Re: Bombs

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 22:41 -0600 9/7/03, Jim Green wrote:
> When the various terrorist groups (or perhaps college students) try to make
> a nuclear device. is it a fission or fusion device?
Certainly not fusion--way too complicated to build, and they can
achieve their ends with much less.
Probably not even fission--requires highly enriched U-235 (somewhere
in the neighborhood of 90%)  and too hard to trigger plutonium.

The most likely scenario for a terrorist bomb is the so-called "dirty
bomb." Not a nuclear explosion at al, but an ordinary HE bomb
liberally laced with radioactive material, and designed to make a
more or less large area essentially uninhabitable for a considerable
period of time by spewing the radioactive material everywhere.

My personal opinion (and it's worth about what you're paying for it)
is that any of these options are more trouble than they're worth for
terrorists. They can get as much effect as they need for a lot less
effort. After all, 9/11 wasn't that big a deal to pull off. They
could have had the same effect with a small nuke in the basement of
the WTC, but it would have been a whole lot harder to do.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

Never ask someone what computer they use. If they use a Mac, they
will tell you. If not, why embarrass them?
                       --Douglas Adams
******************************************************