The Bomb for Beginners: A DIY Guide to Going Nuclear - SPIEGEL O. Tired of being bossed around? Want your neighbors to treat you with more respect? Want to play in the majors? If so, you have to have your own nukes. Impossible? Not really. Granted, if your country is a signatory of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), as most countries are, the constraints on your bomb building are considerable. Inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are difficult to circumvent. The IAEA's increased awareness means that you have to be imaginative. First, begin developing a civilian nuclear program. As you start building your civilian nuclear infrastructure, which should include nuclear plants to produce plutonium and/or uranium and appropriate nuclear research facilities, aim for the full fuel cycle: mining, milling, conversion, enrichment.
But the notion of getting caught need not concern you at this stage. Getting Off the Ground In order to run your secret military program, you need to buy a lot of stuff. Too bad A. Keep track of the news. Nukes Are Not the Best Way to Stop an Asteroid | Wired Science. Nuclear weapons could be used to stop earth-bound asteroids, but in most instances, they are not the best option, said Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart during a public lecture this Wednesday in San Francisco. The venerable scientist explained that all but the largest heavenly bodies can be redirected by rear-ending or towing them with an unmanned spacecraft.
But last year, NASA issued a report stating that using nukes is the best strategy to prevent a catastrophic collision with earth. Although Schweickart has a great deal of faith in the agency, enough to risk his life piloting their lunar lander, he feels that they issued the misleading statement — under immense political pressure. It was a nefarious excuse to put nuclear weapons in space. His own organization, the B612 Foundation, intends to use gentler tactics to alter the course of an asteroid by 2015. The astronaut compares our current situation to standing blindfolded in a batting cage. See Also: 7 (Crazy) Civilian Uses for Nuclear Bombs | Wired Science. You might think of nuclear weapons as just the most fearsome weapon ever invented by humans, but that would be seriously underplaying their versatility.
Nuclear weapons aren’t only good for leveling cities, they’ve also been used throughout the last 50 years for a variety of civilian purposes like stimulating natural gas production — and all kinds of innovative proposals have been slapped on the table to harness the awesome power of the nuclear blast for economic benefit.
The U.S. government sponsored Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to come up with and research ideas for what was known as Project Plowshare (see video). While Livermore scientists tested new ideas through about a dozen explosions, Soviet scientists had a much larger program known as "Program No. 7 — Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy" which detonated more than 120 nukes to aid civilian aims. Here’s a rundown of ideas, both tried or just proposed, for how we could put nuclear weapons to work outside war. Nuclear-Weapon Drivers Found Drinking on Job.
PrintShareEmailTwitterFacebookLinkedIn A new U.S. Energy Department report says that drivers of trucks used to carry nuclear weapons and parts were occasionally intoxicated while carrying out their duties, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Nov. 11). In one 2009 case, police stopped and briefly handcuffed two drivers from one convoy near a bar, according to the report from Energy Department Assistant Inspector General Sandra Bruce.
There were 16 drinking incidents involving Secure Transportation Office personnel from 2007 to 2009, the report says (Associated Press/Washington Post, Nov. 22). "Of the 16 incidents, two were of the greatest concern because they occurred during secure transportation missions while the agents were in Rest Overnight Status, which occurs during extended missions where convoy vehicles are placed in a safe harbor and agents check into local area hotels," according to the report (U.S. Energy Department report, Nov. 17). Ifc Warning Signs Your Teen May Be Enriching Uranium | The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Onion News Network.