How to make a nuke

[AdamSmith]

Not quite, but pretty close. Fascinating if you find atomic weapon history & technology interesting...

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq0.html

[Guest EXPAT]

Be careful with these kind of posts. The NSA is probably following you now.

[AdamSmith]

I will just tell 'em you put me up to it.

Come to think, with my line of business entailing phoning and emailing and asking detailed engineering questions of manufacturers including many in the Death & Destruction Complex, I am likely marked already.

[RA1]

Everyone is marked. When they decide to frisk pilots to see if they are armed, the inmates are running the asylum. Pilots don't need guns to kill everyone on board, only the will and desire to do so.

Best regards,

RA1

[AdamSmith]

That IS well & truly nuts.

[AdamSmith]

...another post waving a flag at the NSA!

Pretty interesting article if you grok such: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design

[MsGuy]

From AS's wiki-link (emphasis added):

Wire safety method

One particularly dangerous warhead was Livermore's W47, designed for the Polaris submarine missile. The last test before the 1958 moratorium was a one-point test of the W47 primary, which had an unacceptably high nuclear yield of 400 lb (180 kg) of TNT equivalent (Hardtack II Titania). With the test moratorium in force, there was no way to refine the design and make it inherently one-point safe. Los Alamos had a suitable primary that was one-point safe, but rather than share with Los Alamos the credit for designing the first SLBM warhead, Livermore chose to use mechanical safing on its own inherently unsafe primary. The result was a safety scheme consisting of a boron-coated wire inserted into the hollow pit at manufacture. The warhead was armed by withdrawing the wire onto a spool driven by an electric motor. Once withdrawn, the wire could not be re-inserted.^[52] The wire had a tendency to become brittle during storage, and break or get stuck during arming, preventing complete removal and rendering the warhead a dud.^[53] It was estimated that 50-75% of warheads would fail. This required a complete rebuild of the W47 primaries.^[54] The oil used for lubricating the wire also promoted corrosion of the pit.^[55]

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Hito, these are the people you trust to look after our best interests. LOL, socialise us as you will, those status seeking ape genes always win out.

Pick my fleas and be quick about it, Beta Boy!

[AdamSmith]

LOL, socialise us as you will, those status seeking ape genes always win out.

In identical vein, this passage from the article:

Because of Oppenheimer's initial position in the H-bomb debate, in opposition to large thermonuclear weapons, and the assumption that he still had influence over Los Alamos despite his departure, political allies of Edward Teller decided he needed his own laboratory in order to pursue H-bombs. By the time it was opened in 1952, in Livermore, California, Los Alamos had finished the job Livermore was designed to do.