Defense Secretary demands Congress fund new nuclear weapons program, offers veiled threats on testin

Defense Secretary demands Congress fund new nuclear weapons program, offers veiled threats on testing

rawstory.com

After making a comment the same day saying that Russia must reduce its nuclear arsenal, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called on the United States to begin testing its nuclear weapon program and fund a new generation of nuclear weapons.

The Bush Administration is at odds with Congress on a law that would authorize the funding for a Reliable Replacable Warhead project -- the so called "next generation" of nuclear weapon designs.

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This mostly seems to be about next generation nuclear weapons. Is a next generation nuclear weapon really needed? That is a good question to be asked to any weapon specialists, or nuclear physicists around here. I don't really know how important it really is. The philosophy of the the U.S. has always seemed to be to throw something away when it becomes out dated. I wonder it that is the same thing happening with the nuclear weapons.

rawstory.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Jesus . . . when will they start putting intelligent people in these positions.

In order to get immediate and pretty much unlimited funding, all the Department of Defense has to do is apply to the feds for 'bank status' and then they too can pilfer from the $700 or so billion from Hanker Paulson and probably send it to their patronage piggy pals along the way all without having to answer to anyone for anything.

reply to post by GoalPoster


Thanks for posting.
And the military putting in for bank status, hmmm well that is one possibility I did not consider. I don't really see it happening.
At this point I am still more interested in why it is happening.

We absolutely need this. As it stands right now, we could only destroy the world several times over, but.... what about Mars? Have you thought about that?? We probably don't have enough to destroy the Earth and Mars BOTH several times over. To do that, we need more funding for bigger bombs!

I don't know why civilians are being so selfish right now. So you just gave 700 billion to the banks. So you have lost most of your savings and your houses are being foreclosed on. Surely you can find it in your heart to spare a little more, tighten those belts just a little...teensy bit more so we can fund some new nuclear weapons. If not, then I am afraid that the terrorists have already won.

May God have mercy on your souls..............

[edit on 29-10-2008 by Karlhungis]

At this point I am still more interested in why it is happening.

My guess it is one of those talking head things . . . they get the message 'out there' as a way to test public support for pretty much anything.

Softens them up for what is coming down the road . . . the ultimate linguistic stool softener, so to speak.

They get it out there that we need it because we're falling behind the Russians and putting our ability to deter the Russian's use of force against us in jeopardy and that if we don't upgrade to the next bestest and newest technology as soon as yesterday, we're doomed to a life of borscht and kielbasa at the hands of our post-commie neocapitalist Palin-neighbor crowd.

And they want to get it out there before we have a Democratic president . . .

In otherwords, the new program is a done deal . . . selling it to the public support comes next followed by some superficial quasi-intelligent congressional debate on the matter and . . . .WHAMMO . . . down the throat it goes.

[edit on 29-10-2008 by GoalPoster]

reply to post by GoalPoster


Well the only part of your post that I thought had any real merit was the part that it is already a done deal, and it just needs to be sold.
Aside from that thanks for posting.

And Republicans wonder why the country is so desperate for a change. When people say that we as a country "can't afford" another Republican administration, they are not just speaking in terms of financial affordability. They are also saying that we may not survive another Republican administration.

from a technical stand point - nuclear weapons have a finite shelf life - most have a limited life of 20>25 years , although that is being extended to 75 years

did you know that the average age of the US nuclear warheads is 19 years old, with certain systems at 35 years - and those are not Guaranteed to actually work now?

tritium for H-bombs has the shortest life - it needs to be refreshed every 10 years , and likely sooner to actually work - 12 years is its half life.

so from a technical viewpoint - since no new weapons have been built in the last 10 years , then yes a complete system refresh would be needed.


from an ethics viewppoint

why the hell do they want to make new ones - how about giving peace a chance , or does the forth reich in washington not want this?

reply to post by Harlequin


Harlequin
Those are the questions that I wanted to be answered, so thanks
Ok so nuke weapons have a shelf life, and need to be replaced or overhauled every now and then, that explains why this is being asked for.
You said tritium is used in the H bombs. I rember hearing some where that deuterium is used in the H bombs, could you tell me why the tritium or why not the deuterium?

If I may contribute.

It is very true that keeping old technology viable and reliable is increasingly costly and eventually - technical counter-productive. Our arsenal may, in fact, be approaching obsolescence. It seems to be the nature of technology.

However, the paradigm in place seems to be that we STILL need to maintain nuclear supremacy. It seems counter-intuitive to me. Perhaps there are times when certain weapon systems lose their value (especially in the case of 'deterrence' from attack by rogue states.)

If our missile defense system is viable (which is why we pay so much to the defense contractors), why must we then have a need to deter anything via fear of 'retaliatory' annihilation?

Wait a minute..., did you say "bank" status?

