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Post by Mlle Antéchrist on May 5, 2010 18:18:28 GMT -5
I'm not sure about our stockpile, but we may actually be able to do more damage with the 5113 now than we could with the 30000 then, there have been massive improvements in the power of the weapons since then, depending on how many of the existing weapons are new we may actually be worse off. Which really begs the question of why we even needed to build bigger, stronger nukes at all. Seems like a lot of time and money wasted on something that: A) Hasn't been used since WWII. and B) Was already capable of unfathomable damage to begin with.
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Post by MaybeNever on May 5, 2010 19:35:36 GMT -5
AC, we must always strive to make the damage of our weapons unfathomable-er, or else we have abandoned our evolutionary imperative to be the biggest, baddest bastard around.
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Post by The_L on May 5, 2010 20:14:30 GMT -5
A penis that you never get to use & sends people running in fear when they see it. That would actually be a lot more awesome than the nukes.
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Post by The_WHHAAAMMMM_Burgler on May 6, 2010 1:14:57 GMT -5
Gosh I wonder what they did with the weapons grade nuclear material from the other thousands of warheads.
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Post by Mlle Antéchrist on May 6, 2010 2:14:09 GMT -5
Gosh I wonder what they did with the weapons grade nuclear material from the other thousands of warheads. I could be wrong, but I would imagine that some of it is/could be used in power planets. The rest of it is probably rotting in a warehouse bunker somewhere, waiting to be dismantled. As far as I know, the 'official' number only includes weapons that are still active, meaning that they're in firing condition. The combined total of all active, 'retired' and nonworking nukes is probably a lot higher than 5,100. The paranoid side of me can't help but wonder if everyone is being totally honest about how many active nukes they really have. That would actually be a lot more awesome than the nukes. It would be worth it just to see world leaders intimidating each other by whipping out their penises during UN sessions.
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Post by MaybeNever on May 6, 2010 2:24:08 GMT -5
My understanding is that weapons-grade uranium and plutonium don't work in nuclear reactors for some reason or other. Could be that they're TOO fissile, considering that they were made pretty much specifically to explode.
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Post by Mlle Antéchrist on May 6, 2010 2:54:30 GMT -5
Just looked it up on Google. Apparently some old Russian warheads are being recycled into reactor fuel in the US. I didn't take the time to read in-depth about the process (too tired for nuclear physics right now), but it seems that the uranium can be processed to make it suitable for use in power plants.
Not sure if that applies to newer nukes or just the old ones, in terms of cost-effectiveness.
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Post by ltfred on May 6, 2010 3:20:09 GMT -5
I'm not sure about our stockpile, but we may actually be able to do more damage with the 5113 now than we could with the 30000 then, there have been massive improvements in the power of the weapons since then, depending on how many of the existing weapons are new we may actually be worse off. Which really begs the question of why we even needed to build bigger, stronger nukes at all. Seems like a lot of time and money wasted on something that: A) Hasn't been used since WWII. and B) Was already capable of unfathomable damage to begin with. Nukes aren't designed to be used. They're designed to create the credible threat of use. Just because we haven't flattened some poor bastards with them doesn't mean nukes are useless.
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Post by Napoleon the Clown on May 6, 2010 5:01:13 GMT -5
A nuke is viable for only so long before the uranium or plutonium decay into something not adequately fissile, at which point it can start being used for less pernicious ends.
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Post by Mlle Antéchrist on May 6, 2010 5:55:52 GMT -5
Which really begs the question of why we even needed to build bigger, stronger nukes at all. Seems like a lot of time and money wasted on something that: A) Hasn't been used since WWII. and B) Was already capable of unfathomable damage to begin with. Nukes aren't designed to be used. They're designed to create the credible threat of use. Just because we haven't flattened some poor bastards with them doesn't mean nukes are useless. Never said that nukes as a whole have been useless, just that humanity has gone overboard in making them more powerful.
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Post by ltfred on May 6, 2010 6:50:37 GMT -5
A nuke is viable for only so long before the uranium or plutonium decay into something not adequately fissile, at which point it can start being used for less pernicious ends. How long would that take? My, admittedly atrocious, understanding of radioactive decay (which is the process that I presume that is occuring) is that it takes thousands of years. Such a timeframe wouldn't justify replacing them every second decade.
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Post by Vene on May 6, 2010 11:18:53 GMT -5
A nuke is viable for only so long before the uranium or plutonium decay into something not adequately fissile, at which point it can start being used for less pernicious ends. How long would that take? My, admittedly atrocious, understanding of radioactive decay (which is the process that I presume that is occuring) is that it takes thousands of years. Such a timeframe wouldn't justify replacing them every second decade. It depends on the element in question, some last for millions of years, some last for seconds. Now, for Pu-239 and U-235, the half-life is 24,000 years and 703,800,000 years, respectively.
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Post by Mlle Antéchrist on May 6, 2010 13:54:25 GMT -5
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the issue of nukes being replaced more about heat, oxidation, etc. degrading the various components involved in setting off the reaction, thus preventing criticality, rather than the actual half-life of the uranium or plutonium? Which would essentially reduce them to dirty bombs after a couple of decades.
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Post by Vene on May 6, 2010 14:45:34 GMT -5
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the issue of nukes being replaced more about heat, oxidation, etc. degrading the various components involved in setting off the reaction, thus preventing criticality, rather than the actual half-life of the uranium or plutonium? Which would essentially reduce them to dirty bombs after a couple of decades. *shrugs* I don't really know much about the maintenance of nuclear weapons.
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Post by Napoleon the Clown on May 6, 2010 15:29:49 GMT -5
An example of how fast they can go from viable to basically just a dirty bomb: You know how there are those Soviet suitcase nukes that went missing in the seventies or so? None of them would be viable as a nuke anymore. Achieving fission is a very fickle thing.
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