Are Nuclear warheads completely at the control of the service (in this case, the Navy)?
It would seem to me that Congress funded “x” warheads to be built, and at presumadely substantial cost per unit. (Same with an Aircraft Carrier.) If the Navy cannot decommission a warship without permission from Congress, I doubt that they can unilaterally decommission a Nuclear warhead.
Or do you mean that the Navy would be expected to recommend (to Congress) scaling back the W76 stockpile?
I don’t doubt it – I’ve seen it myself. But I’ve always provided documentation on production and assembly procedure, as well as supporting dcumentation. These were as important as the drawings. And many of those drawings themselves provide much information of this sort – they’re not simply indications of dimension.
Ideally, the documentation for the assembly and testing tooling ought to be archived as well. But we don’t live in an ideal world. Still, this isn’t like the assembly drawings for an optical tester – for something of this strategic import you’d think there would be a pretty secure and complete setr of documentation.
We’ll get to the day
That’s gray
And sterile.
A nuclear winter
Just like
Chernobyl!
If we’re so friggin’ short on tritium, why the heck can you buy it commercially as a radioluminescent?
These links about “Fogbank Link #1” and “Fogbank Link #2” (and the associated embedded links) @ Armscontrolwonk will hopefully fill in more about the alledged no fog, no boom.
I’ve worked on the W-76 LEP and am currently working on the B-61 LEP. Not much that I can add here accept the following. First - the story linked to in the Op is considered an “old story” by weapons program managers - they typically just look at it and snicker. Second - the term “f*****k” used to be highly classified. The fact that the term itself got out to the public is considered a huge, monumental and epic screwup - to the extent that, despite it now being in the public domain, people are still hesitant to even acknowledge the term (hell - I can’t even bring myself to type it out). Because of that - I have a lot of suspicion regarding any quotes on the topic, especially any speculation on what the substance may or may not do.
In short - I have a lot of trouble believing any of these stories, in their entirety. However, the one element of the story that I can accept is the “delays” aspect. Yep - plenty of those.
You’re great. I agree wholeheartedly.
The scientists vaguely recall something about building atomic bombs. They just need the help of a certain Mr. Benjamin for them to remember…
Still a bit hazy. Maybe a couple more Benjamins will help.
Just so you know, someone did get this reference. You’re not shrieking into the void.
Yet.
You will once the boom happens.
In my experience, data and information of a secure nature is often less complete than it ought to be just because there is naturally less oversight and because it is so logistically difficult to deal with classified information. With an unclassified Statement of Work, for instance, it can be circulated openly (or at least in within proprietary boundaries) for review before being signed off. A SOW for classified work that contains classified numbers or methods, however, has to be distributed and stored in secure facilities which are limited access and costly to maintain. This often requires people to travel or otherwise inconvenience themselves, and of course the amount of cross-checking that can be done is limited by the ability to bring information across a classified boundary, and verify that there is no escape of classified data. With levels above Secret, data may actually be compartmentalized such that a person in Department A cannot directly communicate with another person in Department B who is the recipient of the data product. As a result, some classified information is tribal knowledge almost by default, and information is lost or incompletely conveyed, and may ultimately be abandoned or destroyed because there is no recognition of its value.
Stranger
What happened was, there was a limited supply of Glowing Green Slime recovered at Roswell back in '47. In the course of 60-odd years, we’ve just used up all we found building advanced weapons of mass destruction, blatantly non-aerodynamic radar-invisible airplanes, and non-stick cookware. As far back as 1974 (the Arecibo radio transmission), as well as the subsequent message plaques and records on the Pioneer and Voyager probes, we’ve been pleading with “Them” to send us more GGS in exchange for cow viscera and probing rights on certain of our citizens, but so far we’ve had no luck.
Alien green slime is so '50s. They use red mercury now.
While not having ever worked on anything secret or even being in any sort of job that would ever likely involve such, I’ll note the story of the Polish guys who first broke Engima–just to eventually be forgotten entirely by the Allies because their existence was too secret.
