By now, everyone has read the reports that the North Korean nuclear test was a dud. I have however read a report that makes me think there might be something else going on, one that strikes me as very disturbing.
When people think of Nuclear Weapons they think big, like the Soviet Tsar Bomba, but there is a class of nuclear weapons that are known as low-yield or variable-yield weapons. They are a bit more difficult to make and maintain and require technologies that are not quite as easy to obtain from the open literature. They usually require the use of different tamper elements or the use of tritium injection. Tritium injection can be problematic because tritium decays into He3 which can poison the reaction and tritium has a half-life of a little over 12 years. So maintaining such a device in a usable state requires constant work.
The Davy Crockett is one such device that had a variable yield from 10-20 tons. This warhead was one of the lightest ever built and weighed only 51 lbs. This extremely low yield is very close to the theoretical minimum for a fission device but is HUGE compared to its size and weight. I have read a report of someone who has seen video of the test, although I have been unable to find the video myself. This person describes the instrumentation trailers being so close to the collapse cone of the test well that had the bomb been any larger, the instrumentation trailers would have fallen into the cone. This gives strong evidence that the North Koreans knew exactly what they were doing and what the design yield was. Everyone seems to think that they would be building a Nagasaki/Trinity type device. But such a device weighs far too much to mount on their Taepo-dong 2 missiles which, as ICBMs go, are exceedingly small. Therefore they have a strong incentive to be looking at variable and low yield devices.
Lightweight low-yield weapons also are ideal as terror weapons so NK would have a secondary market for them. And NK has never developed a weapons system that they have not sold on the open market. Just because our first Plutonium Nuke was a Trinity type implosion device does not mean that it follows that NK would follow our design steps. They have the benefit of knowing where we have been and what technologies we and the Soviets and the Chinese have brought to bear. They may very well leap-frog us. We have not developed a new nuke design in decades due to a lack of political will. They would appear to have no such compunction.
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I saw that video played over and over. I didn’t look much like a dud to me. I believe it was on one of the Spanish news channels.
Got a linky to share? I’d love to see it.
I agree with this whole-heartedly.
I also believe that North Korea and Iran have very strong ties to each other.
In other words, whenever NK starts throwing a hissy fit looking for attention, Iran starts doing something really sneaky with attention drawn away.
This is a very, very important/difficult time in history. I firmly believe that we are in as critical a time in history as the Cuban Missile Crisis. The difference is most of Americans and indeed the world don’t realize it.
I would sleep better at night if at least our “leaders” were set on working this through, but unfortunately, they are more interested in the power they possess (or want to possess and how to get it).
#2 Sorry, my better half had control of the controller last night. I cant find it either.
Yield not yeild.
picky picky! ok I’ll fix it… geez everybody is a critic! =D
Rorschach: CAUTION you are thinking again and that is dangerous to your health. Doing a big bomb is out of the question if you want to cripple this country. It would be done by “briefcase bombs” and the small ones at that, not nasty ones and the 12 year or low dirt one, as they want to come back and reap the “spoils”
The blast was a suitcase size and successful one at that no big bang, but exactly what they planned, tested and wanted. They will sell a bundle, count on that. Every supporter of the causes against the US and only the goons that they can control and know that they will not be used back against themselves…. will be the buyers.
So score one for NK while we are all here sleeping and not knowing what is going on… as we are looking for the mushroom and not the ripple in the pond!
OK it’s fixed now. (I found another misspelling while I was at it too. Hey, what can I say? I’m a product of the public school system!)
Don’t worry inkman.. Einstein had it wrong in his name twice!
Never fear! The UN will save us!!!!
Is there evidence to support that this is what is going on or is this just someone’s theory? If these weapons are more difficult to produce, what is the evidence for NK bypassing “traditional” nukes and jumping to the more sophisticated ones?
This scenario Rorschach plays out if by no means certain, rather a high probability. It make perfect sense in that there is a ready market for these ultimate terror devices in the many rogue terrorist sponsoring states. Without regard to standards of living of the masses in NK, along with no policitical naysayers whining and limiting R&D, NK can and has accomplished quite an aresenal. Significant funding can now come from oil rich terror sponsoring states.
RickG, I have no way of knowing if this is truly what is going on or not, but it is certainly plausible. There is danger in assuming that just because we didn’t go straight to low yield weapons that they won’t. Thier design constraints and strategiac needs are different than ours. AND they know what is possible whereas we did not. We had to do all the heavy lifting trying to figure out what can be done. They already KNOW what is possible, they merely have to replicate it. For example many third world countries are going straight to fiberoptics and cellular telephone technologies and completely bypassing our major infrastructural limitation, the last mile of copper. Because they already know what can be done. That is far more than half the battle right there.
I will add that any country that can stack natural Uranium (no need for enriched uranium like that which is needed for a gun type uranuim bomb) together to build a Fermi pile type reactor can obtain as much plutonium as they like. Fermi did it in a squash court in Chicago. So reprocessing to get Plutonium is not that terribly difficult.
I think a couple dozen UN resolutions ought to make this whole thing go away.
Don’t worry GWB is on the case. We can all sleep good tonight. He hasn’t misjudged anything yet. Just stay the course with NK and everything will be ok.
Well, it all sounds plausible to me…and scary. Let’s hope our leaders in the western world don’t go to sleep during this.
#17 You imply that they were ever awake.
#18…let me put it another way…it’s time to take the kid gloves off! We can’t let little, maniacal despots like Kim Jong il and his band of dwarfs hold us to ransom!
How to wipe out a despot:
http://www.rowanlea.com/novelties/x-wipes/enemies/jongi-xw.html
Reports have just come through here (Australia) that North Korea have set of a second test.
‘off’ even
That is what the Japanese NHK are saying but the South Korean News Agency says no as does the Pentagon.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/234777/1/.html
The chinese claim that NK told them it was to be a 4 kiloton device which is still in the realm of a low yield device. That might explain the reason why it was a fizzle, low yeild devices are harder to detonate. There are more things that can go wrong with them. The only things that can go wrong with a simple implosion device is if the shaped charges either burn at different rates or are set off at slightly different times causing a non-symmetric compression wavefront. Also if the amount of Pu-240 is too high it might predetonate resulting in a somewhat smaller yield, but it would still be a functional nuke. Pu-240 has a propensity to predetonate. Low Yeild devices are very sensitive to predetonation so the Pu-239/Pu-240 ratio must be watched carefully.