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Nuclear Weapons
This category is for questions about weapons that use nuclear fission or fusion to gain explosive power.
3,869 Questions
hastily made nuclear weapons
Answer:
Regular explosives together with radioactive material, not strong enough for a nuclear explosion, but spreads radiation which is poisonous.
Did detente reduce the need for military bases or reduce the possibility of nuclear war?
Well Détente really relaxed political tensions between the U.S and S.U and the "salt talks" were to limit the arms race so yes between the U.S and Russia Détente reduced the possibility of nuclear war.
How do you build a nuclear warhead trigger?
Both the warhead fusing system and the x-unit are built with electronics.
The missile guidance system is also built with electronics.
One can infer the general design and construction of all of these quite accurately given their requirements, but the details are classified.
Countires will have a race to build atomic bombs of their own, or fear the U.S. but only one is highly likely.
What are the odds of a nuclear weapon being used as a weapon in the next 10 years?
Less than they were 50 years ago, and much less than they were 60 years ago.
Did America had nuclear monopoly in 1945?
Yes, from 1945 to 1949. However we were far from prepared to actually use them in any war during that time period.
What kinds of bombs are there?
Smoke bomb
Tear bomb
Hydrogen bomb
Nuclear bomb
Water bomb
Atomic bomb
Fire bomb
Grenade
Dynamite
Poison gas bomb
Acid bomb
Flare bomb
Spark bomb
Fireworks
Stink bomb
Can you buy a nuke at walmart?
No. At Walmart we abide by all state, local, and federal laws, therefore, we do not carry illegal items.
Why did Hitler sabotage the German Nuclear Weapons project during World War 2?
Hitler did not actually sabotage it, however he was uncomfortable with some aspects of it that sounded like the Jewish Physics that he had had banned from the Universities.
Hitler gladly supported the project as long as Heisenberg and Albert Speer were promising him a powerful weapon to use in the war, he really didn't care where that weapon came from nor did he need to understand it. But after the setbacks of the Allied destruction of the Norsk Hydro heavy water plant followed by the Norwegian Partisan's destruction of the heavy water taken from that plant, those promises began to fade.
Finally Albert Speer reduced the priorities on the project and limited it to reactor research only (no bomb), with the goal of developing nuclear power plants after Germany had won the war.
Hitler in many ways hurt his own cause by holding back, to a large degree, the development on the jet fighter plane. He showed a hesitancy to make radical changes in "advanced" types of weaponry. From testimony at the Nuremberg trials he "ticked off" Goering on the jet fighter project delays. Plans for jet fighter were postponed by Hitler more than once. He later caused delays & confusion by insisting that the ME-262 fighter be made as a light bomber. The only plan for producing 60 jet fighters a month by July of 1944, was delayed. Speer believed that the jet fighter with 2 jet engines producing a speed in excess of 500 miles an hour was a necessity. He witnessed their prototype tests as early as 1941.
In a war documentary, a large German U-Boat carrying a dissembled ME-262 along with the way to produce a "dirty nuclear/atomic" weapon, was surrendered to the US Navy. The U-Boat captain was under orders to get his U-Boat to Japan via the Arctic Ocean course. The dirty bomb was intended to be tried near the western Pacific side of the Panama Canal. This was just before Germany's surrender in 1945. Why the German captain turned his U-Boat over to the US Navy was not clear.
How thick does a concrete shelter need to be to protect from fallout?
That would depend on the anticipated level of fallout, which depends on expected proximity from targets and weather conditions. Use of leaded concrete would reduce the required thickness, as lead attenuates gamma rays stronger than concrete alone..
Where does hydrogen for bomb making come from?
There are 2 isotopes of hydrogen needed to make a hydrogen bomb: deuterium and tritium. Deuterium occurs naturally in small amounts mixed with ordinary hydrogen (just like uranium-235 occurs naturally in small amounts in natural uranium), it is obtained by a heavy water enrichment cascade using ordinary water as the input feed. Tritium does not occur naturally and must be manufactured by irradiating lithium with neutrons. Lithium is mined from the ground. The easiest way to manufacture the tritium for a hydrogen bomb is the in situ processwhere the bomb does it itself. The fuel for such a hydrogen bomb is lithium deuteride, fission generated neutrons irradiate the lithium deuteride, manufacturing tritium which mixes with the deuterium and the bomb is now ready to explode!
