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I thought the plane was in Diego Garcia being retrofitted with a nuclear bomb and re-painted to use in a false flag against the United States?
first let me say the idea that the plane carried nuclear weapon components is ridiculous. but you are wrong about the effective halflife of bomb components when they are speaking of miniature nukes such as "suitcase" bombs. bombs that small cannot go super-critical on their own. there is insufficent neutron flux. they have to have an enhancing dopant. normally this is tritium which has a halflife of about 11 years. so if the tritium decays the bomb won't work as planned. the high explosives will still scatter the nuclear material all over the place though.
originally posted by: ScientificRailgun
a reply to: pikestaff
The Half-life of U-235 is about 700 Million years
The Half-life of Weapons Grade Plutonium (Either Pu-239 or Pu-241) have a half-life that varies greatly. Pu-239 has a half-life of about 14,000 years. Whereas Pu-241 has a half-life of about 15 years.
So really, the only type of weapon that would be "self-disabled" through Radioactive decay would be a weapon made from Pu-241.
While I don't doubt that such weapons exist, the builders of nuclear weapons would likely take longevity of a stored weapon core into account when building the weapon.
originally posted by: stormbringer1701
first let me say the idea that the plane carried nuclear weapon components is ridiculous.
originally posted by: ScientificRailgun
a reply to: pikestaff
The Half-life of U-235 is about 700 Million years
The Half-life of Weapons Grade Plutonium (Either Pu-239 or Pu-241) have a half-life that varies greatly. Pu-239 has a half-life of about 14,000 years. Whereas Pu-241 has a half-life of about 15 years.
So really, the only type of weapon that would be "self-disabled" through Radioactive decay would be a weapon made from Pu-241.
While I don't doubt that such weapons exist, the builders of nuclear weapons would likely take longevity of a stored weapon core into account when building the weapon.
originally posted by: stormbringer1701
Why not assume an explanation with the fewest unnecessary entities involved?
originally posted by: stormbringer1701
first let me say the idea that the plane carried nuclear weapon components is ridiculous. but you are wrong about the effective halflife of bomb components when they are speaking of miniature nukes such as "suitcase" bombs. bombs that small cannot go super-critical on their own. there is insufficent neutron flux. they have to have an enhancing dopant. normally this is tritium which has a halflife of about 11 years. so if the tritium decays the bomb won't work as planned. the high explosives will still scatter the nuclear material all over the place though.
originally posted by: ScientificRailgun
a reply to: pikestaff
The Half-life of U-235 is about 700 Million years
The Half-life of Weapons Grade Plutonium (Either Pu-239 or Pu-241) have a half-life that varies greatly. Pu-239 has a half-life of about 14,000 years. Whereas Pu-241 has a half-life of about 15 years.
So really, the only type of weapon that would be "self-disabled" through Radioactive decay would be a weapon made from Pu-241.
While I don't doubt that such weapons exist, the builders of nuclear weapons would likely take longevity of a stored weapon core into account when building the weapon.
tritium cannot just be placed in the bomb. it has to be diffused evenly through out the other fissile material. this is an extremely technically demanding process on par almost with building a bomb itself. additionally there really only is one place now that can make tritium in sufficient quantities and that is in Russia. Clinton shut our only tritium facility (capable of the quantities required for atomic weapons) down during his presidency. America may be relying on stockpiles but if not our smaller mirv warheads and other mini warheads and ordinance are non functional by now if they rely on tritium to keep the payload weight down.
originally posted by: LittleByLittle
Psynic. I thank you for bringing me a theory that is out of the box and something I had not heard. This brings me back to the days when ATS was a site for exploring theories by adding and removing reasons to examine if theories are plausible.