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Comments: 160 +- Technology: Aging Nuclear Stockpile Good For Decades To Come on Friday November 20, @02:12PM
Posted
by
kdawson
on Friday November 20, @02:12PM
from the still-go-boom dept.
from the still-go-boom dept.
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politics
pickens writes "The NY Times reports that the Jason panel, an independent group of scientists advising the federal government on issues of science and technology, has concluded that the program to refurbish aging nuclear arms is sufficient to guarantee their destructiveness for decades to come, obviating a need for a costly new generation of more reliable warheads, as proposed by former President Bush. Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona and other Republicans have argued that concerns are growing over the reliability of the US's aging nuclear stockpile, and that the possible need for new designs means the nation should retain the right to conduct underground tests of new nuclear weapons. The existing warheads were originally designed for relatively short lifetimes and frequent replacement with better models, but such modernization ended after the US quit testing nuclear arms in 1992. All weapons that remain in the arsenal must now undergo a refurbishment process, known as life extension. The Jason panel found no evidence that the accumulated changes from aging and refurbishment posed any threat to weapon destructiveness, and that the 'lifetimes of today's nuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss of confidence.' But the panel added that federal indifference could undermine the nuclear refurbishment program (as this report from last May illustrates). Quoting the report (PDF): 'The study team is concerned that this expertise is threatened by lack of program stability, perceived lack of mission importance and degradation of the work environment.'"
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God forbid (Score:5, Insightful)
We suddenly discover that 50% of stockpile doesn't detonate, and we only have enough nuclear weapons to annihiliate the earth 20 times over. Sometimes 20 just isn't enough!!
Especially when you factor in Russia's advanced ICBM-intercepting capabilities. /sarcasm
Re:God forbid (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
BTW, great nations can lose tens of millions of dead, many cities, and still recover as did the Soviet Union.
Actually it might even be easier for a country to recover from a few nuclear bombs than it was for the Soviet Union to recover from WW2. The deaths suffered by the Soviet Union (or France in WW1 for a Western example) were disproportionately incurred by young males. It created a demographic imbalance that took at least a generation to correct. The fallout from this affected everything from the economy to romance.
The loss of a few major urban areas would probably result in as many (or more) causalities b
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A brief history of nuclear war... (Score:5, Informative)
we only have enough nuclear weapons to annihiliate the earth 20 times over.
I really only know about the land-based ICBMs, so with the caveat that this doesn't include our SLBMs (Trident) and strategic bombers ...
Back in the height of the Cold War, we were doing stuff like fielding a fleet of 60+ monster Titan IIs, each with a monster 9MT warhead sitting on the tip, plus a fleet of 800 Minuteman-Is, each with a 1.2MT warhead. Those two fleets combined gave us a total yield of about 1.5 GT. We figure, "Drop a couple somewhere in the general vicinity of Moscow, and they've pretty well done their job." But as we refined our delivery technologies, we started to focus more on (relative) precision. Circa 1970, we built the Minuteman III, which could carry three much smaller Mk12A Reentry Vehicles (with the W-78 warhead at about 300-kT), buch was much more acccurate. So we could go for targeted kills on hardened silos without having to level entire cities. We fielded around 500 MMIIIs, giving us about 1,500 W-78 warheads, meaning at 300-kT each they pack a combined yield of around 450 MT. That's certainly a lot, but consider that the Russians actually detonated the "Tsar Bomba [wikipedia.org]" with a yield of about 50 MT by itself, and it certainly didn't come close to destroying 1/9th of the earth. By the 80s, we also had a fleet of 50 Peacekeepers, each with 10 Mk21 RVs carrying the 300-kT W-87 warhead. The Mk21 was the most accurate RV we'd ever built (basically, you could pretty reliably hit a football field). So that's another 500 warheads, for another 150 MT. But note that even with 10 warheads, the PK still only had about a third of the total yield (about 3 MT) of a Titan II with a single warhead (about 9 MT). The PKs and MMIIIs together took us to about 600 MT total yield, and by this time, we were shutting down the Titans IIs. So that's less than half the yield we had at the peak. It's definitely a lot of fire power, but still not enough to scorch the earth 20 times over (or even once over, really). Then with the START I and II treaties, we started ramping way down. We agreed to decommission the MIRVs (Multiple Independently-Targetable Reentry Vehicles) (shame really---it was pretty neat technology), so we started decommissioning the Peacekeepers and dropping the MMIIIs to just a single warhead. Now, we just happened to have about 500 Mk21 RVs from the 50 PKs, and we just happened to have about 500 MMIII delivery vehicles, so we decided to put the best RV on our remaining launcher, and started the SERV program ca. 2005 to retrofit the Mk21 onto the MMIII launch vehicle.
