This would make a wonderful B-movie. Something maybe more upscale than USA, but less than “Encore Action Network.” Man, I love digital cable.
So I was born in '75. I don’t know if it is my lifelong obsession with science or just plain being a neurotic Jew, but I’d say the Bomb was totally a formative thing in my life. I’ve read many books and seen nearly all of the movies. I own survival guides and know where the nearest fallout shelter is, even though I doubt I would make it that long. Being in Houston, I’ve even thought of the most likely places for detonation (Johnson Space Center which is southeast of the city, or just downtown).
I have a running joke with my uncle. He is a computer scientist, but as a hobby does lots of carpentry and woodworking. I’m an MD/PhD student. I joke with him that we will always have something to fall back on after the big atom war. He’ll make tables, rocking chairs, houses if need be. I’ll be able to sew up cuts, set bones, and in a pinch, take out an appendix. Granted, I’ve only done half of medical school before I started in the lab, but I did 6 months in the clinics, including 2 months of surgery. I figure I might lose the first 3 or 4, but I’d get it eventually.
If you enjoyed this message, you may enjoy reading :
The phenomenal Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes, and of course, Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, Jr.
Sorry for the obscure Reading Rainbow reference…
I was born in 1977, and I was scared silly of nuclear war while growing up. In objective terms, the threat is much higher today, but I think I’ve become desensitized to it… Even with living on top of one of the biggest bullseyes for four years (Philadelphia… Number 3 on most lists, I believe), I haven’t really lost sleep over it since the fall of the Wall.
As to logistics: I’m not worried about some terrorist group or rogue nation obtaining fissionable material; that’s easy to trace, and we’d probably know about it. What I am worried about is one of those aforementioned villians obtaining advanced refinement technologies. It’s a lot easier to separate isotopes today than it was in the 40s, and if you have such technology, you can make a hundred nukes as easily as one. Nuking New York? You’ve got two options: First, you can bring the bomb to the top of the World Trade Center, and you don’t have to worry about the shadow from countless buildings. The walls of one single building won’t do diddly to stop a kiloton blast. Secondly, you can use about three times the fissionable material and some readily-available deuterium and make yourself a fusion bomb, with a thousand times the yield. Stick it in a freighter, or a subway, or a minivan, or anywhere else within fifty miles of the city… A megaton is an awfully big bang. Or, if you only have enough resources to make a single bomb, just make it a dirty one (Cobolt-60, anyone?), and set it off anywere in our hemisphere… The fallout won’t kill everyone, but I daresay it won’t be pleasent.
Sorry for the rant; I just calls 'em like I sees 'em.
Bah – nobody uses deuterium, Chronos, all of our hydrogen bombs are tritium-based, and that’s not an easy thing to obtain by anybody’s standards. Plus there’s the transport problem, and the short half-life (so you’d better find a target fairly quickly, unless you’ve got a continuous source of tritium.) Hydrogen bombs are probably out of reach for any terrorist organization in the near future. They’re going to have to stick with fission bombs, which limits them to kiloton yields (and makes it unlikely that they could destroy an entire large city with a single bomb).
As for refining their own, I’m not sure about that: they might be able to obtain the TONS of pitchblende they would need to refine to get a critical mass of U-235, but who’s going to bother with a uranium bomb these days, when the critical mass for plutonium is so much smaller?
Back to my question: Anyone know of any studies/personal research into how growing up with the Bomb/not growing up with it has affected the general outlook of the differing generations?
Sua
P.S. don’t get me wrong, I’ve liked the other posts, just want to clear up this point.
Something maybe more upscale than USA, but less than “Encore Action Network.” Man, I love digital cable.