Re: russia_1.html

> From:          Harka <root@DosLinux>
> US Sees No KGB Role in Russia's Nuclear Arms
> 
>    WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The United States Friday rejected the claim of a
>    Russian scientist that Moscow had secretly developed nuclear "suitcase
>    bombs" under KGB orders in the 1970s specifically for terrorist
>    purposes.
>    
>[...]
>    
>    Testifying before Congress Thursday, Alexei Yablokov, a respected
>    scientist who served on the Russian National Security Council,
>    contradicted statements by Russian officials denying the existence of
>    the weapons and buttressed claims that many of them have gone missing.
>    
>    "I am absolutely sure that they have been made," he told the House
>    Military Research and Development subcommittee.
>    
>    The issue arose when former Russian National Security Adviser Alexandr
>    Lebed alleged that up to 100 portable suitcase-sized bombs were
>    unaccounted for since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
>    
>    According to Lebed, who has agreed to testify before the House
>    committee later this month, the devices have an explosive capacity of
>    one kiloton -- the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT -- can be activated
>    by a single person and could kill as many as 100,000 people.
>    
>    Yablokov said he had spoken to the scientists who worked on the
>    weapons and so was certain of their existence.

[...]

I saw part of this on CSPAN. Yablokov made one point that I felt was 
interesting.

These devices were made during the Cold War period, and it's 
extremely unlikely that any could have been made since
the Soviet Union fell apart. 

The plutonium cores of thermonuclear devices have a limited shelf
life - he claimed 6 years, which jibes with what I've heard from
other open sources. Fission products build up in the cores which 
can poison a chain reaction. Thus all Pu based devices need to have
the cores periodically removed and replaced with new ones, while the
old ones have to go through a non-trivial reprocessing stage to 
remove the fission products. 

Thus, a nuke left on the shelf eventually turns into a dud. The time
since the Soviet Union fell (which is the upper limit of the last 
time these particular 'suitcases' could plausibly have been repacked)
is long enough ago that they are now either duds or becoming 
unreliable (I don't know if the degredation results in gradually
decreasing yield, or if one day they simply don't work).

Of course, even contaminated Pu in the hands of a terrorist (or a
State) is a disquieting notion.

Peter Trei
trei@Process.com

Even a fizzle with a yield in the hundreds of tons equivalent is respectable.
Plutonium decay products have a high neutron cross-section and steal the
fast neutrons necessary for the chain reaction to build.  Sufficient amounts
can kill off the last three or more re-doublings which is where most of the
explosive power comes from.  On the other hand finely dispersed Pu and
other fission products plus the irradiated material that becomes radioactive
will make a few square miles dangerous to inhabit for several years.

/pbp

At 3:01 AM -0700 10/6/97, Peter Trei wrote:
>The plutonium cores of thermonuclear devices have a limited shelf
>life - he claimed 6 years, which jibes with what I've heard from
>other open sources. Fission products build up in the cores which
>can poison a chain reaction. Thus all Pu based devices need to have
>the cores periodically removed and replaced with new ones, while the
>old ones have to go through a non-trivial reprocessing stage to
>remove the fission products.

I think this comment is in error.  Plutonium has a half life on the order
of 250,000 years, so very little decay products would build up in 6 years.
The tritium used in thermonuclear weapons has a much shorter half life, and
would need to be replaced about that often.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Frantz       | Internal surveillance      | Periwinkle -- Consulting
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At 09:37 AM 10/6/97 -0700, Bill Frantz wrote:
>At 3:01 AM -0700 10/6/97, Peter Trei wrote:
>>The plutonium cores of thermonuclear devices have a limited shelf
>>life - he claimed 6 years, which jibes with what I've heard from
>>other open sources. Fission products build up in the cores which
>>can poison a chain reaction. Thus all Pu based devices need to have
>>the cores periodically removed and replaced with new ones, while the
>>old ones have to go through a non-trivial reprocessing stage to
>>remove the fission products.
>
>I think this comment is in error.  Plutonium has a half life on the order
>of 250,000 years, so very little decay products would build up in 6 years.
>The tritium used in thermonuclear weapons has a much shorter half life, and
>would need to be replaced about that often.

One of the decay products of tritium (half-life: 12.5 years) is Helium-3,
which aggressively absorbs neutrons and poisons the fission reaction of the
plutonium.  If one has access to more tritium, which is commercially
available for about US $50,000 per gram, the existing tritium can be
purified and combined with the new tritium to bring the bomb back to full
power.  If someone has the resources to obtain the bomb in the first place,
refreshing the tritium probably wouldn't be a major problem.


Jonathan Wienke

What part of "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed" is too hard to understand? (From 2nd Amendment, U.S. Constitution)

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