Oldest Weapons-grade Plutonium Found In Dump 552
Urchin writes "Researchers have just identified the first batch of weapons-grade plutonium ever made. The batch was produced as part of the Manhattan Project, but predates Trinity — the first nuclear weapon test — by seven months. It was unearthed in a waste pit at Hanford, Washington, inside a beaten up old safe."
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you have any idea of the kind of balls it took to be a part of this team? Under intense time pressure to work with previously theoretical isotopes that just might save tens of thousands of American lives?
And you judge them? You, with the heat on, comfortable, probably overly fed.
What. A. Putz. You. Are.
Re:when will it (Score:4, Insightful)
When someone sees an image of the Virgin Mary burned into their face from the radiation.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:5, Insightful)
Under intense time pressure to work with previously theoretical isotopes that just might save tens of thousands of American lives?
At the cost of hundreds of thousands of civilian Japanese lives.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have any idea of the kind of balls it took to be a part of this team? Under intense time pressure to work with previously theoretical isotopes that just might save tens of thousands of American lives?
And you judge them? You, with the heat on, comfortable, probably overly fed.
What. A. Putz. You. Are.
Nuclear isotopes were treated with quite a degree of reckleness for a good many years. Also I don't think they were any more heroic then anyone else who assisted with the war effort, although unlike many they were establishing for themselves quite a lucrative career. The men working in coal mines to supply energy to head up the war effort we far more heroic then a bunch of scientists getting paid handsome salarys to do what they like to do anyways, ground breaking science.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you notice that was the last time that Japan attacked anyone? Peace is the result of completely removing your enemy's capacity or desire to wage war. Sad, but true.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:5, Insightful)
peace for the enemy maybe, How long has US spent in the time since then NOT at war?
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:5, Insightful)
>peace for the enemy maybe, How long has US spent in the time since then NOT at war?
With all due respect, there has been nothing to compare with WWII. All states of War are not equal.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell that to the guys in the cemetary, their widows, their children.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:2, Insightful)
WAR IS PEACE.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
These are the principles which have guided the nations of the world since 1984.
And long before that, too - they were just never codified so succinctly before.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:2, Insightful)
Boy, well that sure worked well with Germany post WWI.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:4, Insightful)
That is such a bizarre statement that I'm just going to stare at you in shock.
*stares*
You do know that working Plutonium implosion devices are super-hard to create, right? Unless you have everything precisely calibrated, the bomb will merely fizzle rather than fission. So even with a safe full of Plutonium, it will be a long time until someone sets us up the bomb. (Say, about 92 years? :-P)
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:4, Insightful)
Pit of ten thousand corpses (Score:2, Insightful)
To be exact, the cost was much, much more than "hundreds of thousands of civilian Japanese lives."
Ain't you people ever heard of "Pit of ten thousand corpses?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes
Have you at least seen The bridge on the river Kwai?
It was so sick they gave Nazis the heebie jeebies.
Cheers,
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:3, Insightful)
Weeeel, technically no. You can just create a dirty bomb that merely turns the plutonium into vapour/dust as opposed to trying to go for a fission reaction.
Dirty Bombs are pretty trivial to make.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:4, Insightful)
They're also highly ineffective. Very little fallout can be spread through conventional means. And of the fallout that does spread, you'll kill very few people. The explosion intended to disperse the materials is guaranteed to kill more people than the radioactive fallout.
Rule of thumb: If the fallout is hot enough to kill a large number of people, it's hot enough to completely degrade within hours to months. The only place you're going to find those sorts of materials is inside a live reactor. For obvious reasons, it's not really feasible to get a hold of such materials.
Worst case scenario, you give a half-dozen people lung cancer. Not exactly an effective weapon.
Re:Pit of ten thousand corpses (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:1, Insightful)
If Hirohito cared about human lives at all, regardless of nationality, the USA may not have had a chance to test the atom bomb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes
Old dude should have been rooming with Hitler a long time ago instead of eating sushi off naked bellies.
Cheers,
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:2, Insightful)
Germany lost WWI, but hadn't absolutely completely lost in the way they had in WWII.
