Delivery of Nuclear Weapons

[Airbrush]

North Korea has an unknown number of nuclear bombs.  They are desperate for money.  It is likely that North Korea would sell a nuke, that is ready to explode, to a terrorist organization for enough money.  The terrorists deliver the bomb to the middle of New York City in the back of a truck.  When it explodes it vaporizes all evidence of its' origin.  How would we ever know that North Korea provided the bomb?  Of course the terrorists could snitch on Kim, but why would they?

Edited May 13, 2018 by Airbrush

[Moontanman]

15 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

You mean you would mix up some radioactive material with some conventional explosive so that it throws radiation everywhere? I did mention NK as being a weak spot.  My position is an amalgamation of many articles from government websites over a few years. Not looked into it for a good while, so no references off the top of my head. I basically searched how to make fission and thermonuclear weapons and their security protocols from the top down. 

Hmmm no, I mean actually make a nuclear bomb, It's not complex, but acquiring the basic materials is difficult. A gun type device would be my first choice... 

[StringJunky]

2 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Hmmm no, I mean actually make a nuclear bomb, It's not complex, but acquiring the basic materials is difficult. A gun type device would be my first choice... 

You mean a gun-type? It aint going to be physically small and you will need 50Kg of U-235. You can't use plutonium in this weapon because it's too spontaneously fissionable and hence dangerous, so you have to use a subcritical mass in an implosion-type. The logistics, engineering and mathematics required for this type is only possible by a state actor.

[Moontanman]

1 minute ago, StringJunky said:

You mean a gun-type? It aint going to be physically small and you will need 50Kg of U-235. You can't use plutonium in this weapon because it's too spontaneously fissionable and hence dangerous, so you have to use a subcritical mass in an implosion-type. The logistics, engineering and mathematics required for this type is only possible by a state actor.

Given the materials and the metalworking equipment  I do not think it would be that difficult, doing it would kill me no doubt but I think it could be done. Given how a plutonium core killed a scientist who just allowed a neutron reflector to momentarily come into contact with the "demon core" I can see how much more complex plutonium might be to work with...  

[StringJunky]

4 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Given the materials and the metalworking equipment  I do not think it would be that difficult, doing it would kill me no doubt but I think it could be done. Given how a plutonium core killed a scientist who just allowed a neutron reflector to momentarily come into contact with the "demon core" I can see how much more complex plutonium might be to work with...  

Interesting. Do you know a link for it? This might interest you: https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/science-behind-atom-bomb

 

Edited May 13, 2018 by StringJunky

[Moontanman]

5 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Interesting. Do you know a link for it? This might interest you: https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/science-behind-atom-bomb

 

 

[StringJunky]

19 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

 

Cheers.

edit: i watched it.  I didn't realise it was that hands on then and done such close proximity. Pretty scary really.

Edited May 13, 2018 by StringJunky

[John Cuthber]

2 hours ago, StringJunky said:

You mean you would mix up some radioactive material with some conventional explosive so that it throws radiation everywhere?

It seems likely that he meant what he said; given the material, he could make a nuke.

If all he wanted was what's usually referred to as a "dirty bomb" he wouldn't need a workshop and he wouldn't expect to be significantly contaminated.

 

[Bender]

5 hours ago, Airbrush said:

North Korea has an unknown number of nuclear bombs.  They are desperate for money.  It is likely that North Korea would sell a nuke, that is ready to explode, to a terrorist organization for enough money.  The terrorists deliver the bomb to the middle of New York City in the back of a truck.  When it explodes it vaporizes all evidence of its' origin.  How would we ever know that North Korea provided the bomb?  Of course the terrorists could snitch on Kim, but why would they?

But what is enough money for North Korea, given the risk of total annihilation if word gets out? North Korea has a GDP of $30 billion and $20 billion in foreign debts. To take such a risk, the gain should certainly be significant, and they would have to be very stupid to go bellow $1 billion (above production costs, but it is probably safe to ignore those, as they don't set the price). You still need to get it out unnoticed and untraceable. I don't know how thick of a lead shell you have to put around it to avoid Geiger tellers going off.

(About the question "why would they": would you thrust them, not necessarily their intentions, but also their professionalism?)

I think it is a safe bet that ISIL is the most financially potent terrorist organisation. In 2014, they were estimated to have 2 billion in assets. So perhaps if the most potent terrorist organisation ever burnt 50% of its assets, they might have gotten somewhat close to convincing the most likely seller. On top of that, I highly doubt ISIL was ever organised enough to actually get all those assets in a single location for a single transaction.

Now however, ISIL undoubtedly lost much of its financial advantage together with its territory, which again leaves us with fictional organisations, such as Hydra. International relations with North Korea also seem to have improved greatly since then.

So again: I'm not worried.

 

[John Cuthber]

16 minutes ago, Bender said:

I don't know how thick of a lead shell you have to put around it to avoid Geiger tellers going off.

The uranium and plutonium used in nukes are alpha emitters. you could use a cardboard box as shielding if you only wanted to fool a Geiger.
It would do something towards shielding the spontaneous neutrons too. A tank of water would be better.

But why bother.
Stick it in a shipping container in N Korea.

Maybe change ships somewhere unsophisticated.

Send it to a large pot city in the USA + blow it.

It doesn't eve need to be labelled  for delivery in the US- it could go off in transit.

There's no way they would find enough of the harbour (never mind the ship) to work out exactly what happened.

 

It never goes near a radiation detector until it's unloaded- and you don't need to unload it to "deliver" it.

