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Home » Nukes » Retro-​​nukes

Retro-​​nukes

Little_Boy_9000384_sm.jpg
Dr. Arms Control Wonk here. Noah’s run­ning around today, so I’ve hijacked the blog for moment.
Retro fash­ions don’t usu­ally appeal to nuclear weapons design­ers, save for the odd Members Only jacket you spot on some poor refugee from the 1980s
So you might be sur­prised to find that ura­nium — which fell out of favor with US nuclear weaponeers in the 1950s — may be the hip Fall fash­ion in cer­tain New Mexican locales.
Over at my blog, I’ve started a dis­cus­sion about a story John Fleck broke in the sub­scrip­tion only Albuquerque Journal.
Bob Peurifoy, a retired Sandia exec­u­tive, favors dump­ing plu­to­nium weapons in favor of low-​​tech ura­nium designs. Actually, Peurifoy prefers the cur­rent US arse­nal, but Congress says the weapons labs should relax Cold War design require­ments to build new war­heads that are more reli­able and require less toxic indus­trial processes.
In that case, Peurifoy says, you can’t do bet­ter than Uranium 235, which isn’t nearly as expen­sive, toxic or fickle as plu­to­nium.
Although a simpe ura­nium device (above, right) would pro­duce a rel­a­tively small yield — on the order of tens of kilo­tons — drop­ping one on Kim Jong Il’s Pleasure Palace would still ruin his day.
(Special Retro Bonus: Click here for a retro shot of for­mer Sandia, and per­haps future Los Alamos, Director C. Paul Robinson).

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August 16th, 2005 | Nukes, Retro-Futuro | 12522 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2005/08/16/retro-nukes/Retro-nukes2005-08-16+20%3A19%3A41wonk You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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  1. Rivrdog says:
    August 16, 2005 at 8:51 pm

    Retro, righto. Do any of our mis­siles have the throw weight? Certainly couldn’t MIRV them. A B-​​52 could carry maybe two of these old gun-​​type nukes.
    It’s a joke, right?
    They’re hop­ing the world will go back to 35,000 # nukes so the islamo-​​whackos can’t put one into a back­pack and walk into New Yawk City with it.
    The Sandia dude has been drink­ing the cool­ing water from his reactor.

    Reply
  2. Alton Cason says:
    August 17, 2005 at 10:23 am

    HA, HA! It is for me to laugh. Whoever heard (or cared) about a nuclear bomb that was envi­ron­men­tally safe? If there ain’t no one left to enjoy it, then why do it?

    Reply
  3. slanterp says:
    August 17, 2005 at 6:02 pm

    An envi­ron­men­taly safe nuke would be cor­rectly named if used. Since there would no one left to enjoy, it also means there would be no one left to pol­lute. Maybe the gar­den of eden would return with­out any­one for the snake to manipulate.

    Reply
  4. remf44b20 says:
    August 17, 2005 at 10:45 pm

    Environmentally cor­rect nuke? Seems like you would need to fill out an envi­ron­men­tal impact state­ment prior to set­ting it off and then run a sur­vey to make sure that there aren’t any endan­gered species or threat­ened crit­ters at ground zero. Wouldn’t you know that it would really lower prop­erty val­ues? That alone would make it unpopular.

    Reply
  5. stephen russell says:
    August 18, 2005 at 9:07 pm

    Just do IT & store it for Use.
    Test at NV Test site again.
    Surface test­ing now?
    Why not.

    Reply
  6. Chata Ortega says:
    August 30, 2005 at 11:49 pm

    Hey, don’t believe every­thing you read on the Internet. I bought one of those things on Ebay and took it out the the pas­ture (no city codes) to set it off. It wasn’t nearly ten kilo­tons so don’t waste your money.

    Reply
  7. Vance Frickey says:
    August 4, 2007 at 6:24 pm

    The largest pure-​​fission nuclear device ever tested was made of HEU (highly enriched ura­nium) — a lot of it, admit­tedly, but in the Ivy Mike shot it yielded 500 Kt (half a mega­ton) and was deployed as the “Mk 18.” Until ther­monu­clear weapons of com­pa­ra­ble size and deploy­a­bil­ity were devel­oped, the Mk 18 remained a major part of the US nuclear arse­nal (when H-​​bombs with roughly the same specs came out, then the HEU in the Mk 18s was cov­eted for other uses such as ADMs, nuclear artillery shells, anti-​​missile war­heads, or the 9 Mt Mk 53, where the HEU allowed “cleaner” pri­maries for boosted fis­sion devices)

    Reply
  8. Shaiya gold says:
    August 9, 2008 at 1:33 am

    Normal mode is where most play­ers will begin to buy Shaiya gold. You need more expe­ri­ence to gain lev­els than in Easy, but the level cap is removed. You are able to use all items usable in Easy mode, plus you are able to use Dread items.

    Reply
  9. Shaiya gold says:
    August 9, 2008 at 1:33 am

    Normal mode is where most play­ers will begin to buy Shaiya gold. You need more expe­ri­ence to gain lev­els than in Easy, but the level cap is removed. You are able to use all items usable in Easy mode, plus you are able to use Dread items.

    Reply
  10. 12sky money says:
    August 9, 2008 at 1:34 am

    The 9-​​Tier Pagoda will be open to play­ers who are lev­els 113 and above with up to 150 play­ers at a time. Players will 12sky money expe­ri­ence the 9-​​Tier Pagoda three times a week at a spec­i­fied time.

    Reply
  11. 2moon dil says:
    August 19, 2008 at 7:30 pm

    so we often together to play and chat and dis­cuss how to earn the 2moon dil, at that day I told him, I liked him, but he did not say any­thing, I was very sad, unknow­ingly the tears stream­ing down.

    Reply
  12. cabal gold says:
    August 19, 2008 at 8:55 pm

    I spend much money to buy cabal gold, but now I will gave up all things, I think I already did not need this.

    Reply
  13. cheap kamas says:
    August 19, 2008 at 9:04 pm

    I told them, if they told me which place can bought the cheap kamas, for me it was the largest help.

    Reply

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