Thus, that is one reason the German populace was so angry about German surrender, not to mention anger about the harsh punishments mentioned in Versailles Treaty (France/Britain wanted these, US President Wilson didn't). This is anger that Hitler effectively tapped into, throwing in all sorts of virulent & murderous bigotry for bad measure. (see, a *relevant* invocation of Godwin's Law)
Parent is not insightful (Score:2, Insightful)
Germans didn't believe they lost, they believed they were betrayed. After WWII, they had a pretty good idea that they lost and lost badly and lost the will to fight any further.
There was a whole study (Score:5, Insightful)
done on this, I think back in the 60's. They concluded that the actual likely casualties were much lower on both sides. Most of Japan's Army was in China or isolated in various places. The Allies had TOTAL air and sea superiority, so they could outflank any defense along the coast and prevent any movement or concentration of enemy forces, or even resupply. At that point there was basically no oil anywhere in Japan.
This may not have been as apparent to the Allies in 1945 however. We can endlessly argue one way or the other about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The truth is they attacked us and showed no mercy and we fought back against them with everything we had. If you have a guy on the ropes and he isn't quite down yet you step up and hit him again, as hard as you can.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:5, Insightful)
Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire by Richard B. Frank is a far better book and better researched.
The book you mention is interesting, but the author in that book appears to have an agenda that the use of the atomic bomb was unnecessary; I would submit that the Americans insisting on unconditional surrender is the key factor in both Germany and Japan's peaceful re-emergence as a major economic power rather than a military power.
Mostly I reject the thesis that the use of an atomic bomb in WW2 was ex facie immoral. Remember, this was the war that produced genocide against Jews, Gypsies, Ukrainians, Chinese and other peoples on the basis of ethnicity. The firebombing of Tokyo produced more causalities than the atomic bomb, so I think the historical context supports the idea that the Americans did not break any legal or moral taboos of the time (such as the ban on chemical warfare).
Remember, the atomic bomb was developed for use against the Nazi's; they had the good (or bad depending on your viewpoint) luck of surrendering to the Allies first, rendering the use of the A-bomb unnecessary.
I think the discussion at this point is just that. No one really understands why the war ended how or when it did; in my opinion, the use of these weapons was warranted and in retrospect left Japan infinitely better off 20 years after the war was over.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:5, Insightful)
All states of War are not equal.
Tell that to the guys in the cemetary, their widows, their children.
Believe me, all states of war are equal when you're on the wrong end of an enemy weapon.
Well, any state of war is bad (I think that's your point), but I offer you 416,000 [wikipedia.org] examples of why "all states of war are equal" is a mistake to think. Compare that to the current war's 5,000ish [wikipedia.org] figure and you can better visualize the point of the GGP.. BTW, figures are fatal U.S. military casualties only
Fishbowl's opinion remains true in my eyes - WWII does not compare to anything since and there is indeed a 'spectrum' in regard to the 'state of war'. War is war, but it is not the same every time -- Some wars are more heinous than others.
Here's a quick synopsis of casualties in major U.S wars [infoplease.com].
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, but... (Score:1, Insightful)
> Dirty Bombs are pretty trivial to make.
They're far less deadly. Scary, but not that deadly. You're more likely to increase the incidence of cancer in some population than to kill a lot of people, though you'll scare tons of people half to death, I guess.
We've gone from being ridiculously cavalier about radiation to paranoid. I wish there were more of a middle ground.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet the first time a team of engineers tried to build one, it worked. They didn't even have a supercomputer to do simulations on.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:5, Insightful)
As a terror weapon, it works. The people who do not understand the difference vastly outnumber the ones who do.
BOMB? Radiation!?! SERIOUS PANIC
Will it actually rack up a large body count? No. But the resulting panic (OMG terrorist Radiation!!) would be far, far worse than anything we've yet seen.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:5, Insightful)
You said "Currently the stored (highly radioactive) waste is leaking into the groundwater, but has not yet reached the river."
But I showed you that it has already. Operational or not - and you didn't mention that at all in your post; it's still there, and given that the site hasn't been cleaned up, it is still a problem, neh? Did it just stop leaking? Leakage is still occurring and will likely get worse as the containers buried there, and the liquid waste facilities, continue to deteriorate.
It's also highly likely that there's a lot of that waste, even from the time period you refer to, sequestered in sediments and other places along the river.
I guess I'm wondering what point you're trying to make in your reply. "That's not the waste I was talking about" sounds like "that's not the droids you are looking for."
