Is it possible to build 1 Gigaton bombs?

Dark Primus · Post by **Dark Primus** » 2003-01-09 05:47am

Someone in my class today claimed that UK are assembling 600 nukes of some kind, with 1 gigaton of explosive yeild each and they are to be put into orbit. To be more correctly that guy knows another guy who claims it. But he seemes pretty convinced by it. I don't buy it.
Is it even possible to make warheads of that yeild? If that is so why build them in the first place?

Captain Kruger · Post by **Captain Kruger** » 2003-01-09 06:00am

I’m seriously doubting this is possible using nuclear fission or fusion technology, unless the missile/bomb is absolutely friggin’ enormous, I mean DWARFING a current ICBM. Maybe if we get to the point where we can build anti-matter warheads this could be possible, but I doubt it before then.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-01-09 06:07am

Whoever that person was, they are full of shit for sure.

The most powerful nuclear weapon ever built is the

Tsar Bomba

literally: King of Bombs

Weighing in at a massive 23 tons,

http://www.aeronautics.ru/img001/tsarbomb01.jpg

It was detonated on October 30, 1961, dropped at 4,000m by a Tu-95 BEAR.

Effects:

The flash could be seen 600 miles away, and the shockwave from the bomb circled the Earth three times. The blast caused a one hour radio blackout due to EMP, and the mushroom cloud rose 65km into the atmosphere. Wooden buildings hundreds of km away were flattened, and stone houses lost their roofs.

The bomb had a yield of approximately 53 megatons. It was intended however to be 100 megatons.

C. Sublette, Types of Nuclear Weapon, http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Nwfaq/Nfaq1.html
http://www.aeronautics.ru/img001/airsurface.htm
T. Withington. It was as if the Earth has been Killed, Financial Times (London), 14 October 2001.
Atomic Central, Tsar Bomba, http://www.vce.com/tsar.html
A. J. Parrington, (Col.) USAF, Mutually Assured Destruction Revisited, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airc ... arrin.html

Crazy_Vasey · Post by **Crazy_Vasey** » 2003-01-09 07:12am

Give me a fucking break we here in the UK can't afford an adequate police force nevermind enough nuclear bombs to blow the planet to teeny bits. Whoever told you that is full of shit.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-01-09 07:47am

Vympel wrote:The flash could be seen 600 miles away, and the shockwave from the bomb circled the Earth three times. The blast caused a one hour radio blackout due to EMP, and the mushroom cloud rose 65km into the atmosphere. Wooden buildings hundreds of km away were flattened, and stone houses lost their roofs.

Yeah, but a 1GT bomb wouldn't have say a 4000-5000km blast radius though, if thats what you're implying, I believe one can't scale these things linearly, the bigger the bomb, the more inefficient it is.

Darth PhysBod · Post by **Darth PhysBod** » 2003-01-09 08:06am

His Divine Shadow wrote:
Vympel wrote:The flash could be seen 600 miles away, and the shockwave from the bomb circled the Earth three times. The blast caused a one hour radio blackout due to EMP, and the mushroom cloud rose 65km into the atmosphere. Wooden buildings hundreds of km away were flattened, and stone houses lost their roofs.
Yeah, but a 1GT bomb wouldn't have say a 4000-5000km blast radius though, if thats what you're implying, I believe one can't scale these things linearly, the bigger the bomb, the more inefficient it is.

Most of the effects either scale as the square root or cube root of the yield, hence the use of KT-range MIRV's rather than single warheads in the MT range.

Dark Primus · Post by **Dark Primus** » 2003-01-09 02:06pm

10-15 megaton is more then enough to destroy any city in the world anything bigger would be waste of resources and now suddenly one gigaton?

Dark Primus · Post by **Dark Primus** » 2003-01-09 02:07pm

*doubblepost*

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-01-09 03:07pm

[1] Yes it is
[2] Your enemy will swiftly sink the 20,000 ton 15 knot freighter you must use as the delivery system.
[3] This person is more full of shit then an overflowing septic tank. The UK has no active nuclear construction program and building 600 Gigatons worth of nuclear weapons would be beyond utterly pointless. The USSR and USA where fine with about 20.

tharkûn · Post by **tharkûn** » 2003-01-09 03:07pm

Nobody is building a gigaton bomb. I think it could be done, but it is utterly futile. As I remember you can make the bomb infinitely powerful by just tacking on ever larger (and thicker) stages. The problem with this is that the bomb quickly gains mass and volume with no real change in effect. There is no way in hell that such a bomb, if built, could be put into orbit with any rocket on the market today. I HIGHLY doubt it can be assembled in space, especially by anyone but the Russians or the Americans.

