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The cost of the plutonium used in a nuclear bomb can vary greatly, depending on factors such as purity, quantity, and production method. However, estimates suggest that the plutonium used in a typical nuclear bomb could cost millions of dollars.

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What is the cost of a nuclear bomb?

The cost of a nuclear bomb can vary greatly depending on factors such as the country producing it, the complexity of the design, and the quantity being produced. However, estimates suggest that it can range from several hundred million to billions of dollars.


Do they use californium in nuclear bombs?

Californium is not typically used in nuclear bombs due to its high cost and limited availability. Nuclear bombs typically use plutonium or uranium as the fissile material for the explosive chain reaction. Californium is used more commonly in research and medical applications due to its ability to produce neutrons.


How much do nukes cost?

The cost of a nuclear weapon can vary significantly depending on factors such as the design, complexity, and delivery system. It is estimated that the cost of building and maintaining nuclear weapons programs can range from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. This includes costs associated with research, development, testing, production, and maintenance of the weapons.


How much does it cost to build a nuclear bomb?

Probably on the order of $100,000 and most are likely less. The majority of the cost is the high purity nuclear materials.There are several major costs in building a nuclear bomb, which can be categorized as such:Weapon Design: the scientific and engineering effort required to fully understand how a nuclear weapon works and make a functional design. This includes a significant amount of computer hardware to do simulation, a moderate number of highly-trained physicists, and a larger number of engineers and technicians to build and test various components. A conservative estimate to design a very basic, reliable "gun-type" Uranium bomb would be many tens of million dollars. A plutonium implosion bomb likely would require several hundreds of millions, with a "boosted" advanced atomic bomb design being slightly more expensive. A reliable hydrogen bomb design would almost certainly costs tens of billions of dollars, as they are incredible complex devices.Fuel Costs: acquiring the atomic fuel (weapons-grade u-235 or pu-239) is astronomically difficult. Theoretically, it might be purchasable on the black market, for $10-50 million PER BOMB, but that's assuming you can find it (and don't get caught by one of the big country's spy networks). Making it costs tens of billions, as obtaining the raw materials isn't simple; you would need 100x the bomb fuel's weight in reactor fuel, or 10,000x the amount in raw uranium ore to start with, and the purifying plant is a huge complex filled with expensive equipment, and requires an enormous amount of electricity to run. Tritium/deuterium production is slightly less expensive, but not that much cheaper.Bomb construction: making the actual bomb from a solid design is modestly expensive, as you need high-quality machine tools able to produce the parts to a very high level of tolerance. Overall, through, it should not be that expensive, perhaps a few million dollars to buy the machine tools and parts.Thus, if you want to make multiple nuclear bombs, and have a reliable design that will work 99% of the time, then you probably need to spend $50 billion or so to make a simple A-bomb, $60 billion for an advanced A-bomb, and $200 billion or more for a H-bomb. After that, each bomb should run several million dollars each to make, regardless of type."Terrorist"-level bomb-making:If all you want to do is build a crude, gun-type Uranium-fueled atomic weapon, that has a reasonable chance of working, then, assuming you have enough weapons-grade uranium on-hand, you can probably build one for a few tens of thousands of dollars, provided you can order certain machined parts from suppliers, make the rest yourself at a local quality tool-and-die shop, and have access to a few dozen cheap PC computers. I'd say you could easily build one for $100,000 or less. I'd give your bomb less than a 50% chance of working properly, though.There is no ability to "home-make" anything other than a crude gun-type Uranium bomb. The design and construction requirements for an implosion devices require the resources of a large-sized company, at the very least, and such weapons will not work unless there is significant effort put into the design (you can't cut corners on the design or components of an implosion device, unlike a gun-type device). That is, even if I gave you 30 pounds of weapons-grade Plutonium, you'd still need 10-20 million dollars to produce an implosion device that might work (and, I'd give it a low-probability of functioning properly).Hydrogen bomb design and manufacturing is impossible for anything outside a major government-level effort.