Now that PK decom is complete, the only silo-launched ICBMs in our fleet are about 450 remaining MMIIIs, each with a single Mk21 RV carrying a single W-87 warhead with about a 300 kT yield. That means our current ICBM fleet has a combined yield of about 135 MT. This is not even 3x the yield of Tsar Bomba, and not even 10 times the yield of the U.S.'s biggest single detonation, the Castle Bravo [wikipedia.org] shot with a yield of about 15 MT. It was big, yes, but again, not even close to destroying 1/10th of the earth.
So long story short, we used to have crazy big nuclear arsenals back in the really tense days of the Cold War. Today, we still have a scary big nuclear arsenal, but it has only about 1/10th the destructive power of our previous arsenal. That arsenal is still capable of making life on earth pretty miserable, but it's not going to level the globe.
Parent
"Fixing the bombs fixes them!" (Score:2, Insightful)
Glad to hear that guys. Way to go. Good work telling everyone that fixing things fixes them.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
A program and procedure designed to keep the weaponry usable successfully keeps them usable.
Not a forgone conclusion. Remember, this is the government we're talking about
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Unless, of course, there are non-serviceable parts that are degrading. In other words, verifying that our weapons are able to be fixed for the forseeable future.
For example, if the fissile material or shape charges degrade, you're not going to go about replacing them. You'd just buld new ones, and in that case might as well design a better one from scratch.
Re:"Fixing the bombs fixes them!" (Score:4, Interesting)
My background: ex-ICBM launch officer and part of a team which designed some support equipment
My comment: Bingo. The issue isn't so much the warhead "baby", it's everything else which helps it go boom when, where how, and under whose authority it should go boom.
Almost every device becomes inefficient over time. Material stress, physical degradation and decreased efficiency over time are why you don't see many automobiles manufactured in 1947 still being used as daily transportation. The same applies to supersonic air delivery systems and support equipment.
Intellectually simplistic or downright stupid comments such as the ones which claim we have X number of nukes needed to destroy all life on the planet are lazy and/or suicidal. The same could be said about salt as the US possess far more salt than is necessary to kill every mammal on the planet many times over.
Parent
Re:"Fixing the bombs fixes them!" (Score:4, Funny)
'The same could be said about salt as the US possess far more salt than is necessary to kill every mammal on the planet many times over.
I believe the US agreed never to use this option at the SALT talks back in the 70s.
Parent
Easy solution (Score:4, Funny)
All the U.S. needs to do is pay the Pakistanis and Iranians for the latest nukes.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What's your number? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Story.crash.sequence.jpg [wikipedia.org]
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Jeeese. It spoils it if I have to dumb it down. Plane + wacky terrorist = ICBM
der
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Strapped to their backs? Pussies.
Real men carry them in their crotch [wikipedia.org].
Not atypical (Score:5, Insightful)
Many programs which require significant development, and then get shelved into "production" with no push to advance or modernize fall prey to this. NASA maned spaceflight vehicles is a prime example.
If you only need to do research and development once every 25-50 years you end up starting nearly from scratch every time you decide to upgrade. Now, I'm not advocating some kind of special nuclear bomb advancement program. Still, by the time somebody wants to "replace" these, there will be nobody left who actually worked on them tom begin with. Humans are particularly bad at passing this kind of knowledge over extended time gaps.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
NASA maned spaceflight vehicles is a prime example.
Is this some sort of mission spearheaded by Fabio?
Re:Not atypical (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, as unpolitically correct as it may be, an active nuclear weapons program might be necessary. Complete disarmament is all well and good, and a slow loss of weapons and skills to age could be one way to accomplish that. But complete disarmament isn't worthwhile without permanent disarmament also, and I don't see how that's possible. The knowledge and technology exists, and as the general level of technology in this world increases it will only become easier to build nuclear weapons. Without permanent disarmament (which would be impossible without some form of world government), you have to accept one of these possibilities:
1. A hostile power is nuclear armed and you are not.
2. You are now racing a hostile power to rearm yourself... except they have a headstart, since you only found out they've been building weapons after their program has progressed considerably. And that in turn gives them an incentive to use their weapons before you finish yours...
