Lab officials excited by new H-bomb project

[ECH1969]

For the first time in more than 20 years, U.S. nuclear-weapons scientists are designing a new
H-bomb, the first of probably several new nuclear explosives on the drawing boards.

"We are on the verge of an exciting time," the nation's top nuclear weapons executive, Linton Brooks, said last week at Lawrence Livermore weapons design laboratory.

20 scientists and engineers at the nation's two laboratories for nuclear-explosive design — Livermore and Los Alamos in New Mexico — are in a head-to-head competition to offer designs for the first of the new thermonuclear explosives, termed "reliable replacement warheads" or RRWs.

Administration officials see the new weapons and the plant to make them as "truly transformative".

http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_3480733

[htuttle]

1. "Exciting"?!? "Truly Transformative"?!!????? AN H-BOMB???????

(thud)

[tatertop]

10. We are entering Dr. Strangelove territory

[Orrin_73]

20. you take the words right out of my mouth.

[Benhurst]

2. This sounds like WMDs to me. Better alert the UN! NT

[bullimiami]

3. come on world, wtf already. george bush is building more and newer

nuclear weapons. why?
forget iran and n korea.

the most dangerous man with the most dangerous weapons was not saddam, it is bush.

[Angry Girl]

6. Yup, Bush is a madman with a finger on the big red button

:hide:

[PATRICK]

4. Keep churning out the same

bubbly excited WMD scientists I see. A new transformative generation of scientists would put an end to all this in sundry scientific ways- minus the Neitchzean excitement. How dull, we might survive as a species and live out our mundane lives without knowing the wonders of being transformed into radioactive ash and X-rays. This tribe was alive when Einstein did the human thing and headed for the border.

It's all a come on, like a new detergent or deodorant. Blown sky high is just redundant. But they know what their bosses love to here, don't they?

A smart H-bomb I suppose. Only torches blue people and territory and spares the red. This guy begins like Tom Swift and ends like Teller.

[UpInArms]

5. these people are definitely freaks of nature

:nuke:

[MrModerate]

7. These guys take their "stewardship" role very seriously . . .

And, as the article points out, the bombmakers are bored.

The larger question is, under what scenario now in place do you need more than 9,000 warheads? Sure, there are a lot left in the FSU, but how likely is someone to seize more than a handful of them at a time?

They should be figuring out how to dismantle most of these devices and what to do with the components.

[oneighty]

8. Exciting

For nuclear weapons engineers and scientists I bet it is.

OH BOY! A NEW ADVENTURE.

180

[sweetheart]

13. surely its a gass

To see the latest best,
of thermonulcear finesse,
pass its final test.
What for the withdrawl,
by the rest of us all,
to overcome the drug,
injected by these mugs.
If they've oppenheimer pedegree,
elsewhere employed those men should be.
Why do they take liberty,
to keep such dangerous company,
of so much dirty poisonous means,
murder death and so much pain,
Would they come to learn distain,
more nukes made, must be in vain.

(metre edit)

[oneighty]

14. Federation of American Scientists

Do you ever visit that site?

There is good information there concerning WMDs etc etc. A must for every nuclear curious person.

180

[sweetheart]

16. lanl's got the one for me

lanl's got the nukes for me,
lifesize bombs from nagasaki,
trinity, enewetak, hiroshima too
nukes keep us free, tootle tee too!

:-)

http://www.lanl.gov/museum/exhibits/
- this museum with the cutaway mini cones,
mirvs and cruize missiles right in the zone.

[oneighty]

17. Text

strange text is all I get on that site. No cool pictures.

Scotland. Near the Submarines?

180

[sweetheart]

19. al norte

closer to the largest pile of nuclear waste in the UK
the bane of the future, leaking slowly at dounreay,
noone can account for the future they say,
ten thousands years an awful long time do we pay,
vulcan reactors, op and defense,
not for a future war does conscience,
leaking nuke fuel sanside beach in dounreay,
appearing civilian to fools yet we pray,
leaking reactors, bane of those living by me,
cold war worked at the time, clean up be.

http://www.ukaea.org.uk/sites/dounreay_related_locations_caithness.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dounreay

[meganmonkey]

9. Hypocrisy is on the march...

:puke:

[OneBlueSky]

11. just what we need . . . far more important than Medicare, Medicaid . . .

Social Security, rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, alternative fuels research, etc. . .

damn, I'm glad we have such intelligent and insightful public servents running this country! . . .

:sarcasm:

[clayton72]

12. Well....

I'm going to reserve judgement on this.

FACT: Maintaining our aging nuclear arsenal is expensive as hell, rotten for the environment, etc. The material that goes boom in these things breaks down everything around them. The bombs rot at an alarming pace. (Side note: Forget falling into enemy hands, the Russian arsenal is not being maintained to speak of and has rotted way beyond its service life and is scary as hell. Imagine the old western movies with the shack of aging dynamite). These things have to be completely rebuilt every few years or bad things happen.

FACT: We'd all like to see the arsenal go away in a deep hole forever, but that's NOT going to happen.

Bottom line: It may be politically unpopular to design new bombs, but it should be done to mitigate cost of maintanance, safety, and for environmental concerns.

So my question on all this is what is the purpose of making a series of new h-bomb designs. If it's to make them into smaller packages (bunker buster) that might actually be used, then I'm totally against it. If it's to update the aging arsenal to make the world safer and to save the tax payers money, then I'm totally for it.

I want these damn things to NEVER be used again anywhere on this planet. And I also never want there to be an accident or a leak. The likelyhood of one ever going off due to age is pretty much nil, but bad things can happen never the less.

Do I trust the current administration not to take this opportunity to try and make smaller bombs... NO. I don't trust them at all. But by the time anything could even come close to coming online they'll be out of power, God willing.

[Dudley_DUright]

15. Yes, but if the new warheads require underground testing

then I am totally against it. The ridiculous enthusiasm displayed by the Lawrence Livermore scientist for making yet more of this horrible weapons makes me ashamed to be a physicist. BTW, welcome to DU.

[Canuckistanian]

18. Wonderful. A great advance for civilization.

Let's celebrate. Where are those razor blades?

[banana republican]

21. More Bang for The Buck

get 'em here while there HOT....

You can have your own for as little a $10M per Megaton

Older models are on sale for $5M per Megaton.


All profits donated to Halliburton; the nations largest charity...

[daleo]

22. Could we call him "Dr. H-Bomb"?

In the spirit of cute names like Dr. Germ.