IP: RE: how to make an A-bomb

[David Farber <dfarber () earthlink net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: "Robert Raisch" <info () raisch com>
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 14:44:40 
To: <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: RE: how to make an A-bomb

Dave,

As I am sure you know, making an atomic device is much harder than any plans
might present.

In essence, any design for such a device will describe the combining, under
considerable force and within a very short time, enough fissile material to
achieve a viable reaction.  The key word is 'viable' since  the engineering
tolerances for such a device must be very precise or else you have a pop
rather than a bang.  The hardest part of all is acquiring the fissile
material, without which the device cannot achieve the economies of scale
required for a really satisfying boom.

Rather than worry about making such plans freely available, what we should
all be very concerned about is the possibility of nefarious persons
constructing and delivering a conventional, but "dirty" bomb, one which
doesn't need to react but achieves its goals by poisoning a large enough
section of geography to make a useful statement.

All one needs for such a device is a sizeable quality of commercial grade
explosive (which can be whipped up by anyone with a university-level
textbook) and several liters of radioactive industrial waste; something much
easier to obtain than weapons-grade plutonium.

I believe all the handwaving around making such plans public is simply to
misdirect attention away from the real source of such problems: shoddy
intelligence.  It is ignorance rather than knowledge that kills.

/rr

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