3. Abandon disarmament and proactively maintain a deterrence force.
Look, the technology to build nuclear weapons is never going to go away. Until we find a technology to neuter these devices without playing deterrence/MAD games, then a continued nuclear weapons program is essential. Otherwise we are locked in a cycle of decay, and panicked rebuilding. I'd rather things be as boring as possible, even if that means the occasional underground bang.
Parent
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Exactly. (Score:2)
Politician: How many of these nukes do we need to keep in our arsenal?
Engineer: How long do they have to last?
Politician: Forever.
Engineer: All of them.
If we knew we were going to be designing/building a new nuke every 10-15 years, then we could decrease our stockpile to the number we need now (whatever we decide that is) without adding on a huge margin to account for obsolescence.
I think we could restart a nuclear program without restarting an arms race with existing nuclear powers provided it was talked o
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1. A hostile power is nuclear armed and you are not.
Well, we are already in that situation, just like many other countries. So it's not like it's a new situation, except it would be for the US.
Feeder Reactors (Score:2)
Probably a pipe dream for a while still, but at least that's one less lobby pushing against building new-styled reactors.
Refurbishing Nukes... (Score:4, Funny)
"Guarantee their Destructiveness" (Score:5, Funny)
Does that mean nukes will now have a new label on them?
"Best if used to initiate Global Armageddon by December 12, 2054"
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Man... (Score:4, Funny)
Can you imagine what the world was like 100 years ago? Where wars were fought on foot and were mostly civil wars, or simple trade disputes? Where mutually assured destruction and worrying how long your nukes will last were never present.
Or go back even further, like 500 years, where the world was a bold new place worth exploring, and if a war were to be fought, it'd be because you want to rescue the pope, or payback for a political insult, or because you were bored...
Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong century. The internet is way over-rated.
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100 years ago? Where wars were fought on foot and were mostly civil wars, or simple trade disputes?
Yeah, like WWI (which started 95 years ago).
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Well, if you were able to challenge anyone who insults you over the net to a duel, pistols drawn at dawn, i'm sure the net would be a much friendlier place.
I'm a pacifist, you insensitive clod!
The Nuke version of Y2K? (Score:3, Interesting)
Y2K was mostly a result of the radical shift in the nature of software development brought about by the IBM 360 and other computers which included a new feature of backward compatibility. Prior to that time it was safe to assume that programs would only live until they needed to be re-written to run on the next generation of computer. So as a result, we had many programs living well past retirement age. This then lead to a sane design decision from the 1950's getting us into trouble 40 years later.
Now we have a similar situation with Nukes. The Test Ban Treaty radically changed the nuclear weapons development environment, and as a result our nukes are now well past their retirement age. They were meant to be replaced, but haven't been.
It is important to note that in both cases, the eventual cost are still WELL below the development and other costs which were avoided.
How convenient (Score:2)
Hey we don't need to do further testing so everybody let's sign a deal saying no one would.
Fast forward a few years..
Hey our stockpiles are ageing. You know what guys, we would like to reserve the rights to do nuclear tests.
What about the Foam? (Score:4, Insightful)
My wife and I toured the museum of stuff that blows up (Bradbury museum?) at Los Alamos on our honeymoon (the site does say "news for nerds", right?).
One of the displays said that special styrofoam-like stuff that holds reactive parts of some in-stockpile nuclear weapons in place has a service life of 10 years, but the weapons using it are 25 or more years old. Meanwhile, they've lost the recipe to make more foam.
I wonder if they're able to refurbish these nukes (and what happens as the foam ages if not).
Re:What about the Foam? (Score:5, Informative)
"Fogbank", widely presumed to be a heavy-metal doped aerogel material.
We can manufacture it again. There was a gap - we couldn't for a while, but it's back in production.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/FOGBANK [wikimedia.org]
Parent
JASON (Score:2)
July, August, September, October, November - so does this indicate that the study is leading up to a nuclear winter?
Re: (Score:2)
More likely an alien invasion [milk.com].
"Good" (Score:2)
Good is such an.... "interesting" term.
Who knew? (Score:2)
Who woulda guessed that nukes come with the same Use-By date as Hostess pastries? Now we know that, also just like those Hostess Twinkies, our nukes are good for decades after those dates. That's awesome news for the Apocalypse survivors, who will have dessert AND won't have to bother making their own M.A.D. devices from scratch.
"Good news, everyone! We found nukes from Fry's time and they're as fresh and tasty as the day they were put in the wrappers!"
