HOWTO Build a Nuclear Device

[baptista at pccf.net]

exactly right Ken .. as i said before to Tim May - propaganda is the
key.  Example - antrax theatre.

i must admit i'm warming up to Tim May's tall pipe means of attaining
critical mass - much easier then playing with explosive and timing
devices - my only question is do our experts see a problem with
that means of delivery?

regards
joe

On Mon, 19 Nov 2001, Ken Brown wrote:

> A propaganda weapon doesn't have to work, it just has to present a
> threat of working to people who may or may not understand how it is
> meant to work. It doesn't have to be a credible military weapon. A
> kamikaze airliner isn't a credible *military* weapon against anyone who
> can afford artillery. That didn't stop them though.
> 
> The tall pipe that others mentioned would work well enough to scare
> people - all you need to do is find a way of convincing others that
> you've done it. One idea was to set one up in a tall block of flats. You
> know the sort where there is a 6-inch gap between flights of stairs in
> the stairwell, so if you stand at the top and look down you see right to
> the basement. There are abandoned 19 or 20 story blocks in grotty
> suburbs of London with stairwells like that, I bet the same is true of
> most big cities. You only have to break in for a single day.  You set a
> number of lumps of U one above the other in such a way that when a
> higher one falls onto one below it will take it with it - maybe just tie
> them to the railings with thread, and put some old metal plates in the
> way to stop them bouncing out of the stack. Use lumps of lead for
> testing.
> 
> The topmost one can be released by any simple mecahnism. You then assert
> publically that when the top one is dropped they will all cascade down
> and assemble a critical mass on the floor below.   Hey presto, one big
> propaganda coup, one mass panic and evacuation of big city. The building
> will probably still be standing after it goes off, or fails to, but who
> will want to be first in?
> 
> Ken Brown
> 
> 
> "Karsten M. Self" wrote:
> > 
> > on Sat, Nov 17, 2001 at 12:24:31AM -0800, Tim May (tcmay at got.net) wrote:
> > > On Friday, November 16, 2001, at 08:20 PM, !Dr. Joe Baptista wrote:
> > 
> > > > Anyone on this planet can build a nuclear device.  So the only issue
> > > > in building the device is the will to die for a cause.  And the only
> > > > thing I find unfortunate in all of this is that there are so many
> > > > causes that people are willing to die for.  And war will not make
> > > > those reasons go away - it will only encourage them.
> > >
> > > It's really _not_ this easy. It took China and India a while before
> > > they successfully tested an A-bomb (many years after they had the raw
> > > materials from their reactor programs). It may have taken the South
> > > Africans and Israelis a few years after getting materials, too. So,
> > > why didn't they just hammer U-235 into stainless steel mixing bowls
> > > and do it the way "anyone on this planet can build a nuclear device,"
> > > one wonders.
> > 
> > This analysis neglects consideration of several points:
> > 
> >   - Nation-states (even authoritarian ones) will likely want to create
> >     both a sustained program, not merely crank out a few crude nukes,
> >     and preserve the talent involved.  One-offs are almost always easier
> >     to complete than a production effort, but the lowered total cost is
> >     offset by a higher unit cost.  The terrorist organization can
> >     accomplish its goals with crude tactics and marginally effective
> >     devices.  Credible military threat isn't as simple.
> > 
> >   - Credible military weapons have minimum requirements of both efficacy
> >     -- efficient use of supercritical energy -- and predictability --
> >     having the damned thing go off in the silo / bunker / hanger /
> >     munitions dump rather than the chosen target isn't particularly
> >     useful.
> 

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