Not yet? Are you implying that Hanford isn't a major problem, "yet"? It's been a superfund site since the late 80s, and is not-so-debatedly our worse radioactive dump site. Why it hasn't been seriously dealt with, considering it's location and the cities downstream, and the sheer amount of waste stored there, escapes me.
I'm not being pedantic. Hanford is a horrible problem and we should have put major funding into cleaning it up back in the 80s, when the problem was recognized. I'm old enough to remember the news and science journal reports back when it started becoming a concern - decades late wrt to our knowledge about the dangers, as far as I'm concerned.
That's what got my ire up about this story - finding an old Manhattan Proj era safe with near-critical mass material in it just "buried" at the site - likely lost thru oversight and secrecy, and we're apparently just getting that deep into digging this stuff up? Obviously our cleanup/superfund programs are underfunded or not being done competently. (Not news, but still aggravating)
So make yourself clear, if you can.
Yeah, I'm angry. Not at you, specifically, but at the ignoramuses who have and continue to bury problems like this because it's "not their problem" - or, "it's not a /(our) problem...yet" or "we don't want to pay money to fix it, let our kids do it." Bullshit. Metric tons of bullshit. ... superfund sites seem to exist at the whim of the current administration. Which is a travesty. We as a country need to own up to our past problems, and just fix them. Which will be costly, but not as costly as ceasing to exist as as a nation, culture, or society, or even a responsible political entity. If there is such a thing.
Not sorry if I seem to be ranting. Someone has to say it. I just wish I knew how to say it more clearly.
SB
Re:Nuclear Bombing of Hiroshima/Nagasaki (Score:3, Insightful)
Honestly, it seems up in the air as to whether the A-bombs were necessary historically speaking, and some of the estimates and data have apparently been lost to time/are still classified.
Not at all. Go read up on the fire raids the lead up to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They caused far more total destruction and loss of life than those two atom bombs did ... and that still wasn't enough to force an unconditional surrender. To the Germans, who were willing to acknowledge that they'd fucking lost the war it was a no-brainer, but the Japanese were a much tougher nut to crack.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:1, Insightful)
Could it be that this stands as proof that humanity is not competent enough to handle nuclear materials? Is there any reason to really believe that we are better at taking long term precautions today?
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:3, Insightful)
The only effective part of it is the hysteria, not the actual effects. So many people have been fed so much nonsense about the dangers of radiation over the years that I am sure wide-spread evacuations would be mandated. That does make it effective as a terror weapon - never mind the reality. There are still those who refer to as 3-mile-island as a "tragedy" and a "disaster" when in fact no one has been or ever will have been negatively affected by it. Aside those who experience the high electricity bills, and pollution side-effects, from abandoning nuclear energy over the hysteria.
Brett
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes there were factions which didn't want peace but the simple fact is that Roosevelt wasn't even willing to look at the surrender terms.
As others have pointed out, Japan didn't offer "surrender". They were offering what was effectively nothing more than a cease-fire.
The Japanese have a multitude of ways to say "yes", and many of them actually are mean "no", albeit politely. Roosevelt wasn't willing to accept anything less than unconditional surrender, because it would have inevitably been re-interpreted into something less than the original agreement.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:1, Insightful)
I was under the impression the "gun" type was abandoned because:
1) low yield, not enough BANG! You need a thermonuclear warhead for that.
2) difficult to weaponize/deliver - large size / weight and not easy to carry via a ballistic missile type launch vehicle.
3) fixed yield, modern nukes are more flexible and can be adjusted realtime for the yield based on ratios of tritium and deuterium used in the device.
I read somewhere that the materials science used in the manufacturing of the DU shell and the plutonium "pit" are amazing. IIRCC, if you enlarged the radius of the pit to that of the earth, the hills and valleys would only be a couple inches high.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:3, Insightful)
""Hanford has not been cleared up and is leaking. Read about it on wikipedia. The numbers on there are talking about a million gallons of highly radioactive waste that has not yet entered the river. However bad it is now and/or was then, it has the potential to get much worse in the near future."
Funny, that's exactly what I was saying ;)
We're in agreement, we're just not communicating.
Probably the most common problem, nowadays.
