4 ms·

Nothing. Remember: this was done the first time in less than four years, from 9 October 1941 to 16 July 1945, using technology from the stone age. No solid-st

Nothing. Remember: this was done the first time in less than four years, from 9 October 1941 to 16 July 1945, using technology from the stone age. No solid-state electronics beyond crude diodes. No electronic computation. Approximate estimates on most of the cross-sections. Hopeful guesses on many of the processes (including multiply redundant approaches to some things, including the basic design, because people weren't sure what would work or what would be possible to build.) Today, a team of reasonably intelligent engineering students with a budget of a few billion dollars could build a bomb in a year, simply because they would know vastly more than the original team. Again: it took three years and $2 billion ($30 billion in today's dollars) to build the very first bomb from scratch knowing almost nothing about the process and having to custom build and design and invent almost every component. To suggest that any particularly rare expertise today would be required or that the cost would be more than a tenth of the original development is implausible. Remember this the next time you hear about Iran's nuclear program, which has been going on for twenty years, supposedly in mad pursuit of nuclear weapons. It's a ridiculous claim: if the Iranians wanted a Bomb very badly they would have one by now. If they don't have one by now the only reasonable conclusion is that they don't want one very badly. The extreme disapprobation they get from the rest of the world on this issue may well contribute to their tepid enthusiasm, but no amount of Stuxnet and the like is going to put a dent in a strongly committed program. The Iranian's commitment just isn't that strong. Gas centrifuge technology in particular has been a game-changer in the lowering the nuclear bar over the past couple of decades. People were warning about it in the '80's, and their warnings seem to have had some prescience. It makes practical enrichment of natural uranium to weapons grade, bypassing the need for a reactor program to breed plutonium, and all the nasty, difficult chemistry involved in plutonium extraction. And unlike plutonium weapons, uranium weapons are ridiculously easy to detonate. Trinity was a plutonium test. Little Boy was one of the very few uranium weapons ever detonated, and it was live tested because the scientists were as certain as anything it would actually explode. There are uraninite (pitchblende) ores that are getting on for 10% uranium, or 0.07% 235U, so a tonne of ore would yield 7 kg of 235U. It'll only get worse as seawater extraction gets better (it's already capable of producing macroscopic amounts of uranium from the relatively uranium-rich Japan Current, although post-Fukushima the primary research, which was Japanese, has likely been curtailed.) Processing a couple of tonnes of ore is sub-industrial. It isn't that hard to hide. On the other hand, if countries want to go the plutonium route, plutonium producing reactors aren't hard to hide either: the Russians were running them underground--a few hundred metres below the surface--in the 80's and 90's.

jacquesm 12y ago
All correct, and last but not least: You know for sure it can be done. That alone is a huge motivator.
notastartup 12y ago
Following your reasoning, it makes sense why North Korea was able to produce a small amount of it in a relatively short time. They were well funded thanks to the left-leaning South Korean administrations from 1998-2008 who practiced Sunshine policy. The last bit is that they certainly want it bad enough but have failed to produce a nuclear weapon with significant power (nothing in the range of WW2 nuclear weapons). So if a country that wants it so bad like North Korea have been able to produce a controlled nuclear explosion, why can't they produce anything significant enough to be recognized as a nuclear state? The only thing that would stop them seems to be either expertise or lack of key material or perhaps lack of monies.
- dfox 12y ago
  Producing some kind of nuclear explosion is mostly only about procuring the raw materials. Getting to significant yield is the actual hard part as it involves precision machining, measurements and timing. Machining heavy metals is complex problem in itself even without requirement of extreme precision. It is hard to procure machining equipment with sufficient precision and tooling capable of machining hard metals without raising lots of red flags. Almost anything that is capable of switching of significant powers with small or repeatable latency is essentially non-exportable with the reasoning that it is not useful for much else than triggering nuclear weapons (one could think of lots of other applications, but the devices are too bulky and expensive for most of them).
- tjradcliffe 12y ago
  In the case of North Korea it is likely the raw material they lack. They are a small and insular country, and may not have any significant indigenous reserves of uranium ore. This is a very good thing, and unfortunately one that sea-water extraction technology--which is otherwise a very good thing because it makes natural uranium a renewable resource--may eventually have an effect on.

jacquesm 12y ago

All correct, and last but not least: You know for sure it can be done. That alone is a huge motivator.

notastartup 12y ago

Following your reasoning, it makes sense why North Korea was able to produce a small amount of it in a relatively short time. They were well funded thanks to the left-leaning South Korean administrations from 1998-2008 who practiced Sunshine policy. The last bit is that they certainly want it bad enough but have failed to produce a nuclear weapon with significant power (nothing in the range of WW2 nuclear weapons). So if a country that wants it so bad like North Korea have been able to produce a controlled nuclear explosion, why can't they produce anything significant enough to be recognized as a nuclear state? The only thing that would stop them seems to be either expertise or lack of key material or perhaps lack of monies.

dfox 12y ago
Producing some kind of nuclear explosion is mostly only about procuring the raw materials. Getting to significant yield is the actual hard part as it involves precision machining, measurements and timing. Machining heavy metals is complex problem in itself even without requirement of extreme precision. It is hard to procure machining equipment with sufficient precision and tooling capable of machining hard metals without raising lots of red flags. Almost anything that is capable of switching of significant powers with small or repeatable latency is essentially non-exportable with the reasoning that it is not useful for much else than triggering nuclear weapons (one could think of lots of other applications, but the devices are too bulky and expensive for most of them).
tjradcliffe 12y ago
In the case of North Korea it is likely the raw material they lack. They are a small and insular country, and may not have any significant indigenous reserves of uranium ore. This is a very good thing, and unfortunately one that sea-water extraction technology--which is otherwise a very good thing because it makes natural uranium a renewable resource--may eventually have an effect on.