The nations most powerful nuclear bomb, the B-53 bomb, is currently being dismantled. The B-53 bomb weighed 9 megatons, and was hundreds of times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan during World War II. The bomb is being dismantled because they are very large and inaccurate. The process of dismantling the bomb requires removing explosives from nuclear material. Engineers and physicists were consulted to ensure the bomb was dismantled safely.
Bombs used today are smaller and more precise, which reduce the amount of collateral damage.
If you are interested here is the article:
Walter Hill
Awesome article, Walter. Awesome bomb. I guess this one isn't as easy to dismantle as simple snipping the blue wire, right? Or was it the red wire...
ReplyDeleteWell there is only one way to find out! and im not gonna be the one to decide
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting and understandable that the U.S will dismantle there powerful bomb for a good reason. It is better to replace it with better more powerful and accurate bombs. My question is how long does a take for a scientist and or a physicist to create a new bomb and make sure that is perfect and proficient??
ReplyDeleteThat is a good question i did a quick internet search and couldn't find a answer. But i think it took many years, because the B-53 bomb has been around since the Cold War
ReplyDeleteOk then, pretty cool but I will assume that it doesnt take many years in today's society to make a powerful bomb due to our technology is so advanced.
ReplyDeleteIt might not take long to make a bomb. But to test it for malfunctions and accuracy it what probally takes a long time.
ReplyDeleteWBH
How long does it take to dismantle a bomb of that magnitude?
ReplyDeleteCruz: I googled how long it took to create the first atomic bomb just as a reference of how long it takes from an idea to an explosion. Albert Einstein started it all in 1905 with his E=mc^2. 1933 was the year it all started for the process of the atomic bomb. The first test/drop was in 1945. So it only took 12 years for the atomic bomb to be created and somewhat perfected. With today's technology I'm sure it takes half that time. maybe less.
The bombs can be disassembled in days but sanitizing, disposing and recycling that nuclear material takes longer
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting. How do they judge if the bomb is accurate or not? What is it based on, how wide the blast area is? I think its a good thing to dismantle this kind of bomb. Not only is it useless, but its to dangerous to have. Especially if it's hundred times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
ReplyDeleteAaron Gibbs
Gibbs: Didn't we learn in Ship systems about how we calculate the blast radius? I can't remember exactly what the was said in the lecture, but I do know we have discussed it before.
ReplyDeleteBombs are tested using robots and bomb ranges
ReplyDeleteThose are some expensive tests. I wonder how much tax payers pay per bomb test.
ReplyDeleteI dont know but back home there is a bomb range a few miles from my house in the woods and they are loud!
ReplyDeleteIt would be probably lots of money since there are lots of testing on the bombs to make sure that they are accurate and not cause damage.
ReplyDeleteVery cool article, Walter. It's crazy to think of what we're capable of now. The weapons and destruction: it's a little scary. If we developed this weapon way back in the early 60's what are we capable of making now?! In the article, Hans Kristensen (spokesman for the Federation of American Scientists) said, "The bombs' size helped compensate for their lack of accuracy. Today's bombs are smaller but more precise, reducing the amount of collateral damage." How is this true? I guess I feel like a bomb being "precise" is an oxymoron. Isn't the whole idea of a bomb to blow crap up and completely dessimate everything in its radius? How can a bomb be precise? And how can a smaller bomb be "more precise"? Just curious.
ReplyDelete~Rebekah Clayton
Where the older bombs might take out a whole city ... newer bombs would only take out a specific building or vehicle
ReplyDeleteWhat technology helps the newer bombs be more percise?
ReplyDeleteHonestly i couldnt tell you, i thought they were more precise because of the engineers and physicists designing them
ReplyDeleteWalter Hill
Rebekah: Bombs are more precise in that they are able to take out the specific target rather than an entire area. They used to make large bombs because they weren't accurate so by making the bomb bigger there was a better chance of actually destroying the target. It's not the size that makes it more accurate. The new technology that we use such as laser targeting and GPS allows the bombs to be more accurate. The bombs are just smaller because you don't need to have large blast radius to destroy the target when you can get a hit within several feet of the target.
ReplyDeleteIn theory it would be great to create newer, more precise nuclear bombs but it would cost us a lot of money we do not have. Instead, we just continue to overhaul old, cold war era nukes. At some point, we will have to design new nuclear weapons to replace our outdated ones. It's scary to think that Russia's nuclear weapons are even older, and unsecured than our own. For the most part, we know how a lot of these old style nuclear weapons work, look up nuclear testing in the pacific and bikini atolls.
ReplyDeleteMark the government always has money for the military, and there are newer nuclear weapons. Obama signed a bill to reduce number of nuclear weapons not destroy them all
ReplyDelete