ST&NS -Opening Thoughts - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

ST&NS -Opening Thoughts

Science, Technology & National Security

Early considerations:

Historical definitions of national security*

Scientists and the politics of national security -historical considerations

Federal agencies, scientists, and national security

Politicians and the national security leverage of science & technology

Cultural contrasts between scientists and national security staff

• The balance between civilian and military development of technology for national security

• Science: the pursuit of knowledge that reveals the character of nature.
• Technology: the exploitation of nature for individual or collective gain.
• National security: domestic tranquility and the preservation of national interests at home and abroad.

• Project triggered by letter from Einstein to FDR (1939).
• Project driven by gathering of American and émigré European scientists.
• Project funded and guided by American military and political leaders.

Fission

&

Fusion

Lise Meitner

Otto Hahn

Leo Szilard

Edward Teller

Stan Ulam

Andrei Sakharov

Inducing controlled fission

http://www.lanl.gov/worldview/welcome/history/08_Chicago-reactor.html

http://www.lanl.gov/worldview/welcome/history/08_chicago-reactor.html

The scientists who worked on the project were back row, from left, Norman Hilberry, Samuel Allison, Thomas Brill, Robert Nobles, Warren Nyer, and Marvin Wilkening. Middle row, Harold Agnew, William Sturm, Harold Lichtenberger, Leona Marshall and Leo Szilard. Front row, Enrico Fermi, Walter Zinn, Albert Wattenber and Herbert Anderson.

• Identify fissile fuels.
• Isolate fissile fuels in bomb-grade purity.
• Assemble these fuels into a super-critical mass.
• Deliver this technology to a target.

Hanford

Los Alamos

Oak Ridge

The K-25 plant, Oakridge

http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Usa/Med/Med.html

http://www.lanl.gov/worldview/welcome/history/14_gadget-born.html

http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Usa/Tests/Trinity.html

http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Usa/Tests/Trinity.html

http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Usa/Med/Lbfm.html

Fatman dropped on Nagasaki -August, 1945

http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Usa/Med/Lbfm.html

Enrico Fermi

Vannevar Bush

Nagasaki, August 9, 1945

Robert Oppenheimer

The USA and the USSR, allies in WWII become adversaries

The USSR explodes an atomic bomb (1949)

American scientists explore the design of an H-bomb (1950-52)

The USA and the USSR enter into a competition of nuclear weapons development

Science in pursuit of knowledge

and

influence upon national security policy

Ivy Mike Test (1952)

http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Usa/Tests/Ivy.html

USA, USSR, and Britain test weapons design in the atmosphere, in space, under water.

Background radiation in parts of the world increase.

Bravo test showers The Lucky Dragon with heavy fallout (1954).

India, within the UN leads an initiative to end testing.

NationFirst Nuclear Detonation

USA 1945

USSR 1949

England 1952

France 1959

China 1964

India 1974

Pakistan 1998

South Africa ?

Israel -

Craig, Jungerman, Nuclear Arms Race, 1990.

From 1945-1963, there are 650 test detonations of nuclear devices --most exploded in the atmosphere.

In 1963, international fear of radio-active fallout prompts the LTBT.

From 1963 to the present, a twilight struggle to ratify a CTBT ensues --and another 1100 nuclear detonations occur.

Stockpile stewardship

Innovation

Sustaining technical expertise

Modernizing nuclear explosion detection systems

Weapons effects

Political

The explosive core in the primary of a nuclear weapon is plutonium.

Plutonium decays (half-life = 24,100 years)

239Pu 235U + 4He

Alpha particles induce crystal modifications within the core that reduce its explosive yield and the reliability of the weapon.

Sidney Drell, et al, Science, 2/19/99.

600,000 people work on the production of the arsenal

Fuel production

Warhead design and fabrication

Design testing

Physics package assembly

Weapons assembly

At a cost of $5.5 trillion , that is $5.5 x1012

C&E News, Vol. 78, p. 10, Feb 7, 2000.

High-speed computing and microscopic ignition of fusion

Growing global supplies of fissile fuel

Underemployed weapons scientists

Escalating regional conflict

Global commerce

Ease of information flow

1956 - 1958 --Failed American Soviet negotiations

1958 - 1961 --Testing moratorium

1963 --The LTBT

1976 --The TTBT

1996 --The CTBTsigned

1999 --CTBT ratification not recommended by Senate

CTBT is a ninety-nine page document, largely concerned with establishing and operating the International Monitoring System (IMS)

IMS is a collection of 321 seismic, infrasound, hyroacoustic, and radio-nuclide sensors distributed among 89 nations and Antarctica

Each nation will establish National Data Centers (NDC) and links to an International Data Centre (IDC), for purposes of sharing data

The purpose of CTBT is to discontinue experiments like this one

C&E News, October 19, 1998

50 Stations

distributed

World-wide

http://www.ctbt.rnd.doe.gov/ctbt/introduction/infrasound_mon.html

Developing the algorithms and databases required for reliable detection at 167 stations

Los Alamos and Livermore National Labs