kendor said:
Slogger said:
i disagree with your thoughts on nuclear bombs
the hard part is the active ingredients the easy part is the theory
you might make a bomb that is a kiloton or a 100 kiloton but make a bomb you would
go on then how do you make one?
remember the material has to be unstable how do you go about making it unstable initially?
then how do you trigger the chain reaction from this unstable material?
All of the following was found by Googling "nuclear weapon design"
The hard part is getting the Uranium, about 16kg is required. If you are an Islamic terrorist What you need to get this is a dangerous unstable state led by a religious bigot who thinks he's a divine religious figure, just like the president of Iran. It takes an enormous amount of time and money to actually make the Uranium, ie a whole industry just like the nuclear industry Iran is starting up
Once you have your Uranium the rest is relatively easy
It is a poisonous radioactive metal, that tends to burst into flames in damp atmospheres but otherwise is a bit like lead, very heavy but easy to work by hand or machine tools. It can be transported safely in Nitrogen or Argon both of which are readily available commercial gases. It could be worked in a similar atmosphere. None of this is hard to do perhaps using breathing apparatus such as car resprayers use to avoid being poisoned by two pack paints
Remember no one cares that they are going to die so all that matters is keeping the uranium in 2 pieces each less than a critical mass (about 16kg) so that it doesn't explode and stopping it catching fire. Radiation poisoning doesn't matter to the terrorists they just have to survive long enough to make it and trigger it. A small team could do it, some to to build it, the others to place and fire it, after making the usual promotional video
Making it is straightforward. The basic design of the Hiroshima bomb was a metal tube with a metal block at one end and a firing mechanism at the other end. Half the critical mass is placed at the block end and the other half is placed at the other end with something like a small cordite charge to fire it down the barrel. Mad terrorist fires fuse, half the critical mass flies down tube and is violently combined with the other half creating a critical mass. You can enhance this with a neutron source (Beryllium or Pollonium used in X ray equipment) to speed the chain reaction up and increase the size of the explosion but basically the bomb will work without it
This is still the basic design of tactical nuclear artillery shells for battlefield use
You get an extremely big and dirty explosion, at the least you will take out a couple of city blocks, and poison huge areas with radiation. At best you will take out a small town like Hiroshima and get the radiation effect as a bonus
It is an extremely bad idea for Iran to have access to this technology and most countries in the West have their heads firmly up their asses about the risk. Whatever their faults the Israelis and Americans do not and they need all the support the can get or you will see this scenario take place in your lifetimes, the evidence is that al quada have tried to acquire this technology. Saddam Hussein openly tried to develop a weapon and considered floating it into Haifa harbour in a boat. the Israelis detroyed the reactor before he had any weapons grade material