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Re:honestty (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, having a nuke can tell others "don't send your nukes my way or I'll respond in kind, and we will both lose". It also deters conventional war because you wouldn't want to go to war with an enemy who has nukes and may use them if the war goes badly.
Not having nukes can invite an attack from an enemy who does have them ("I'll drop my nuke on you, and what you'll do about it?"), also conventional war becomes more possible.
Parent
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Oh yes. You're right. President Obama's concern would be the spotted owl. Just like Nixon didn't launch them because he was worried about their effect on magnetic media.
You sir, are an ass.
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So, you provide a button for Osama Bin Laden (or the favorite Muslim religious fanatic of your choice) to push that would wipe out all the infidels in the USA, Europe, Israel and Russia and China.
Think it wouldn't get pushed? Really?
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the only problem is it could destroy the ISS.
As well as a multitude of other spacecraft.
Re:NPT (Score:4, Insightful)
The NPT was one of the silliest, most useless treaies ever invented. It was signed by people who either had more nukes than they knew what to do with (sort of situation the USA was in), had too little funding to build any more (eg UK) or lacked the funding or will to ever try to get them.
Noone who actually wanted to develop nukes paid the slightest bit of attention to it.
All it did was to get people to keep on doing whatever they were doing anyway.
Useless, pointless and silly.
Butnot as silly as disarming a deterrant when people are actively trying to develop one.
Parent
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You can argue whether the NPT caused (or contributed) to this, but I think that ending the arms race - the continued increase in capabilities by the US and Russia - was a very good thing.
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What if we never even HAD a huge stockpile of nukes, just a huge stockpile of cardboard cutouts made to LOOK like nukes?
Seriously though, it was pointed out that our current arsenal is sufficient to annhilate all life on earth several times over, and STILL people are wetting themselves at the idea that we might not be able to deter our enemies... wtf? How much more "deterred" can they be? I just can't believe that somebody willing to launch nukes when we can kill everything with fire 40 times over would sud
Re:What if nobody knew? (Score:5, Insightful)
> I call this phenomenon "Tom Clancy Syndrome", it's a state of believing that the US military is not
> only better in every way than everyone else anywhere, but that this doesn't give rational people any
> reason to seriously reconsider their half-baked world domination plans.
ROTFL! I think you just hit the nail on the head!
There is a real tendency for people to look back at history for patterns and, lo and behold, if you look hard enough for a pattern, and are willing to ignore enough facts, then, you sure can find patterns.
I think the reality is that people hate war. The world over, nobody really likes getting into wars. Oh, there may be some gung ho kids, or guys who don't know much esle. There are excitement junkies etc. However, in the end, nobody really likes the result. The sacrifice, the bloodshed etc.
Sure, we can be talked into liking it. We can like it in context. Who didn't love that we fought WWII and liberated europe? Who didn't want to see Bin Ladens head on a pike after 9/11? Who can't understand fighting off an invading force?
But there is a difference between being willing to do something, and wanting it to happen.
The trend, that I see, is actually very anti-war. War seems like it was much more popular when it was out of the way. When it took days for the real effects of a battle to get out. When stories of bravery were all that were heard.
The faster information moves.... the less people seem to like war. Nothing eroded support for the Viet-Nam conflict like pictures and stories coming right home from the front lines. Stories of collective punishments, stories of rapes and murders, villages burned, families massacred. This is war, this has always been war. No matter how good we get (and we are much better than ever before by any standard), war is ALWAYS a travesty.
I dare say the internet is the pacifier. The faster information moves, the less freedom troops have to loot, pilliage, and generally act atrociously. The more we see, the less we support. The more apparent the hell, the less apt we are to create it.
I think we should be doing as much as possible to make SURE that EVERY country ends up with their forces as hamstrung by public opinion and internet fueled information leaks as our own is. When any member of the public, in any country can tune in and watch the carnage from any conflict in the world, in real time as heads explode and body parts fly... I predict that the closer to that point we get, the less desire for conflict we will see.
That is, until someone starts buying ad space on soldiers uniforms and they start just fighting for the ad dollars....
er... actually... lets not give them any ideas.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Then the ostrich who takes it's head out of the sand first wins, and everyone else loses.
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#1 there's no strategic advantage to nto knowing whether your nukes work or not. so, this study needs to be done.
#2 in case you haven't noticed, keeping secrets is not exactly what our government is good at. in fact we're horrible at it. if our nukes were paper tigers, word would eventually get out. and if the rest of the world were to suddenly realize that our nukes didn't work, that would probably be horrendously destabilizing revelation, with potentially cataclysmic consequences.