
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To: RightWhale

Hillary is a Global Socialist as evidenced by her ill advised [ if well intentioned ] health care and gays in the military policies.


44 posted on 01/07/2007 9:49:56 AM PST by infocats
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To: null and void
I think Iran believes that allah will keep them safe, and that NK's chia pet believes he is safe, both because he's been told he's sooooooo wonderful for soooooo long that he actually believes it, and that his proximity to China and Japan (as well as his ability to shell Seoul into a gravel pit) protect him.

They are safe as long as they don't use these weapons against the US. I lived two years in Iran. The Iranians are not suicidal and want to live as much as we do. The security surrounding Kim Jong-il is immense. He wants to live as much as you do.

None of the above players is immune from thinking they can find a cat's paw to do the deed, and suffer the consequences, while they hide behind the uncertainty of the ultimate source and diplomacy.

That is the real danger, i.e., giving nuclear weapons to non-state actors that cannot be easily traced back to the source. The Chinese, North Koreans, Iranians, or any other potential hostile nuclear power could do the same. We need to revise our doctrinal response to take such an event into consideration and how we would retaliate. Under today's calculus, none of our potential enemies would ever launch an overt nuclear attack against the US. They would be committing national suicide and they know it.

45 posted on 01/07/2007 9:50:11 AM PST by kabar
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To: infocats
Apparently, both Livermore and Los Alamos can't even secure their laptops containing sensitive nuclear information...and have been penetrated on at least one occasion by foreign agents...so I wouldn't pin my hopes on either their competence or integrity.

And they know absolutely nothing about nuclear weapons. Give me a break. We are talking about a technical solution to a very real problem.

46 posted on 01/07/2007 9:52:36 AM PST by kabar
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To: infocats

She is a political opportunist with no principles at all, not even a set of Marxist maxims. She is not even Global Civil Society and that is about the most flexible quasi-movement there is.


47 posted on 01/07/2007 9:53:47 AM PST by RightWhale
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To: infocats
There is nothing in my statement, either explicit or implicit, that said don't update with proven technologies well known since 1945. Who knows, perhaps some day we will regain the balls that President Truman had the last time they were used on our enemies.

"As a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the United States and other nuclear weapons states have committed, at least on paper, to the ultimate goal of “the liquidation of all their existing stockpiles” of weapons. But General Cartwright cautioned that much of the criticism of the program was cast in terms of achieving that disarmament, and he said the government’s policy, and that of the new warhead program, was to maintain a nuclear stockpile “that would be the smallest practical to maintain its credibility.”

"He described the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile as “an artifact of the cold war — both in its delivery systems and its characteristics and certainly in its technology.”

“We stopped testing a while back. So, from the testing standpoint, we have not been fielding new weapons,” General Cartwright said. “From the standpoint of engineering and design, there has been only marginal activity, mostly reacting to the age of components.”

You are talking through your hat when it comes to nuclear technology. It has certainly evolved since 1945. Warhead design, yeild, etc. have changed so we could use them in our strategic triad.

48 posted on 01/07/2007 9:57:32 AM PST by kabar
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To: kabar
Stop trying to put words in my mouth. Perhaps you have never heard of Murphy's Law...or unintended consequences, both of which as an engineer, I am painfully familiar. In any event, our nuclear arsenal [ intended by the way - not to be used ] can be updated or replaced at far less cost without resorting to the Alice in Wonderland approach of using either unproven technologies or unproven combinations of those known. While the problem may be real, your solution or preference is not.
49 posted on 01/07/2007 10:04:55 AM PST by infocats
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To: infocats
with our health care, public schools, social security system,

That my friend is the the proverbial RAT HOLE that TRILLIONS of dollars poured into for the last 45yrs and you are a fool if you think another $100 billion is going to fix it!

50 posted on 01/07/2007 10:06:18 AM PST by painter (We celebrate liberty which comes from God not from government.)
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To: kabar
The Iranians are not suicidal and want to live as much as we do.

The Iranian people are not in charge of Iran. More's the pity. The ones I've known (with a single possible exception) have been good people. The leaders want allah to come, and see starting an apocalypse and their sacred duty.

The security surrounding Kim Jong-il is immense. He wants to live as much as you do.

Yet his concern for his people is legendary.

NK and Iran are in some ways, distorted mirror images. Each dangerous in their own way.

OTOH, do I agree that we are safe from an overt nuclear attack.

51 posted on 01/07/2007 10:12:18 AM PST by null and void (Propaganda doesn't have to make sense. Hell, it often works better if it doesn't.)
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To: infocats
If there is a God in Heaven, that will never happen ;-)

It's in the Book. The Whore of Babylon, drunk on the blood of Saints...

52 posted on 01/07/2007 10:14:39 AM PST by null and void (Propaganda doesn't have to make sense. Hell, it often works better if it doesn't.)
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To: RightWhale
She is a lawyer and appears to have no love for this country. It's a bad combination.

No love of country we could survive.

She has an active, malignant, loathing of country.

53 posted on 01/07/2007 10:16:37 AM PST by null and void (Propaganda doesn't have to make sense. Hell, it often works better if it doesn't.)
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To: kabar
Where the heck did I write that nuclear technology hasn't evolved since '45. What I meant to imply, however inartfully, was that we have accumulated enough new knowledge in both the technology and delivery that we shouldn't be undertaking massive new expenditures with those that are yet unproven, and at exhorbitant cost.

Technical considerations aside, what you fail to appreciate is that our National Debt is such that foreign countries, a prime source of U.S. investment, are starting to dump their U.S. currency in favor of the Euro which will ultimately lead to a collapse in the value of the dollar, regardless of whether or not we can get deficit spending under control as promised.

Surely, if the Republicans learned nothing from the results of the last election, they should have learned that this should be an integral part of the calculus before taking on new debt.

54 posted on 01/07/2007 10:19:10 AM PST by infocats
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To: painter
As I believe Senator Proxmire once said, "a billion here...and a billion there...soon adds up to real money."
55 posted on 01/07/2007 10:21:07 AM PST by infocats
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To: null and void
The Iranian people are not in charge of Iran. More's the pity. The ones I've known (with a single possible exception) have been good people. The leaders want allah to come, and see starting an apocalypse and their sacred duty.

You are really gullible. The mullahs are very worried about their personal safety and security. They have no suicide wish. Watch what they do, not what they say.

56 posted on 01/07/2007 10:22:47 AM PST by kabar
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To: infocats
I opened this thread thinking it was about Cylon basestar pilots.

Boy, is my face red.
57 posted on 01/07/2007 10:23:38 AM PST by Cheburashka ( World's only Spatula City certified spatula repair and maintenance specialist!!!)
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To: Cheburashka
Wow, am I out of touch with pop culture. I had to Google your reference to find out what you were talking about ;-(

Boy, is my face red!

58 posted on 01/07/2007 10:26:59 AM PST by infocats
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To: kabar

One of the traditional ways of getting the people's minds off the curs in power is to have a big bad external enemy.


59 posted on 01/07/2007 10:27:16 AM PST by null and void (Propaganda doesn't have to make sense. Hell, it often works better if it doesn't.)
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To: infocats

Everett Dirkson


60 posted on 01/07/2007 10:29:32 AM PST by MARTIAL MONK
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