Al Qaeda Plans Nuke Attack On US

[Plane]

Testing for example , they wouldn't need a garuntee that it would work .

Possibly, but I don't see what part of "It's not something you can gin up with spare parts and power tools in your garage. It requires millions of dollars, a safe haven and advanced equipment--plus people with specialized skills, lots of time and a willingness to die for the cause." is implausible. Are you suggesting a nuclear weapon can be made with spare parts and power tools in someone's garage?

Certainly ,it is not as coplicated as restoring a 67 mustang. The nessacery parts are common , except for the fission fuel.

Fission fuel is not availible in Iraq , but Iran has some , Packistan has some , the former Soviet -stans might have some.

[Universe Prince]

Certainly ,it is not as coplicated as restoring a 67 mustang. The nessacery parts are common , except for the fission fuel.

Upon what do you base that statement?

[Plane]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/washington/01missing.html

The office in charge of protecting American technical secrets about nuclear weapons from foreign spies is missing 20 desktop computers........

http://www.inklingmagazine.com/articles/secret-nuke-reactor-papers-opened-for-first-time-since-wwii/

.........a laundry list of sensitive atomic science, which include directions on how to safely conduct a nuclear chain reaction and how to get plutonium from uranium.


http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200506/s1382497.htm

Mr Karlsch stirred controversy earlier this year when he published a book in Germany, Hitlers Bombe, in which he claimed that the Nazis had successfully tested a primitive nuclear device in the last days of World War II as Allied troops were closing in on both sides.

The book says the device, which was tested in Thuringia, eastern Germany, killed several hundred prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates.........................................

Unlike the US-led Manhattan Project, which harnessed thousands of people and several billion dollars to devise the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the German effort amounted to no more than a few dozen scattered scientists.

http://www.cccoe.k12.ca.us/abomb/physics.htm


The volume of U-235 used in the first atomic bombs could be held in your hands.


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The Manhatan Project was needed to get the first successfull and dpendable bomb together , but you don't need the brains of the Wright Brothers to build an Airplane nowadays , nor do you need to be Henry Ford to assemble a car. The knoledge is discovered ad the materiel is created , only one element is really difficult to get.

Unless you run a reactor , then you can produce a little bit constantly.

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http://ftp.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RS22542.pdf

Reprocessing refers to the chemical separation of fissionable uranium and plutonium
from irradiated nuclear fuel. The World War II-era Manhattan Project developed
reprocessing technology in the effort to build the first atomic bomb. With the
development of commercial nuclear power after the war, reprocessing was considered
necessary because of a perceived scarcity of uranium. Breeder reactor technology, which
transmutes non-fissionable uranium into fissionable plutonium and thus produces more
fuel than consumed, was envisioned as a promising solution to extending the nuclear fuel
supply. Commercial reprocessing attempts, however, encountered technical, economic,
and regulatory problems. In response to concern that reprocessing contributed to the
proliferation of nuclear weapons, President Carter terminated federal support for
commercial reprocessing.

[Plane]

Certainly ,it is not as coplicated as restoring a 67 mustang. The nessacery parts are common , except for the fission fuel.

Upon what do you base that statement?

I am going to try and answer this ,all the information I know is publicly availible.

You need a cannon , and enough Uranium 235 to create a critical mass.

That is about all you really need , once you have these the details are reletively  easy.

Nothing you need to know is absent from the internet , the only bit of hardware that is difficult to obtain is the fission fuel.

Look at the bits I found with a few minutes of Googleing, you could do better if you were to devote a few hours to the search.


Look at this one.

http://peswiki.com/index.php/Nuclear_fission

Viable fission bomb designs are within the capabilities of bright undergraduates (see John Aristotle Phillips), but nuclear fuel to realize the designs is thought to be difficult to obtain (see uranium enrichment and nuclear fuel cycle).''''

