Name:
Location: Pantego, Texas, United States

Friday, February 20, 2009

Hillary Clinton says that she isn't certain that North Korea ever had a uranium program. However they do have six to ten nuclear bombs. The one they tested was a Pu 239 implosion device that sort of worked. They made the fissionable material used in the test with a plutonium re-processing program. A lot of people who are not informed about nuclear weapons probably think that Hillary's comment indicates that once again the evil Bush just made something up. The news articles do not explain why it is important whether or not North Korea has a uranium program. As far as the military threat from North Korea is concerned, it doesn't really matter a lot whether their nuclear weapons use plutonium or uranium. But, it may matter with regard to export of fissionable material to terrorist states. Plutonium nuclear weapons are more difficult to make than uranium weapons. The first nuclear device dropped by the US on Japan was "fat man," a Pu 239 implosion device. The second was "little boy" a Uranium device of the "gun barrel" type. The uranium type is much easier to build, and most discussion of "suitcase nukes" assumes a uranium "gun barrel" type. Most discussion I have seen considers fabrication of a Pu 239 implosion device to be beyond the capability of terrorist organizations. With a little analysis and experimentation I might be able to build a gun barrel type device if I had the uranium. But, there is no way I could build a Pu 239 implosion device without a lot of help and handling equipment that would be difficult to obtain.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home