hair of the dog
Member
I am almost certain this is a fake. This model I mean. If you look at the requirements for U-235, I don't think a 60+ kg carry is in the cards. That includes no shielding, remember. Also the way you do this, in a pipe bomb, is to create 2 perfect hemispheres, at slightly above, (not too much!!!) exactly 1/2 critical mass each. This hemisphere is 170 mm across for U-235. Not that picture, to be sure.
It has to be assemble so that the pieces can never even be near each other. A blue flash of death ray occurs.
The 2 pieces are then slapped together by explosives at each end of the pipe. Each surface must be mirror smooth, flat and parallel to each other at the instant of impact. The explosive pressure creates the tamper, and increases the instantaneous, density very dramatically, so the mass is now well over critical. BOOM.
Critical mass of a bare sphere
Top: A sphere of fissile material is too small to allow the chain reaction to become self-sustaining as neutrons generated by fissions can too easily escape.
Middle: By increasing the mass of the sphere to a critical mass, the reaction can become self-sustaining.
Bottom: Surrounding the original sphere with a neutron reflector increases the efficiency of the reactions and also allows the reaction to become self-sustaining.
The shape with minimal critical mass and the smallest physical dimensions is a sphere. Bare-sphere critical masses at normal density of some actinides are listed in the following table.
Nuclide
Half Life
(y)
Critical Mass
(kg)
Diameter
(cm)
Ref
uranium-235
704,000,000
52
17
[SUP][2][/SUP]
That 'suitcase nuke' is indeed a fake. Not just a fake, but a fake made for a politician to make a grandstanding show with. I forget which douchenozzle it was, but some congressman produced that on the floor for the benefit of the TV cameras to show us all how dangerous the world is. There are nuclear devices small enough to be more or less man portable, but not like a piece of plumbing pipe in a Samsonite shielded with aluminum foil. That picture is an example of a politicain trying to scare the public into handing them more power. Offensive at it's core.
The original question does make for a good ponder. If the founders meant anything when they wrote the Second Ammendment, they meant artillery. Rifles are important, but cannons and mortars are what turns battles (particularly in the context of the all important naval engagements of that time.) In modern times we accept the public notion that they meant man portable weapons, but that wasn't always the case. US history has several cases in point of privateers and non governmental forces having heavy weapons. Roosevelt's Rough Riders had Maxims and cannons (I used to know what cannons they had but I forget), Chennault had 20mm machineguns in his planes (good luck getting licensed for that thse days) and Henry Ford had two water cooled 1917 30cal belt feds on the roof of his house. You could buy and own any artilery you could afford prior to the NFA of 1933. You kind of still can, but it's harder and more expensive. Now if you want a breach loading cannon you have to have it and the rounds all registered, they are considered "Destructive Devices" and are regulated in the same way as machineguns and silencers and the like. That's an important distinction, they are not "illegal", they are "regulated". You can buy a Mah Deuce, but it's not cheap and you can't just order it through your local gun shop. You want a 40mm anti tank rifled cannon from WWII? You can't buy it with an EBT card, but if you have the dough you can get one. Last one I saw for sale was in the $50k range and it was in great shape. Anyway, if destructive devices (bombs, artillery and such) are regulated but obtainable, why not nukes.......?
In the case of a vial of anthrax, there again it's not impossible to legally get it. You can't buy it at CVS, but you can get licensed and obtain it. There are vials of nasty stuff in poorly guarded campus labs all across the country. Try not to think about that as you are laying in bed, you won't sleep well.
Nukes I'm not sure of, but I do know that there are quite a few privately owned nuclear reactors. They are heavilly regulated by the government, but are none the less owned by private (non government) entities. Could you get licensed for a fission explosive device? In a practical sense I doubt it, but in the absolute it's hard to say if it is or is not possible. Hard to say without research that I'm not going to waste time doing anyway.
Does the 2nd protect our right to own The Bomb? Interesting hypothetical question. Moot point, because if I had the money to buy one I wouldn't waste it on that.
cn