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by dreamcompiler
1967 days ago
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When I said "you absolutely would not make it explode" I meant a nuclear explosion; I thought that was clear but perhaps not. I said you might be able to extract the radioactive materials by using brute force. You might also be able to extract the high explosives, but so what? There are far easier ways to obtain high explosive materials. The fact that you could conceivably extract the radioactive materials is why the weapons are very well guarded. The point is that if you somehow stole a weapon, you wouldn't be able to use it as designed. The engineering process for these things is highly adversarial. Layers and layers of red teams trying to break them in the conceptual phase, the design phase, the build phase, and the deployment phase. Plus coding extremely detailed computer models of the weapons and their usage scenarios and trying to make things fail in simulation. On the fastest supercomputers in the world. https://www.newswise.com/articles/sandia-weapons-program-mee... https://www.hpcwire.com/2020/10/01/hpe-strikes-deal-to-provi... |
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> If you somehow got your hands on a modern nuclear weapon and you had a team of PhD engineers, a year of time, and the best tools in the world, you might be able to get the radioactive material out, but you absolutely would not make it explode.
I'm saying that there's no "might" about extracting the radioactive materials. Nor do you need "a team of PhD engineers, a year of time, and the best tools in the world". An angle grinder and a couple days should suffice.
As for making it explode, that may indeed be very difficult, but I am not highly confident given the military's general attitude and track record. Hopefully my cynicism is unfounded, but supercomputer simulations primarily designed to ensure that aging weapons still function doesn't really help with security.