4 ms·

"Fogbank," the aerogel at the heart of this issue, is made with very toxic solvents. It would not surprise me that most of the documentation on the processes to

"Fogbank," the aerogel at the heart of this issue, is made with very toxic solvents. It would not surprise me that most of the documentation on the processes to make it were destroyed to avoid litigation over health and safety issues.

ygcfububyuf 18y ago
More likely they can't buy one of the component chemicals. It's quite common in aerospace/defence kit that you need a solvent or an insulation that isn't made anymore because of environmental concerns. You can't exactly say to the maker - I need you to keep making chemical X because it's a top secret part of our weapons design! The other problem is that it's rather difficult to test whether a replacement will work as well. You cant really ask the maker if their new aerogel formulation works the same when used in a nuclear bomb! The story is also a slight red herring - the UK navy leases the Trident missile from the US but designs and manufactures it's own warheads.
mechanical_fish 18y ago
I remember when a physicist came to give a lecture at Cornell about the difficulties of cleaning up Hanford, Washington. It was a hair-raising presentation. I forget the details, but the gist is here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14119133.900-the-dirtiest-place-on-earth.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14119133.900-the-dirti... It was one hair-raising talk. And so I was not at all surprised by this fascinating news article from earlier this year: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16447-earliest-weaponsgrade-plutonium-found-in-us-dump.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16447-earliest-weapons...
- Create 18y ago
  Some physicist will correct me, but I think this is more of an accounting trick than a technological one: it serves to ask for more money. I have no evidence, but my impression is, that aerogel is used to track the ageing of the decaying warheads, also providing data for the computed simulations to be more realistic. Such aerogel is readily available on the free (in the doublespeak sense) market.
  - Tangurena 18y ago
    The building it was originally made at in Y-12 (called facility 9404-11) was torn down in 2004. The nasty solvent (which metabolises in the body into cyanide) called acetonitrile, of which Wikipedia claims there is supposedly a world shortage as the sole remaining factory producing it was shut down in 2008 (to reduce pollution) for the Olympics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetonitrile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetonitrile http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1814/fogbank http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1814/fogbank http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teller%E2%80%93Ulam_design http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teller%E2%80%93Ulam_design

ygcfububyuf 18y ago

More likely they can't buy one of the component chemicals. It's quite common in aerospace/defence kit that you need a solvent or an insulation that isn't made anymore because of environmental concerns. You can't exactly say to the maker - I need you to keep making chemical X because it's a top secret part of our weapons design! The other problem is that it's rather difficult to test whether a replacement will work as well. You cant really ask the maker if their new aerogel formulation works the same when used in a nuclear bomb! The story is also a slight red herring - the UK navy leases the Trident missile from the US but designs and manufactures it's own warheads.

mechanical_fish 18y ago

I remember when a physicist came to give a lecture at Cornell about the difficulties of cleaning up Hanford, Washington. It was a hair-raising presentation. I forget the details, but the gist is here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14119133.900-the-dirtiest-place-on-earth.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14119133.900-the-dirti... It was one hair-raising talk. And so I was not at all surprised by this fascinating news article from earlier this year: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16447-earliest-weaponsgrade-plutonium-found-in-us-dump.html http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16447-earliest-weapons...

Create 18y ago
Some physicist will correct me, but I think this is more of an accounting trick than a technological one: it serves to ask for more money. I have no evidence, but my impression is, that aerogel is used to track the ageing of the decaying warheads, also providing data for the computed simulations to be more realistic. Such aerogel is readily available on the free (in the doublespeak sense) market.
- Tangurena 18y ago
  The building it was originally made at in Y-12 (called facility 9404-11) was torn down in 2004. The nasty solvent (which metabolises in the body into cyanide) called acetonitrile, of which Wikipedia claims there is supposedly a world shortage as the sole remaining factory producing it was shut down in 2008 (to reduce pollution) for the Olympics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetonitrile http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetonitrile http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1814/fogbank http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1814/fogbank http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teller%E2%80%93Ulam_design http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teller%E2%80%93Ulam_design