Posted on 04/10/2003 10:24:53 AM PDT by JustRight
. . .who knew until they did?
Saddam's role model held a plutonium pit in his hands:
By late 1947, Igor Kurchatov, who directed scientific work on the bomb, was so sure that the Russian scientists finally had the technical skills to build the weapon that he took the nuclear charge of the first proposed Soviet atomic bomb - a nickel-plated plutonium ball about ten centimetres in diameter - to Stalin in his study at the Kremlin.Soviet defector Oleg Gordievsky also reported this story in his book KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev.'And how do we know that this is plutonium, not a sparkling piece of iron?' Stalin asked. 'And why this glitter? Why this window dressing?'
'The charge has been nickel-plated so that it would be safe to touch,' Kurchatov replied. 'Plutonium is very toxic, but nickel-plated it's safe.'
Stalin handled it. He noticed its heat.
'Is it always warm?' he asked. 'It always is,' Kurchatov replied. 'The continuous nuclear reaction of alpha-disintegration is underway inside. It warms up. But we shall excite a powerful fission reaction in it. This will be an explosion of great power.' Stalin was not completely convinced but he later authorized the testing of the first bomb. It was to take until September 1949.
It's my understanding that plutonium is relatively easy to make (with a nuclear reactor), but the engineering design of a plutonium-based atomic bomb is quite difficult. In contrast, enriched uranium is hard (or at least time-consuming) to make, but it's said to be relatively simple to design a uranium-based atomic bomb.
The bomb that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima used enriched uranium. The design was considered so straightforward, and the enriched uranium was so time-consuming to produce, that no test bomb was exploded first. The bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, on the other hand, was plutonium-based; this design was tested (at Alamogordo) before being used.
I don't know, but I would guess on general principles that the uranium approach would be the one that a country like Iraq would pick, if it had to do the design from scratch. After all, they can probably acquire enriched uranium through some means, and the bomb design is simple. With plutonium, the design is complex, and they would probably worry that, once they conducted a test, they wouldn't have the opportunity to build any production bombs, because of U.S. reaction to the test.
On the other hand, North Korea is apparently using plutonium in its design. Maybe they figure that the world geopolitical situation will protect them even if they conduct a test. Or maybe they have obtained a working plutonium bomb design that they trust (from China?).
If Iraq could obtain a tested design, plutonium might be the way they would choose to go.
I heard multiple reports tonight that they have found Cobalt 60 as well for making the ultimate dirty bomb.
One such bomb would eliminate Israel or the Saudi oil fields.
One such bomb would not eliminate Israel; it would contaminate part of one Israeli city. The attacker, on the other hand, would be eliminated by the Israeli response.
I believe this is not the case if the Cobalt was used to encase a 'normal' nuclear weapon.
I believe this is not the case if the Cobalt was used to encase a 'normal' nuclear weapon.
I was thinking of what people typically call a dirty bomb -- not a nuclear weapon as such, but an ordinary explosive that scatters radioactive material around. Cobalt-60 is a carcinogen (I think it emits gamma rays), with a half-life of about 5 years. A dirty bomb of this sort could render part of a city effectively uninhabitable for a few generations. The panic and the economic consequences would be severe also.
As for an atomic bomb encased with cobalt-60, this would likely destroy an entire city (depending on the size of the atomic bomb -- think of Hiroshima) and make it uninhabitable for several generations.
I don't see terrorists or rogue states using a bomb like that, though, at this time. The task of designing, building, and deploying an atomic bomb is hard enough, without the unnecessary extra complications of the cobalt-60. (It's like the horrible bombs that the Palestinian terrorists are now using, with nails and rat poison; they didn't start with those bombs, and I don't think terrorists would start with an extra-complicated atomic bomb either.)
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