[Universe Prince]

from the aforementioned paper, "The Atomic Terrorist: Assessing the Likelihood":

It is essential to note, however, that making a bomb is an extraordinarily difficult task. Thus, a set of counterterrorism and nuclear experts interviewed in 2004 by Dafna Linzer for the Washington Post pointed to the "enormous technical and logistical obstacles confronting would-be nuclear terrorists, and to the fact that neither al-Qaeda nor any other group has come close to demonstrating the means to overcome them." Allison nonetheless opines that a dedicated terrorist group, al-Qaeda in particular, could get around all the problems in time and eventually steal, produce, or procure a "crude" bomb or device, one that he however acknowledges would be "large, cumbersome, unsafe, unreliable, unpredictable, and inefficient" (2004, 97; see also Bunn and Wier 2006, 139; Pluta and Zimmerman 2006, 61). In his recent book, Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor, William Langewiesche spends a great deal of time and effort assessing the process by means of which a terrorist group could come up with a bomb. Unlike Allison, he concludes that it "remains very, very unlikely. It's a possibility, but unlikely." [...] More than a decade ago Allison boldly insisted that it would be "easy" for terrorists to assemble a crude bomb if they could get enough fissile material (Allison et al. 1996, 12).13 Atomic scientists, perhaps laboring under the concern, in Langewiesche's words, that "a declaration of safety can at any time be proved spectacularly wrong" (2007, 49), have been comparatively restrained in cataloguing the difficulties terrorists would face in constructing a bomb. But physicists Wirz and Egger have published a paper that does so, and it concludes that the task "could hardly be accomplished by a subnational group" (2005, 501). They point out that precise blueprints are required, not just sketches and general ideas, and that even with a good blueprint they "would most certainly be forced to redesign" (2005, 499-500). The process could take months or even a year or more (Pluta and Zimmerman 2006, 62), and in distinct contrast with Allison, they stress that the work, far from being "easy," is difficult, dangerous, and extremely exacting, and that the technical requirements "in several fields verge on the unfeasible." They conclude that "it takes much more than knowledge of the workings of nuclear weapons and access to fissile material to successfully manufacture a usable weapon" (2005, 501-2).

[Plane]

from the aforementioned paper, "The Atomic Terrorist: Assessing the Likelihood":

Learned Men can pull your leg.

A critical mass of Uranium is hard to get , but not if you are really good freinds of someone that has some already.

You get two sub critical masses , combine them at high speed , that is about all there is to it.



http://www.echo.net/~jkarpf/atomic/atomic01.html

[Universe Prince]

Learned Men can pull your leg.

Physician, heal thyself.

A critical mass of Uranium is hard to get , but not if you are really good freinds of someone that has some already.

You get two sub critical masses , combine them at high speed , that is about all there is to it.

I don't believe you. Again from the aforementioned paper:

Younger has more recently made a similar argument:     it would be wrong to assume that nuclear weapons are now easy to make....I am constantly amazed when self-declared "nuclear weapons experts," many of whom have never seen a real nuclear weapon, hold forth on how easy it is to make a functioning nuclear explosive....While it is true that one can obtain the general idea behind a rudimentary nuclear explosive from articles on the Internet, none of these sources has enough detail to enable the confident assembly of a real nuclear explosive (2007, 86, 88).15     Although he remains concerned that a terrorist group could buy or steal a nuclear device or be given one by an established nuclear country (2007, 93), Younger is quick to enumerate the difficulties the group would confront when trying to fabricate one on their own. He stresses that uranium is "exceptionally difficult to machine" while "plutonium is one of the most complex metals ever discovered, a material whose basic properties are sensitive to exactly how it is processed. Both need special machining technology that has evolved through a process of trial and error." Others contend the crudest type of bomb would be "simple and robust" and "very simple" to detonate (Bunn and Wier 2006, 140). Younger disagrees:     Another challenge...is how to choose the right tolerances. "Just put a slug uranium into a gun barrel and shoot it into another slug of uranium" is one deception of how easy it is to make a nuclear explosive. However, if the gap between the barrel and the slug is too tight, then the slug may stick as it is accelerated down the barrel. If the gap is too big, then other more complex, issues may arise. All of these problems can be solved by experimentation, but this experimentation requires a level of technical resources that, until recently, few countries had. How do you measure the progress of an explosive detonation without destroying the equipment doing the measurement? How do you perform precision measurements on something that only lasts a fraction of a millionth of a second? (2007, 89)     All this work would have to be carried out in utter secret, of course, even while local and international security police are likely to be on the intense prowl. "In addition to all the usual intelligence methods," note the Los Alamos scientists, "the most sensitive technical detection equipment availablewould be at their disposal," and effective airborne detectors used to prospect for uranium have been around for decades and "great improvement in such equipment have been realized since" (Mark et al. 1987, 60). As Milhollin presents the terrorists' problem, "the theft of the uranium would probably be discovered soon enough, and it might be only a short matter of time before the whole world showed up on their doorstep" (2002, 48).16 Moreover, points out Langewiesche, people in the area may observe with increasing curiosity and puzzlement the constant coming and going of technicians unlikely to be locals (2007, 65-69).17 In addition, the bombmakers would not be able to test the product to be sure they were on the right track (Linzer 2004; Mark et al. 1987, 64).