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2003-01-09 03:09pm

Seems like this is the masturbatory fantasy of some UK-fanatic who is constantly occupied jerking off to his fantasies of the third world war

tharkûn · Post by **tharkûn** » 2003-01-09 03:10pm

double post

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-01-09 03:12pm

His Divine Shadow wrote:
Vympel wrote:The flash could be seen 600 miles away, and the shockwave from the bomb circled the Earth three times. The blast caused a one hour radio blackout due to EMP, and the mushroom cloud rose 65km into the atmosphere. Wooden buildings hundreds of km away were flattened, and stone houses lost their roofs.
Yeah, but a 1GT bomb wouldn't have say a 4000-5000km blast radius though, if thats what you're implying, I believe one can't scale these things linearly, the bigger the bomb, the more inefficient it is.

In terms of destructive effect yes as has been pointed out. Much of the blast just goes into vaporizing stuff a smaller bomb would merely disintegrated.

In terms actual efficiency of the detonation, how much of the uranium gets used up vs. how much becomes fallout it doesn't matter. Thats a result of bomb design. Modern bombs are something like 99% efficient, that which exploded over Hiroshima was around 5%.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2003-01-09 03:12pm

Shit, They've found me out

*hides*

Just where does your friend's friend live BTW?

Dark Primus · Post by **Dark Primus** » 2003-01-09 04:25pm

He never said. I better ask the guy tomorrow regarding this whole thing.

BenRG · Post by **BenRG** » 2003-01-09 06:41pm

A question: As far as anyone knows, is anyone working on matter/antimatter weapons right now? I only ask as I remember reading that the new generation of scientific particle accelerators can produce (microscopic) amounts of antimatter every operational cycle. If you find a way to isolate it, I'm sure that the stuff would build up pretty quickly.

This is on-topic as a M/AM device could easily reach the 1GT range. However, such a device has a 'doomsday weapon' feel to it. I doubt that anyone in the same hemisphere as the explosion could hope to escape some environmental side-effects like a nuclear winter or fall-out.

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi · Post by **Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi** » 2003-01-09 07:55pm

I believe an antimatter bomb would be decades away, as producers of antimatter only produce a small fraction of a gram of antimatter each year, far from enough to produce any weapons with.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-01-09 08:20pm

Antimatter's record lifetime when created in a lab is a few nanoseconds ... not exactly great potential for a weapon.

ArmorPierce · Post by **ArmorPierce** » 2003-01-09 08:35pm

Awww, ain't that cute. The British still believe that they are the most powerful nation in the world

ArmorPierce · Post by **ArmorPierce** » 2003-01-09 08:37pm

BTW, instead of saying "double post" why don't you just delete the post. Spammers....

Ted · Post by **Ted** » 2003-01-09 08:45pm

ArmorPierce wrote:BTW, instead of saying "double post" why don't you just delete the post. Spammers....

Because if someone replies to your post, you cant delete it.

ArmorPierce · Post by **ArmorPierce** » 2003-01-09 08:55pm

I've seen people saying double posts when no one had posted after them for a long while afterwards. It may not be everybody but I think that some people out there are intentially making double posts.

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi · Post by **Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi** » 2003-01-09 09:24pm

ArmorPierce wrote:Awww, ain't that cute. The British still believe that they are the most powerful nation in the world

Also the British only have a few hundred nuclear weapons. Why double the number with an arsenal of absurdly large missiles?

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-01-09 09:25pm

Ted wrote:
ArmorPierce wrote:BTW, instead of saying "double post" why don't you just delete the post. Spammers....
Because if someone replies to your post, you cant delete it.

He had time to edit before anyone posted after him as there is no "edited at X time" notice. He could have deleted instead.

paladin · Post by **paladin** » 2003-01-09 09:31pm

In a word, "NO."

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