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| Science & Technology |
| What was purpose of a subcritical experiment at a nuclear test site in the United States? |
| 2024-05-19 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. [Regnum] The experiment, carried out at an underground test site in Nevada, is aimed solely at confirming the reliability of the nuclear weapons available to the United States. B But this does not mean at all that the United States is not strengthening its nuclear missile potential.The editor-in-chief of the magazine “National Defense” Igor Korotchenko shared these opinions with IA Regnum, commenting on reports of a special (subcritical) experiment conducted by the United States in an underground laboratory at a nuclear test site in Nevada. The analyst noted that such tests themselves are not prohibited by any international agreements. Similar tests were carried out in Russia. “The Americans are also doing it. The purpose of these tests is to confirm the reliability of nuclear weapons, their design, and simulate all explosion processes, but without detonating the nuclear warhead itself. There is practically no new production; warheads are stored and modernized. But we need guarantees that during an explosion a chain reaction will occur,” commented Korotchenko. According to him, it is difficult to find any clear foreign policy implications in the very fact of what happened. Not to mention the escalation of the arms race. Rather, the explosions carried out recently in Nevada have a purely technical meaning. However, this fact, as Korotchenko noted, should not be misleading: the United States does not at all refuse to strengthen its nuclear missile potential. The administration of President Joe Biden intends to allocate 2 trillion to modernize the strategic triad over the next 20 years. dollars. The main directions of this work are improving the composition and quantitative characteristics of nuclear forces, as well as improving the integration of the nuclear arsenal and general-purpose forces for their joint combat use. The United States recently conducted a subcritical experiment in an underground laboratory at a nuclear test site in Nevada, near Los Alamos. This was reported by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) of the US Department of Energy. As the department clarified, tests at the Main Underground Laboratory of Subcritical Experiments (PULSE), which became the first experiment in the Nimble series, were successful. NNSA noted that such subcritical experiments, which involve the detonation of explosives around radioactive material without reaching a critical mass and starting a chain reaction, are carried out to collect information on the condition, effectiveness and declared technical characteristics of US nuclear warheads without conducting underground nuclear tests. As Regnum reported, earlier US Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Deterrence and Stability Mallory Stewart said in an interview with the Arms Control Association that the United States is not interested in resuming nuclear tests and does not consider them necessary. Also, Washington, according to her, does not plan to submit the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) to the upper house of Congress for ratification. It was also previously reported that in the United States, for the first time since 1989, the production of key components of the “filling” for nuclear warheads, plutonium cores, is being resumed. NNSA head Jill Hruby said this at congressional hearings in April. The Joe Biden administration, as noted by the British Independent, has requested a total of $18.8 billion for weapons development (10% more than a year earlier). Almost a third of this amount - $5.6 billion - concerns the modernization of weapons in the interests of the nuclear triad (strategic bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear submarines capable of carrying nuclear weapons). |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #5 Bombing of Dresden Bombing of Tokyo |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2024-05-19 11:10 |
| #4 And they can sure suck some oxygen...even residents of Dresden and Tokyo know that from Feb-Mar 45. |
| Posted by: DooDahMan 2024-05-19 10:59 |
| #3 ^ My late Uncle worked at Lawrence Livermore. He told me once that "all nukes are neutron bombs to a more or less extent" |
| Posted by: Frank G 2024-05-19 10:42 |
| #2 I expect less testing of the bomb and more of the control circuitry for radiation damage. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2024-05-19 10:31 |
| #1 Short version: Existing nuclear weapons material degrades over time (half-life), and is refined to begin with to a weapons grade percentage purity. So when does the degradation of the percentage become important? 'Cause we haven't made any of this stuff since the '70s. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2024-05-19 08:43 |