Yes, it was a nuke

Already, the moonbats are out there trying to say "maybe it wasn't really a nuke... the blast was too small... it might have been a bunch of TNT... it's a scam... it's a conspiracy... there's no WMD's..." etc.

People, please.  This is my area of expertise.  It was a nuke.

At ~0.8 kT, it was relatively small.  That's about 1/20 the yield of the Hiroshima bomb.  But that's still one hell of a blast.  It would devastate an area as small - but as important - as downtown NYC.  It would wipe out an entire military installation.  It would penetrate a fortified underground bunker.  It would irradiate a population center.  And it would be next to impossible to produce such a blast with conventional explosives.

Here is the problem:

If you try to make a really, really big bomb with conventional explosives, you run into a huge problem getting all the explosives to detonate simultaneously.  If you try to set them all off at once with a single trigger, what ends up happening is that the shock-wave from the exploding material right next to the trigger pushes aside the material further out, scattering undetonated material.  Imagine a string of Black Cats.  Imagine one in the middle going off, splitting the string, and leaving you with two partial strings that don't go off.

You can set off a huge amount of explosives in a chain, where (like the Black Cats), one portion sets off the next portion and so on.  Problem is, you don't get one big blast.  You get a succession of small blasts.  It looks good (imagine war footage of a series of blasts going on down a line), but it won't do the same type of damage as one big blast.  Imagine running into a brick wall a hundred times on foot, compared to hitting a brick wall once with bull dozer.  Or imagine setting off a bunch of dynamite atop a fortified bunker, one stick at a time.  Not going to make much impact.  It's also not going to have the same seismic profile.  The shock-wave wouldn't register half-way around the world like an atomic bomb does.

There is a reason why conventional bombs have never come close to the blasting power of even a small, crude nuclear device.  The most powerful non-nuclear bomb ever set off, the MOAB, is about 1/40 the size of this nuke.  And we have yet to successfully set off two of them together, because the blast of the first one going off would destroy the second one and prevent it from exploding properly.

Now, people may think that this blast was so small for a nuke that we should be laughing at the ineptitude of the North Koreans.  However, this is false.

Yes, it was relatively small.  But remember, this was a TEST.  They were testing to see whether their design and build work.  And weapons grade plutonium is not a cheap thing you can throw around willy nilly.  When you are testing something that uses up expensive and hard-to-replace materials, you test on a small scale.  If the small-scale test gives you the yields you are hoping for, you can move ahead to the next level, which is usually an order of magnitude greater in scale.  And even still, at ~0.8 kT, this was a bigger blast than we get from our smaller, bunker-busting nuclear devices (~0.5 kT).

Given the data that we have right now, I think we can safely conclude that a nuclear explosion did take place, and the North Koreans are capable of immediately going into production of bombs comparable to the Hiroshima bomb.  And once they are able to produce devices which can consistently yield 20 kT or more - and it seems they aren't far off - they are literally only a tritium source away from producing hydrogen bombs and increasing the yields another order of magnitude into true absolute city-killing range.

This is a big, big deal.

And considering that Oregon has a useless Governor who fails to understand what Homeland Security really means, considering that Portland has an obstructionist Mayor who undermines Homeland Security by every means possible, and considering that the Port of Portland is one of the most important shipping centers in the world, we should all be very, very afraid of what might happen.  It would be very, very easy for Kim Jung Il to put a nuke on a boat and sail it right up the Columbia.  And by the nature of nuclear explosions, there wouldn't be much in the way of forensic evidence left to figure out what went wrong.

Keep that in mind when marking up your ballot, and choosing between people like democrat and stalwart anti-Bush obstructionist Peter DeFazio, and Republican and veteran counter-terrorism expert Jim Feldkamp...

Comments

[HMIL]

Well said, Gully. Too soon after a "super duper ultrasonic uber crazy" does just what conservatives say they will do, the socialist touchy-feely kumbayah-singing tree huggers will say "No, you've just misunderstood (whomever)" and pooh-pooh (or ridicule) the conservative's concerns, and make excuses right and left and bury their heads right back into the proverbial sand.

It takes someone with the experience you have, Gully, who can lay it out logically, rationally, sanely ... and hope against hope that the pot smoke fog will clear just a little and let the sun shine in.

Keep it up, Gully.

[Foley Fever... catch it!]

dude, you're a blogger nutjob student at a useless law school - what could you possibly know about nuclear physics to justify your statement that "this is my area of expertise"?

[Gullyborg]

Well...

First off, I am a GRADUATE from a TOP TIER law school.

Second, as for my qualifications, I think that spending 5 years working in a USAF nuclear research lab, where my job was analysis of nuclear weapons test data, for the purpose of determining whether or not foreign nations were in compliance with the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, in support of the U.S. Atomic Energy Detection System and the Nuclear Debris Collection and Analysis program, lends credibility to my claim.

So does my degree in nuclear physics.

Any more questions?

[Independent Thinker]

cricket cricket cricket cricket

[Gullyborg]

Narf!

[T F Stern]

Sounds like you have better credentials than most of the drive by media which has been "speculating" around the clock to fill air time.

I wish we didn't have a need for folks with your expertice, glad we have them all the same.

[Ken]

Nice job, Gully. What say you about the idea (thrown out by the Belmont Club) that NK was testing a "suitcase nuke"?

[DANEgerus]

But was it a failed Nuke that fragmented reducing the blast?

Or was it a small nuke to preserve fissionable material wastage?

Or was it a sophisticated suit-case bomb test?

http://www.danegerus.com/weblog/Comments.asp?svComment=15717

[The Truth Hurts]

The Republican spin machine is hard at work, trying to blame President Clinton for the failures of the Bush administration.

The Clinton administration negotiated an agreement (using both diplomacy and threat of force) to keep the fuel rods that could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium locked up, and to allow inspectors.

Under the Clinton administration the fuel rods remained locked up.

Bush's blustering pissed of the North Koreans, and by invading a disarmed Iraq he actually gave them an incentive to restart their nuclear weapons program, which they did. When they threatened to break the locks on the fuel rods the Bush administration did NOTHING, unlike Clinton.

[Gullyborg]

Actually, "Truth," you are not just wrong, but DEAD wrong.

I PERSONALLY monitored elevated emissions from 3 NK sites during my position as chief data analyst for the Reactor Products Program in the Air Force Technical Applications Center before leaving the service in 1997. NK has been weaponizing plutonium since the Clinton administration authorized two breeder reactors in 1994.

END. OF. STORY.

I'd go into greater detail, but as far as I know, greater details are still classified. Unlike, say, Sandy Burglar, I still intend to uphold my oaths regarding national security.

You can believe me or not. If you choose not to, there is nothing further to be gained by this discussion.

As for suitcase nukes or fizzles, I'll have to address those later when I have more time to write.

[Max]

i always enjoy comments about the "Republican Spin Machine". You can pretty well figure that whatever follows may be good for a laugh or so.

Bush's blustering pissed off the NoKo?

LOL! Is there any excuse that the little pissant wouldn't use?

One well-placed bomb would solve the problem.

This is a country of 22 million or so, of which only the acolytes around the capitol are well-fed.

20 million others are trying to live off grass soup.