(Now, let me just stop and say here that the website mentioned in that quote is one of the most disgusting sites ever, and I wouldn’t dare link to it, and I invite our moderators to edit this post if they feel necessary. If you try to go there from your office computer, you’re likely to get in a lot of trouble.)
Here’s the London Telegraph article which lays out more details:
So my question is this. Are any of the Teemings readers of the JIR, and do they have access to the article in question? And, just to make certain, does the article in question describe how to make a bomb that doesn’t work?
First Bert, and now these guys are a shoe-in for an IgNobel Prize. I’m glad they’re on the side of the forces of Ignorance.
I think they found the papers in the headquaters, the media (as one would expect) ran a story about how these plans are in the possesion of the Al-Qaeda and detail how to make a bomb, and they came from the internet. Well of all the people rotten.com breaks the story that this is a joke how to make a bomb, what I take this as, using that dudes razor, but being pure con-junk-tour (:)) Is the Al Quida just printed off all the info they could find on building bombs, and this was amongst the things printed out. It is written so obviously to anyone with any knowledsge of science would know it is a huge joke. So they still might or might not have the bomb, and this in no way proves the Al-Quada can’t or don’t have a A-bomb (though it is highly unlikely, but it is more likely they have a dirty bomb…MAYBE)
Sofa King, the article from JoIR is [url=http://winn.com/bs/atombomb.html]here[/here]. I’m hoping AL Qaieda spent lots of time and resources on this:).
Didn’t the mother earth catalog or news or something like that give a quick and sloppy way to make an A bomb for something like one hundred bucks back in the early 70s? Of course, this was discounting the U238 or whatever. As I read it, it seemed to jibe with other semi technical writings on such, and it seemed to be an extremely simple process in all cases. Simple, again, once one had the Uranium. Am I crazy, or is every one in on a conspiracy of let’s not let the madmen in on this simple destructive secret? Hey, never mind the am I crazy thing.
Many years ago, Analog science fiction magazine detailed how to build a crude atomic bomb. The method involved depositing one subcritical mass at the bottom of a small diameter well shaft below your (not-so) safe house’s floor and then using an explosive charge to accelerate the other subcritical half into the former in order to precipitate the chain reaction.
As with any accurate article on this topic it was noted that obtaining the fissile material was by far the most difficult aspect of the task. The most ready source of the uranium would come from hijacking a truckload of unrefined reactor fuel. This immediately posed the extremely complex problem of refining said fuel into metallic form.
The final upshot of the article noted that it was much easier to commandeer a nuclear reactor facility and intentionally melt it down. The major drawback of this strategy was that it would not meet any tactical requirement, in that power generating reactors are not sited near critical military facilities. They are more often adjacent to population centers which would not serve war time goals.
A small amount of rethinking is necessary in this day of terrorist activities, but I am confident this is the reason that security at reactor locations has been stepped up significantly in recent months. Still, it is worth noting that whenever special forces have conducted exercises aimed at testing the feasibility of taking over a nuclear power plant, they have always been able to do so with ease.
If your job would be in danger from such a visit is why I am warning you, the SS aren’t going to do anything other than honestly ask you some questions. Who knows your name might go on a list somewhere… seen brazil?
It is NOT simple to make an atomic bomb. It requires more than just plutonium/uranium and a garage.
The trouble is that you want to create a chain reaction in the uranium, right? So all you have to do is put two pieces of uranium together and BOOM? No. Well, yes. You’d get a boom. At little boom. The force of the little boom is going to seperate your hard-hijacked uranium into sub-critical chunks.
To make a bomb that really works you have to force the uranium together at very very high speed and accuracy so that most of it fissions before the force of the explosion the fission creates blows the uranium apart and stops the explosion. For that you need very sensitive triggers for the HE, so it is all forced together perfectly.
On the other hand, a device that makes a small bang and then scatters toxic radionuclides over a wide area would be pretty feasible. And any really determined government could make one. But making one in your basement is a lot harder than one might think.