Thermonuclear bomb located off Georgia shores

[1 Patriot-of-many]

I don't know if there are any "broken arrows" still out there not recovered yet, but if there are, chances are they were not armed.

Even if they were, by now they wouldn't be able to be set off.

A thermonuclear weapon is initiated by a conventional fission device, which in turn is triggered by a little golf ball called the "initiator" which is made of polonium and beryllium. The idea is that when the plutonium is compressed past critical mass by the implosion, the initiator is crushed, the beryllium and polonium mix together and spray out neutrons, initiating the fission reaction which, in turn, sets off the thermonuclear reaction.

The polonium in the initiator has a half life of about 6 months... after a few years it would be a "dead battery" and probably not start the fission reaction at all (or it would start the reaction late and cause a fizzle which could not initiate thermonuclear burning).

The only remaining danger from one of those bombs is getting blown up by the conventional chemical explosives inside. It would never "go nuke".

Bullshit, there have been more than a few bombs dropped accidentally, WITH THEM ARMED. Only a single switch preventing detonation. A good book to read about catastrophe avoided by simple chance, a good read about the Titan 2 missile silos, Command and Control by Eric Schlosser is a fantastic read about how dangerous our weapons systems were and how open they were to unauthorized and accidental discharge. The first Atomic bomb was just a lightning strike away from unintentional detonation as where the Jupiter missiles in extremely lax hands.

[rktman]

Thank you...kinda grouchy today, aren't you?

Sorry, my bad. Just hit me the wrong way.

[Altarboy]

Well I thought it a lovely story.

[Helen Keller]

salt water would have destroyed it by now.




Fission/fusion crap needs to be taken care of like a baby. if it's not , it has the potential of a small grenade.

Bullshit you see in movies where old bombs are stolen or found years later are total BS unless they're maintained.

even the 'dirty bomb' BS is that as well. you could contaminate a small area BUT not like the media portrayed it, And if it was so easily for terrorists to acquire on the black market. Dont you think they would have used the shit out of them by now in the mideast???

[Krupski]

Bullshit, there have been more than a few bombs dropped accidentally, WITH THEM ARMED. Only a single switch preventing detonation. A good book to read about catastrophe avoided by simple chance, a good read about the Titan 2 missile silos, Command and Control by Eric Schlosser is a fantastic read about how dangerous our weapons systems were and how open they were to unauthorized and accidental discharge. The first Atomic bomb was just a lightning strike away from unintentional detonation as where the Jupiter missiles in extremely lax hands.

What's "bullshit"?

First off, I said "chances are they were not armed". That means "maybe they were, maybe they weren't, I don't know".

As far as the half life of polonium or how an implosion device works, where was I wrong?

Concerning the first bomb tested (the plutonium implosion device tested on 16 July 1945), the explosive charges were detonated by exploding bridge wires. In order to get a symmetrical compression, every detonator had to fire with microsecond precision. An exploding bridge wire works by discharging a capacitor into a thin wire and heating it so rapidly that it instantly turns into a gas which expands at supersonic velocity which creates a shockwave that initiates the main explosive.

A lightening strike on the test tower would have probably just burned out (opened) a bunch of bridge wires, requiring a lot of repair to do the test.

IF by chance the lightening actually detonated one of the explosive blocks, all it would have done is blown apart the bomb casing and splattered steel, uranium (238 tamper) and the plutonium core all around the test site. It would never have gone nuke... there would be no compression because of the terribly asymmetric detonation.

As far as SECURITY and the ability for a nutjob to launch a live missile... I have no idea if it was possible, how easy it may have been or if an unauthorized launch had ever been attempted. I have no idea... but then again I was never talking about THAT.

What exactly did I say before or now that was "bullshit"?

[Krupski]

I still wouldn't hit it with a hammer

High explosives are quite difficult to detonate and certainly hitting any real high explosive most likely wouldn't do anything at all.

But, i still wouldn't try it.........

[Full Otto]

Wow I never expected this would get past one page

I like those high speed shots of the early tests



Intriguing some good vids out there too

[Krupski]

Wow I never expected this would get past one page

I like those high speed shots of the early tests



Intriguing some good vids out there too

What's amazing to me is that a nuclear weapon's flash is initially invisible. The radiation (x-rays) are such high energy that they heat the surrounding air so that it emits light well beyond the ultraviolet. Then this radiation is absorbed by a shell of air larger in diameter which shines in shortwave UV, then longwave, then finally the radiation is "cool enough" to cause the air to glow in the visible spectrum.

Since the amount of air this radiation transport mechanism has to go through to become visible, the radius from the bomb itself and the visibly glowing air is fixed. This generates an almost perfect glowing sphere around the bomb (called the "isothermal sphere") and that's what the image you posted above captured.

It takes several microseconds for the air to INITIALLY heat up when the bomb is first detonated, so that generates a short duration pulse of light, followed by "invisible" light, followed later by the visible isothermal sphere. So, every nuclear weapon generates a "double flash" of light, a key characteristic used to determine if a large blast was conventional or nuclear.

There is at least one film I know of (the first Chinese fission bomb test) where the double flash was actually caught on film. If you watch it frame by frame, you can see the two flashes.

[5.56NATO]

Lol the video link I posted in another thread says that the electromagnetic spectrum our eyes can perceive is akin to a single frame out of a movie film strung along for 2 thousand miles.

[Krupski]

Lol the video link I posted in another thread says that the electromagnetic spectrum our eyes can perceive is akin to a single frame out of a movie film strung along for 2 thousand miles.

How true. If you consider the wide... huge range of wavelengths that make up the electromagnetic spectrum, the little sliver that we can see is almost nothing. It's amazing that we get by with so little.

Another thing to think about... the heat output of the sun drives all life on earth. We are on average 93 million miles away from the sun.

Think of a complete sphere 93 million miles in radius (186 million miles in diameter) and think of the tiny little pinprick of a circle the earth takes from that sphere... and that little pinprick powers all the life on this planet.

Absolutely amazing.