Using a mixture of deuterium and tritium isotopes of hydrogen in the fusion bomb makes it practical as this mixture has the lowest ignition temperature.
So to sum up your answer:
- deuterium is taken from water
- tritium is manufactured in the bomb from lithium, which is mined from the ground
The original concept for something like what is now called a "dirty bomb" was proposed at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project before it was certain that an actual atomic bomb could be made to work. When it was clear the atomic bombs would work, the idea was shelved.
As far as I know, nobody has ever actually bothered to build one. Doing so would likely be suicidal for the workers doing the assembly.
Note: another unrelated usage of the term "dirty bomb" simply refers to an ordinary hydrogen bomb. This usage came into fashion about 1958 when the US was fascinated with the idea of building "clean bombs" (i.e. reduced fallout hydrogen bombs), mostly for Project Plowshare - the project to use nuclear explosives for construction, mining, and other peaceful uses - but also to try to make high yield nuclear weapons that would produce less public outcry/opposition/protests. The US perfected "clean bomb" designs having as little as 5% of the fallout of ordinary nuclear explosives of the same yield and the USSR did even better than that. "clean bomb" designs have been generally abandoned.
What was the cost of the first nuclear bomb in 1945?
That cannot be said as it has not yet been declassified. However a reasonable estimate is somewhere between $250,000 and $1,000,000 for each custom hand assembled bomb.
Total cost of the entire Manhattan Project has been declassified. It was about $2,000,000,000 however the vast majority of this was spent on building the industrial infrastructure needed to prepare materials and make bomb components.
Which two Asian countries have conducted nuclear weapons test?
At least four countries in Asia have conducted nuclear weapons tests.
Even excluding Russia as being only partly Asian, that still leaves China, India, Pakistan and North Korea.
Can an atomic bomb destroy a whole state?
In theory, one with high enough yield could destroy whatever one wanted to. However no device has ever existed with enough yield to destroy a whole state in one blast (with the possible exception of Rhode Island, the full yield 100 megaton version of the USSR's Tsar Bomba might have just been able to, but even this was never actually built).
Note: above a yield of a few hundred megatons their use as weapons to destroy things becomes somewhat impractical as the majority of their blast energy is simply wasted in blowing the atmosphere above the detonation off into space.
Did congress establish NASA to develop new types of nuclear weapons?
no
- congress established NACA in the early 1920s to promote and perform research on the airplane and in aviation in general.
- congress changed the name of NACA to NASA in 1958, when it added the civilian space program to their responsibilities.
neither NACA nor NASA ever had direct involvement in any weapons development, nuclear or conventional.
Which country has the most nuclear bombs in the world?
at this this time (2013) russia has the most, closely followed by the US. other countries have no more than 1/10 of what these do.
What are the effect of nuclear explosion to the environment?
That depends mostly on yield and now many are used.
- a few devices similar to the ones used in ww2 (~20 kiloton) has minimal environmental effect outside the immediate blast area.
- an all out nuclear war with thousands of multi-megaton devices will ignite worldwide forest fires, causing a nuclear winter that could exterminate well over 90% of life on the surface of earth from a combination of cold and lack of food.
What is the world's weakest nuclear weapon?
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were firecrackers compared to a standard warhead today. The Hiroshima bomb was about 20 kilotons - the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT. Subsequently thermo-nuclear devices were perfected, and yields of 50 MEGAtons are attained. Big enough to annihilate everything for a fifty to one hundred mile radius from the blast. So big in fact that its pointless to develop anything stronger, as existing weapons will have a blast radius extending beyond the atmosphere of the planet, and any additional power would be largely vented into space. In the 1950s US Army doctrine called for preparing for a "nuclear" battlefield. As part of that nuclear artillery pieces were developed, to fire out limited-yield tactical nuclear shells about ten miles, with a small enough blast that the gun crew could survive. Similar nuclear ammunition was developed by the Navy to be fired from the main battery of battleships. Today such limited-yield tactical nuclear weapons are mounted on short range missiles. There's also the neutron bomb, which emits mostly radiation to kill all living creatures without the messy blast and fire, leaving infrastructure intact for the benefit of ground forces moving in afterward.
How does a nuclear disaster form?
Detonation of a nuclear device, discharge of radioactive materials (whether accidental or deliberate), spillage or distribution of radioactive materials.
