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

[Jim Choate]

Tomorrow's Soldier
David Alexander
ISBN 0-380-79502-7
Chpt. 8 "War Beyond Tomorrow"

On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Trei, Peter wrote:

> 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.
> 
> UPS probably would not work (besides, I think they have a 
> limit of around 90 lbs). 


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