3 ms·

Yeah so the "gun type" is even cruder. I was thinking of the implosion type, which is what the Trinity device and Nagasaki bomb used: https://en.m.wikipedia.org

Yeah so the "gun type" is even cruder. I was thinking of the implosion type, which is what the Trinity device and Nagasaki bomb used: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design#Implosion-type_weapon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design#Implos... Even with all the work they put into making the implosion hold the fissionable material together it still apparently only consumed about 20% of the material. But yeah its unlikely a terrorist org could get enough material for a "gun type" and the implosion type would also be very, very hard to get right

jabl 6y ago
AFAIU the consensus among non-proliferation experts is that given access to HEU, even a relatively unsophisticated terrorist group could make a gun type weapon. That's why access to HEU is so tightly controlled with a lot of effort expended to minimize use of it. See e.g. the RERTR program to convert research reactors to LEU. And why the international community is aghast when some country like Iran tries to build up enrichment capability. OTOH a plutonium implosion type device is a lot more difficult to get right, and is practically out of reach for non-state actors. On top of the device engineering difficulty itself, producing the raw materials is difficult too. The actual production of weapons grade plutonium isn't terribly difficult (e.g. a natural uranium fueled graphite moderated reactor), separating the Pu from the spent fuel with the PUREX process is fairly expensive and complicated.