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Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

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Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#211

Post by bitexploder »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #168
Ginden wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is merely an engineering problem. The hardest part of building nukes is acquiring weapon-grade enriched uranium, because it's controlled as hell and you will get bombed if you try to make your own. If you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on enriched uranium, paying salaries for team of engineers is the easy part.

North Korea, Pakistan, India, South Africa & likely Israel didn't get bombed due to their enrichment programs. There is a rumor that the USSR flirted with the idea of a pre-emptive strike on Mainland China to decapitate their nuclear program after the Sino-Soviet split. This did not happen obviously. Iran didn't get bombed, although that may just be because other forms of sabotage were available. Syria & Iraq on the…

Stuxnet is still one of the wildest and best computer security stories out there.

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#212

Post by cthalupa »

gnfargbl wrote: post #149
next_xibalba wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what is it that the author thinks is particularly unusual about this image? The level of detail, particularly the articulation of components/subsystems (primary, secondary, radiation case, interstage medium, tamper, fusion fuel, and a "sparkplug"). All according to the article. Per author, DoE has very strict guidelines on the depiction of nukes, and this image appears to violate those guidelines. The official depi…

> I am speculating here, but it seems like DoE must believe that anything beyond simple shapes may provide bad actors (i.e. anyone but US Govt and allies) clues as to how to build a thermo-nuke. And with good reason: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jun/24/usa.science It's a bit like the Egg of Columbus. Doing it the first time needs a team of visionary geniuses, but once the trick is known to work then even us…

I feel like the Nth Country Experiment kind of invalidates the idea that it makes sense to worry so much about hiding all of this, though? That 3 fresh physics PhDs were able to design a working bomb in as many years without having subject matter expertise to me shows that shows that the sort of adversary that has the resources to build such a project will have access to the resources to design it, too.

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#213

Post by nativeit »

snowwrestler wrote: post #135
matthewmcg wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He says it a few paragraphs in: “To give a sense of how strange this is, here is the only “officially sanctioned” way to represent a multistage thermonuclear weapon, according to US Department of Energy guidance since the 1990s: Figure 13.9, “Unclassified Illustration of a Staged Weapon (Source: TCG-NAS-2, March 1997),” from the Nuclear Matters Handbook 2020 (Revised), published by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defen…

Unless he is actually employed in the classification process inside these agencies, he does not know everything that is officially sanctioned. It’s all guesswork, from the outside.

That’s kind of the point isn’t it?

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#215

Post by beerandt »

sandworm101 wrote: post #42

No. That is not a nuke. It is a mass simulator, specifically the electronic model of a mass simulator for a warhead. The various colors represent density of material. This would be used during aerodynamic simulations. That is why it is behind the graph about processors. This also explains the simple geometry as keeping things simple reduces the number of calculations. (Note that nuke warheads fall nose-first, the opp…

This was my line of thinking as well-

You have a technical expertise just close enough to, but firewalled from the actual doe nk physics, where maybe the same image couldn't be released by anyone with doe clearance.

But the guy a few buildings over just doing 'hypothetical' center of gravity modeling? Doesn't necessarily have to live by the exact same rules or go through the same release/declass process as someone with actual weapons schematics.

It leaves a lot still unanswered- but explains away some of the seemingly self- contradictory Sandia policy discussed in the article.

In industrial speak: inside-the-fence vs outside-the-fence regulatory framework, or something similar.

Sometimes the guy outside the fence 'gets away with things' because those things are OK to do outside the fence.

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#216

Post by tiberious726 »

xattt wrote: post #197
1attice wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"640 kilotons ought to be enough for anyone"

And now if you want to run a nuclear program, the minimum amount is at least 16 gigatons.

Your users will complain if you don't give them at least 32 gigatonnes

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#217

Post by 1attice »

tiberious726 wrote: post #216
xattt wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now if you want to run a nuclear program, the minimum amount is at least 16 gigatons.

Your users will complain if you don't give them at least 32 gigatonnes

Its these bloated architectures that waste tonnage. The new generation of bomb designers, etc

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#218

Post by 1attice »

tiberious726 wrote: post #216
xattt wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now if you want to run a nuclear program, the minimum amount is at least 16 gigatons.

Your users will complain if you don't give them at least 32 gigatonnes

There's no substitute for hand shaping the charge. You can't just expect CAD to

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#219

Post by sandworm101 »

beerandt wrote: post #215
sandworm101 wrote: post #42

No. That is not a nuke. It is a mass simulator, specifically the electronic model of a mass simulator for a warhead. The various colors represent density of material. This would be used during aerodynamic simulations. That is why it is behind the graph about processors. This also explains the simple geometry as keeping things simple reduces the number of calculations. (Note that nuke warheads fall nose-first, the opp…

This was my line of thinking as well- You have a technical expertise just close enough to, but firewalled from the actual doe nk physics, where maybe the same image couldn't be released by anyone with doe clearance. But the guy a few buildings over just doing 'hypothetical' center of gravity modeling? Doesn't necessarily have to live by the exact same rules or go through the same release/declass process as someone wi…

The people doing the bomb, the physics package, would be very much removed from the weapon delivery people designing the actual warhead. The warhead people probably see no more detail than the mass numbers for the bomb. The warhead is essentially a very fast gliding aircraft with a literal kill switch.

Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?

#220

Post by keepamovin »

gnfargbl wrote: post #112
keepamovin wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm not contemptuous or mocking, and I'm sorry it came across that way. I am annoyed at having my time wasted by what I feel is a clickbait article. Given the article title, the accusation of straw-manning is really unfair. Your comment would also have been better without the jab; if you're familiar with the field then we both know why I left science for software, and it isn't because of a lack of jobs.

To base an adjudication of the accusation of straw manning on an article title is proving my point so thanks. Hahaha! :)

Your "apology" would be better (and real) without the mislaying of responsibility: you cannot be sorry for "how it came across" (ie, other people's reactions, not your responsibility). You can only be sorry, if you think you have something to be sorry for, for what you did. Otherwise it seems like a fake apology where you pretend the blame is other people's reactions, rather than how you acted. Hahaha! :) Get it? Yeah, anyway. :)

I just felt you were being deliberately provocative based off an incomplete understanding/reading of the article, for attention (mocking genuine outrage). Which is basically live straw manning HN for selfish reasons, so I attacked with insight. Was i wrong?

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