Air Force Turns 747 Into Holster for Giant Laser (washing tonpost.com)

[Steve Schear]

At 11:05 AM 7/25/2001 -0400, Trei, Peter wrote:
>         Bill Stewart writes:
>
> > Meanwhile of course, any foreign terrorist that wants to nuke the US
> > with a physically small weapon only needs to pack it in cocaine
> > and bring it in with the regular shipments,
> > while Rogue Nations that can only make large Fat Boy style weapons
> > need cruder methods, like bribing a crane operator to load the wrong
> > container on a ship bound for New York or Los Angelese harbor.
> >
> >
>It may not be that easy. My understanding (based on various TV programs
>broadcast back in the early 90's) is that there is a program called 'NEST',
>which stands for something like Nuclear Emergency (mumble) Team,
>tasked with dealing with this type of problem.
>
>One protection hinted is that strategically chosen points of transit
>(bridges,
>ports, tunnels, major highways, mail, baggage and freight facilities, etc)
>have
>detectors for nuclear materials.
>
>The thing is, while you can sheild a source to the point where it is not
>a hazard, sheilding it to the point of *undetectability* is far harder task.
>
>If you detect even a single gamma ray of a certain frequency, or
>betas or even alphas of certain energies, you *know* that a certain
>isotope produced them. If the detectors note the presence of a
>certain isotopes, they generate the appropriate alarms.
>
>There are also other detection systems - I've seen X-rays of entire
>container trucks which were passing through the Chunnel - illegal
>immigrants were quite visible inside the container.
>
>An attacker's best chance would be to place his weapon in a
>container, heavily sheilded, and then to bury that in the middle of
>a stack of other containers of heavy shielding in the hold of a
>container ship, and plan to detonate it while still on board in a
>target harbor.

Or reduce the effectiveness of the detection system by clandestinely 
"salting" vessels entering our ports with radio active dust with the same 
energy signatures.  Sort of a radio active chaff.

steve