I'm no expert, but this does correspond with what I understand about the process. I remain extremely skeptical that the science, development and construction of nuclear weapons is as easy, less complicated than "restoring a 67 mustang", as you seem to be claiming.

[Michael Tee]

<<A critical mass of Uranium is hard to get , but not if you are really good freinds of someone that has some already.>>

That's totally absurd.  This isn't borrowing sugar from a neigbour to bake a cake.  As Charles de Gaulle said, "Nations don't have friends, they have interests."  In whose national interest would it be to hand over nuclear fuel that a nation probably had to sacrifice the equivalent of 20,000 left testicles for, in order to give some raggedy-assed band of crazies a shot at nuking the U.S. once and unleashing a torrential shitstorm of a counterstrike that could anihilate whole countries, including the "friendly" donor?  That's about the most asinine idea I've heard all night.

<<You get two sub critical masses , combine them at high speed , that is about all there is to it.>>

That's also bullshit.  They're usually combined by a small, controlled explosion.  Too much force and the whole fuel core is blown apart before the chain reaction starts.  Too little force and you never reach critical mass.  The best scientists and mathematicians in the world including many Nobel Prize winners working non-stop around the clock for the Manhattan Project took months or maybe years to figure out this little detail, and you think that al Qaeda's brilliant scientific minds are just going to duplicate the Manhattan Project's research?  rotsa ruck.  There are plenty of other little details for the "bright undergrads" to figure out (I gotta tell you the link in the article to John Aristotle Phillips, apparent source of the "bright undergrad" remark, did not work), details such as the metallurgical composition of the core capsule, the actual mechanism by which the controlled explosion drives the two halves of the fuel core together and other stuff I can't recall.

Unfortunately, due to the link, I can't evaluate the source of the "bright undergrads" remark, but even if it's correct, the problem of getting the nuclear fuel remains insoluble.  Your idea of getting it from one's friends is beyond ludicrous.

[Plane]

However, if the gap between the barrel and the slug is too tight, then the slug may stick as it is accelerated down the barrel. If the gap is too big, then other more complex, issues may arise.

This is a really good example of leg pulling, think about it.

Is casting a Bullet ,to fit a barrell, a rare skill?

It is true that one would have to protect the Uranium from Oxigen while it was melted , that makes the difficulty equal to working in Magmeisium but not so difficult as titainium.

[Plane]

<<A critical mass of Uranium is hard to get , but not if you are really good freinds of someone that has some already.>>

That's totally absurd.  This isn't borrowing sugar from a neigbour to bake a cake.  As Charles de Gaulle said, "Nations don't have friends, they have interests."  In whose national interest would it be to hand over nuclear fuel that a nation probably had to sacrifice the equivalent of 20,000 left testicles for, in order to give some raggedy-assed band of crazies a shot at nuking the U.S. once and unleashing a torrential shitstorm of a counterstrike that could anihilate whole countries, including the "friendly" donor?  That's about the most asinine idea I've heard all night.

<<You get two sub critical masses , combine them at high speed , that is about all there is to it.>>

That's also bullshit.  They're usually combined by a small, controlled explosion.  Too much force and the whole fuel core is blown apart before the chain reaction starts.  Too little force and you never reach critical mass.  The best scientists and mathematicians in the world including many Nobel Prize winners working non-stop around the clock for the Manhattan Project took months or maybe years to figure out this little detail, and you think that al Qaeda's brilliant scientific minds are just going to duplicate the Manhattan Project's research?  rotsa ruck.  There are plenty of other little details for the "bright undergrads" to figure out (I gotta tell you the link in the article to John Aristotle Phillips, apparent source of the "bright undergrad" remark, did not work), details such as the metallurgical composition of the core capsule, the actual mechanism by which the controlled explosion drives the two halves of the fuel core together and other stuff I can't recall.