Most of those storage containers have, what, a roughly fifty year projected 50/50 containment life? Right about now, bar a few years ;(
The sad thing about it, my friend, is that the discussion about the hazards, and the continual avoidance of responsibility for cleanup, has been going on for longer than you or I have been alive (likely, unless you're in your late 70s)
When do we make a serious effort at fixing it?
Yeah, I thought so.
Cheers :)
SB
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:4, Insightful)
If they have nuclear power, they don't have to burn petrol for electricity, which means more is available on the market and so the price can go down for us. It's kind of like us giving them the means to carry out the advise of "don't get high off your own supply."
p.s. I know you're talking about dropping the bomb on them, but seriously... why not let them have nuclear power stations?
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:5, Insightful)
BTW, figures are fatal U.S. military casualties only
I think that's exactly the problem with this line of discussion.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, any state of war is bad (I think that's your point), but I offer you 416,000 [wikipedia.org] examples of why "all states of war are equal" is a mistake to think. Compare that to the current war's 5,000ish [wikipedia.org] figure and you can better visualize the point of the GGP.. BTW, figures are fatal U.S. military casualties only
... and compare that to drunk driving [alcoholalert.com]: In 2006, there were 13,470 fatalities in crashes involving an alcohol-impaired driver (BAC of .08 or higher) ... or heart disease, or cancer... relatively, this war has pretty light casualties.
OTOH, comparing those numbers to the risk of a terrorist attack on US soil, I have to say, who cares about homeland security? I'm much more likely to be hit by a drunk driver than I am to be attacked by a terrorist.
Re:Japan wanted to surrender and USA didn't accept (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia can say whatever it wants. The truth is this:
We gave them an ultimatum saying were would bomb the shit out of them unless they agreed to us. They said no.
We bombed hiroshima.
Then, we airdropped leaflets and told them that we would do it again unless they surrendered. They said no.
We bombed nagasaki.
Even _then_ the majority of the military elite wanted to keep fighting. It wasn't until 5 days later that the emporer decide to capitulate.
Fuck this shit about 'oh, the poor poor japanese' The alternative was for us to invade japan with troops (estimates at the time said it would take 1,000,000 troops to take it). Yeah, it sucks that we bombed them, yeah, it was terrible for the people that had to experience it, but we were in a war where the loser was going to be vanquished. If I were the president at the time and I had a choice between bombing some cities and conceivable losing a significant percentage of 1,000,000 of my own citizens, I would make the same choice.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, I didn't know that people who are about to be vanquished get to choose the terms of their surrender.
Let's suppose for a second you're right. The japanese did actually want to surrender before we nuked them the first time.
After we told them the conditions for their surrender between hiroshima and nagasaki, why didn't they surrender then? AFTER nagasaki, why did it take them 5 days so surrender?
We gave them the terms, they said no. We kept fighting. It's our fault?
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:3, Insightful)
They didn't have supercomputers at Los Alamos when designing the first plutonium implosion bomb. They did all the calculations by hand, the 'computer' was various teams of women each doing one step of the calculation before passing it on to the next person.
I've got more computing power sitting beside my desk right now than they had on the entire bloody planet in 1969. A plutonium implosion device is possible, if you have the will and the materials to do it. It won't be easy, but it won't be impossible, either.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what happens when your emperor takes the bait and tries standing up for his own people living on American soil.
I am willing to bet that most of us haven't been there when this all happened, so I'd say we should all just shut the fuck up about dishing out blame, no?
Re:Could have been worse (Score:3, Insightful)
Was one requirement of the dumbass's job that he be psychic, and be able to locate radioactive materials in office supply dumps simply thru sheer concentration?
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:1, Insightful)
You just quoted wiki to prove a research point. I can't mod you either way, but that's the point at which I stopped reading.
Re:Mystery Pits (Score:3, Insightful)
The Manhattan Project was the ultra top secret burn before reading war secret of WW2. It was so secret that they weren't allowed to brief Vice President Truman on it until he became President Truman. It was so secret that Truman's Senate fraud investigating committee was called off to the side and ordered to drop any and all lines of inquiry that had any connection whatsoever to Manhattan. It was so secret that they couldn't even investigate who had leaked the name of the project for fear it would 'out' other facts as well.
And you wanted to show the Japanese this secret? It wouldn't happen no matter what. There was a war going on, for the survival of the planet.