What is the price of a nuclear bomb?

Nuclear bombs are not legally available for sale, as they are highly regulated weapons of mass destruction. The cost to build and maintain a nuclear arsenal is extremely high, with estimates ranging from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars per weapon. The true cost includes research and development, as well as the long-term costs associated with managing and securing the weapons.

Related Questions

How much would it cost today to build an atomic bomb today like the one US dropped on Japan?

The first atomic bombs cost billions because they had to learn how to gather uranium and plutonium into a form that was good enough for a bomb and they had to design the bomb. Now a nuclear missile cost would be probably about a million or more. The cost of the newer missile is in the housing and maintenance of the missile.


How much money dose plutonium cost?

The price of nuclear weapons grade plutonium is approx. 4 000 US $ for one gram, in 2010.


What is the cost price of a nuclear weapon grade uranium?

The cost of nuclear weapon grade uranium can vary greatly depending on factors such as market conditions, quantity purchased, and source of the material. However, it is generally estimated to be in the range of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars per kilogram.


How much does one nuclear bomb cost taxpayer?

40 bucks


What is the cost of a nuclear bomb?

The cost of a nuclear bomb can vary greatly depending on factors such as the country producing it, the complexity of the design, and the quantity being produced. However, estimates suggest that it can range from several hundred million to billions of dollars.


How much was the first nuclear bomb that costed the US?

It is not possible to say exactly how much the first nuclear bombs cost. The Manhattan Project cost $2,000,000,000; but most of that was to build the industrial infrastructure needed to enrich uranium, produce plutonium, fabricate bomb parts, and deliver the bomb to the target. Once setup the incremental cost per bomb produced is relatively small.I estimate that the Trinity Gadget MK-III, Hiroshima Little Boy MK-I, and Nagasaki Fat Man MK-III bombs cost well under$1,000,000 each.We had in production or scheduled for production a total of 23 nuclear bombs to be dropped on Japan in 1945 should she fail to surrender, only the first two of these were used.August three bombs, 1 MK-I & 2 MK-IIISeptember three bombs, 3 MK-IIIOctober three bombs, 3 MK-IIINovember seven bombs, 7 modified MK-III using new composite plutonium/uranium coreDecember seven bombs, 7 modified MK-III using new composite plutonium/uranium core


How much does it cost to launch a nuclear bomb or missile?

up to 10mill and even up to 1billion


How much is the cost of Nuclear Bomb which is used on Second World War?

Construction of the infrastructure to build them cost $2,000,000,000 but the incremental cost per bomb was much less, I doubt they cost a million a piece and the cost would have dropped with increased production.


Do they use californium in nuclear bombs?

Californium is not typically used in nuclear bombs due to its high cost and limited availability. Nuclear bombs typically use plutonium or uranium as the fissile material for the explosive chain reaction. Californium is used more commonly in research and medical applications due to its ability to produce neutrons.


Why did Eisenhower favor the development of nuclear weapons such as the hydrogen bomb?

He believed that developing nuclear weapons instead of preparing for conventional war was more cost-efficient.


How much does 1 kg of plutonium cost?

The cost of plutonium can vary significantly based on factors such as purity, grade, and market conditions. However, as of 2021, the price of 1 kg of plutonium is estimated to be in the range of millions of dollars. It is a highly regulated and controlled substance due to its nuclear properties and potential for misuse.


Where in Tennessee was the first nuclear bomb made?

Nowhere. The first atomic bomb was made in Los Alamos, New Mexico. However uranium was enriched in several large plants at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This site was selected by the Manhattan Project due to the available of low cost electricity from the Tennessee Valley Authority, which was needed to operate the thousands of pumps in the Gaseous Diffusion enrichment process. This uranium was used in the Little Boy bomb (the second atomic bomb detonated, the first atomic bomb used in combat) and at low enrichment levels in the Hanford plutonium production reactor's fuel.