Unfortunately, due to the link, I can't evaluate the source of the "bright undergrads" remark, but even if it's correct, the problem of getting the nuclear fuel remains insoluble.  Your idea of getting it from one's friends is beyond ludicrous.

Plutonium requires circuitry and explosive lenses that produce an implosion , that is very difficult , Uranium does not require an implosion just that two sub critical masses be brought to gether at a rate greater than the rate that they can repel themselves , if you made a hammer and anvil out of highly enriched Uranium smacking them together by hand would produce an explosion , but not an optimum explosion , the explosion would be random in its output and tend to be on the small side , increaseing the speed at which they approach each other makes the process more dependable and yeild more , if they are in full contact before the chain reaction occurs the exposion will be optimised .

It is rediculous to state that the sub critical masses must be very finely machined , they are slammed together with a lot of force , all the needed  shapeing could happen right there. It is simple to back up the Bullet portion with a shaped steel Hammer and the anvil portion with a shaped steel socket , even if the two sub critical masses were simple rectangles , they would become an optimised sphere for the required instant.

[Plane]

John Aristotle Phillips

Without benefit of Google

In 1977, he became known as the A-Bomb Kid while attending Princeton University as a junior undergraduate when he designed a nuclear weapon using publicly-available books and papers.

Phillips was an underachieving student who played the tiger mascot at Princeton games. Hoping to stay at the school, he proposed a term paper for a seminar on nuclear proliferation outlining the design for an atomic bomb similar to the Nagasaki weapon. According to Phillips' supervisor Freeman Dyson, a renowned physicist, and professor Harold Feiveson, who held the seminar, Phillips' design was not functional[1], and the story was widely circulated in exaggerated form. Nevertheless, the Federal Bureau of Investigation confiscated Phillips's term paper and a mock-up he had constructed in his dormitory room. Phillips published his story together with a co-author, David Michaelis, as Mushroom: The True Story of the A-Bomb Kid (ISBN 0-671-82731-6 / ISBN 0-688-03351-2).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aristotle_Phillips

[Plane]

That's totally absurd.  This isn't borrowing sugar from a neigbour to bake a cake.  As Charles de Gaulle said, "Nations don't have friends, they have interests."  In whose national interest would it be to hand over nuclear fuel that a nation probably had to sacrifice the equivalent of 20,000 left testicles for, in order to give some raggedy-assed band of crazies a shot at nuking the U.S. once and unleashing a torrential shitstorm of a counterstrike that could anihilate whole countries, including the "friendly" donor?  That's about the most asinine idea I've heard all night.

Why indeed did India and Packistan and Iraq and very probably Iran want these useless items ?

The agenda of each Nation is diffrent , if there were a Nation whose agenda included causeing harm to the USA (I know this isn't likely because all nations love us) a terrorist would just be a delivery system.

[Amianthus]

If that were easy, one would have already gone missing.

Did the Russians ever find those 18 that went missing a dozen or so years ago?

[Amianthus]

The best scientists and mathematicians in the world including many Nobel Prize winners working non-stop around the clock for the Manhattan Project took months or maybe years to figure out this little detail, and you think that al Qaeda's brilliant scientific minds are just going to duplicate the Manhattan Project's research?

Well, to be honest, the Manhattan Project was doing their math on paper.

A computer existed at the time and would have sped up their work immensely, but it was unknown to the engineers working on the Manhattan Project because it was also top secret and compartmentalized. The Navy was using it to perform ballistics calculations.

I believe that I read somewhere that al Qaeda uses personal computers for encryption algorithms that were unknown at the time of the Manhattan Project, because the calculations were too difficult to perform by hand. Is this not true?

[Michael Tee]

Well, I realized after posting that computers had become much more widely available and computing power vastly increased since the days of the Manhattan Project.  However, I didn't bother to modify my post  because I recalled reading somewhere that John von Neumann, one of the project's star mathematicians, DID have access to the most powerful computer of the day when he was at Los Alamos.  It was my understanding that the Project therefore was working with the advantage of computers.  I stand to be corrected, of course.