There's no sensible way to prove it was the Koreans (even if the terrorist  decide to say it was).

How would you go about proving that it wasn't a "false flag" attack set up by the US itself? (perhaps as a pretext for war with N Korea)

Edited May 13, 2018 by John Cuthber

[Bender]

5 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

The uranium and plutonium used in nukes are alpha emitters. you could use a cardboard box as shielding if you only wanted to fool a Geiger.
It would do something towards shielding the spontaneous neutrons too. A tank of water would be better.

But why bother.
Stick it in a shipping container in N Korea.

Maybe change ships somewhere unsophisticated.

Send it to a large pot city in the USA + blow it.

It doesn't eve need to be labelled  for delivery in the US- it could go off in transit.

There's no way they would find enough of the harbour (never mind the ship) to work out exactly what happened.

 

It never goes near a radiation detector until it's unloaded- and you don't need to unload it to "deliver" it.

There's no sensible way to prove it was the Koreans (even if the terrorist  decide to say it was).

How would you go about proving that it wasn't a "false flag" attack set up by the US itself? (perhaps as a pretext for war with N Korea)

Fair enough, but that was only a minor afterthought and leaves my main objections to the idea untouched.

[John Cuthber]

If N Korea can't sensibly get caught out- there's always a plausible denial involving them being framed by a 3rd party- then the question of "how much is enough" takes on a different significance.

And it's easy to get it out- just stick it in a shipping container.

An answer might be " no money at all- but we will  buy stuff in the West that is banned and then ship it to you".

Still feeling safe?

[Bender]

Yes.

Besides, they'd target the US first anyway ;-)

[Moontanman]

I live in one of those port cities, my wife worked for a shipping company, it's a major concern and so far no way to really get a handle on the problem has been worked out... 

[Sensei]

8 hours ago, StringJunky said:

Interesting. Do you know a link for it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Daghlian

Google keyword "Manhattan project accidents"

 

[StringJunky]

14 minutes ago, Sensei said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Daghlian

Google keyword "Manhattan project accidents"

 

Cheers.

[Bender]

21 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

The uranium and plutonium used in nukes are alpha emitters. you could use a cardboard box as shielding if you only wanted to fool a Geiger.
It would do something towards shielding the spontaneous neutrons too. A tank of water would be better.

It doesn't matter for the argument, but I feel I have to point out that this statement is flawed because U and Pu decay to bèta emitters.

18 hours ago, Moontanman said:

I live in one of those port cities, my wife worked for a shipping company, it's a major concern and so far no way to really get a handle on the problem has been worked out... 

I can see how this can worry you, and you have my sympathy.

However, is plausible denial even a concept in NK? I doubt they use it in court. Is a leader who is himself never bothered about plausible denial going to risk everything on another leader to use the concept (especially if that leader is Trump)?

Edited May 14, 2018 by Bender

[StringJunky]

4 minutes ago, Bender said:

It doesn't matter for the argument, but I feel I have to point out that this statement is flawed because U and Pu decay to bèta emitters.

Your picture says U-235 is an alpha emitter. 

[Bender]

1 minute ago, StringJunky said:

Your picture says U-235 is an alpha emitter. 

Please read the line above the picture.

[StringJunky]

1 minute ago, Bender said:

Please read the line above the picture.

I did. John said they are alpha emitters. He didn't say anything about the decay products. I suppose what you are saying is that there will be beta emitters in time.

[Bender]

The decay products are very relevant when discussing radiation. For each decaying u235, you'll get 7 alpha and 4 beta particles.

Edited May 14, 2018 by Bender

[John Cuthber]

52 minutes ago, Bender said:

It doesn't matter for the argument, but I feel I have to point out that this statement is flawed because U and Pu decay to bèta emitters.

Well, you are right about "it doesn't matter".

You may find this shocking, but before they make bombs out of it they have to remove practically all of those impurities and they only return on a timescale comparable with the decay rate of uranium- billions of years to get back to equilibrium, so...

As long as the terrorists are not using enriched uranium produced- say during the last ice age- the fact that uranium is, itself, a very effective screen would solve most of their problem on the alpha , beta and gamma score.

It's the neutrons that are a bit of a giveaway.

 

And it still doesn't matter. Nobody is going to point a detector at the container until it is unloaded. If it's "booked" for through travel to, say, Canada, but goes off in the US nobody will ever know what ship it was on, never mind what container.
This is why it's really important to keep weapons grade uranium and plutonium  well guarded.

Fortunately, for the most part, the people responsible for making the decisions do understand that weapons grade uranium is a pretty near pure alpha emitter and you can't rely on  Geiger counters at the port.

[Bender]

You're right. I did some more reading on the topic and turns out the gamma radiation is most easily detected, but a nuke sends out very little radiation anyway. To the point that a detector which is sensitive enough, would also go off when a container of cat litter or ceramic tiles passes.

I was thinking about natural radioactive ore, which has reached a kind of equilibrium of decay chain isotope. While a nuke could get something like that after a couple of years, it is still not very much.

Edited May 14, 2018 by Bender

[John Cuthber]

22 minutes ago, Bender said:

While a nuke could get something like that after a couple of years, it is still not very much.

A couple of years worth of decay for enriched uranium would get it a couple of parts in 700,000,000,000 towards "like that".

I wasn't kidding about the ice age.

[Bender]

53 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

billions of years to get back to equilibrium, so...

This is not quite true, though. To reach the equilibrium, you have to look at the half-life of the decay products, not uranium.

You can only reach an equilibrium because of the long half life and the resulting near-constant decay rate of Uranium.