Oh yesss...I was waiting for that term. SHELF LIFE. And after that it somehow magically disappears. Never mind Half-Life. If you google it it's just a PC game.

Originally posted by Benarius
Oh yesss...I was waiting for that term. SHELF LIFE. And after that it somehow magically disappears. Never mind Half-Life. If you google it it's just a PC game.

It has nothing to do with it "magically disappearing" as you put it. After a certain amount of time the explosives no longer are guaranteed to work. You get a fizzle. If you expose the conventional explosives to radiation long enough they degrade to the point where they won't explode anymore. If you don't have a perfectly uniform explosion around the core of the weapon, it doesn't work.

As for the tritium or deuterium core on the H-bomb, it's used both. They've used a tritium deuterium mix, or lithium deuteride for the core.

Do I hope we never use them? Of course I do. But do we need to have nukes that we KNOW work? Yes we do. MAD works, plain and simple.

reply to post by RedGolem


That one is easy - Deuterium is not radioactive and thus has no `half life`;

chemcially it behaves very much like hydrogen.

one thing - there is research to remove tritium from the fusion reaction cycle and replace it with He3 - although since He3 is rare as rocking horse #e its not feasable right now

It would be nice for a country to make a stand and say we will not make any more nukes NO MORE!!! once the so called shelf life has run out we will never never make another weapon of mass destruction I know im dreaming.

As the previous posters have outlined, yes nuclear weapons have a finite shelf life. Most of the systems ARE very old and some already use components from retired systems. Another major concern is the decreased number of weapons physicists that have worked on a "new" weapons program and lead the design of a brand new generation of weapons. The expertise of weapons design is fading away. Most have never seen a nuclear weapon even tested. Starting a new program will refresh the skill of these designers.

While it would be nice to hold hands, dance on rainbows, and sing nursery rhymes - the reality is that there are evil people in this world, with access to WMD; be they nuclear, biological, or chemical. Retaining our nuclear superiority is essential to the deterrence of these fanatical and dangerous entities.

I think we are much better off carrying the big stick instead of them, no?

The weapons we have now were build when we could hit within 500 feet of the target,
now we can hit within 5 feet with GPS guidance systems

With a bomb that hits within 5 feet you do not need a yield of 50 to 100 KT
that was great for the bombs that could hit within 500 feet.

20 years ago to take out a C3 bunker you needed to hit it with a 100KT weapon.

Now you use a 5KT GPS guided nuclear deep penetrating bunker buster.

Yes we need to up grade our nukes to reduce there yield and improve the guidance systems to be able to take out there target without a excess of collateral damage.

reply to post by ANNED


amazing

the Lockheed Martin UGM-133D-5 is th most accurate weapon available to the US military (aside from the W-87 warhead being reused from the MX in upgraded minuteman III`s)

it has a GPS assisted CEP of around 90meters over 9000 miles.

thats the best they have.


so where do you get a figure of 5 FEET (1.5 meters) from? the USA does not use maneuvering warheads - the moment they are released from the bus is the balistic course they are on.

nuclear bunker buster - such a misnomer;

the best a penetrator can `dig` into rock is around50 meters , using a secant ogive shape with rocket assistance.

uk.youtube.com...

thats a video of a 100KT explosion at a shallow depth of 100 meters - a full breach and is the biggest radioactive contamination of US people in a `test` - the radiation at ground zero was measured at 500 rotegens per hour.

its the sedan shot from operation lowshare.

Originally posted by Karlhungis
We absolutely need this. As it stands right now, we could only destroy the world several times over, but.... what about Mars? Have you thought about that?? We probably don't have enough to destroy the Earth and Mars BOTH several times over. To do that, we need more funding for bigger bombs!

I don't know why civilians are being so selfish right now. So you just gave 700 billion to the banks. So you have lost most of your savings and your houses are being foreclosed on. Surely you can find it in your heart to spare a little more, tighten those belts just a little...teensy bit more so we can fund some new nuclear weapons. If not, then I am afraid that the terrorists have already won.

May God have mercy on your souls..............

[edit on 29-10-2008 by Karlhungis]

Karl you hit it right on the head!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the main issue for the US military is of the russian systems the latest russian silo`s are designed not only to be re-useable , but also are `super hardened` to withstand a 10000psi overpressure AND and spaced around 1800 feet apart;

the silo is the problem - with the cep of 90m , theUS needs to target at least 2 warheads , per silo to hard kill them ; and quite likely 3 to ensure a hard kill - so thats at teh very least 270 of the most accurate warheads available - which constitutes the bulk of the slbm ready force - the US fields 4 warheads per trident (in accordance with START II) and given 16 missiles per boat thats 96 per boat - meaing 3 , fully armed boats just to hit the russian silo systems - and the russians have heavily invested into mobile systemsrather than static ones.