OT:Working lifespan of a nuclear bomb ?

[dennis]

It wasn't very dangerous.

[fred]

In article , Reentrant writes

Best response yet :-)

It seems that at least some respondents have had some AWRE based experience in the past.

[Andy Burns]

I remember hearing of several cases where they'd lost weapons at sea, wiki has quite a long list, including others that were dropped or otherwise damaged rather than merely lost ...

[polygonum]

Hopefully not long enough for the bomb to learn phenomenology and Cartesian doubt.

[Roland Perry]

In message , Jethro_uk writes

Shouldn't that be "explosives experts"?

[Huge]

Dark Star?

[polygonum]

Lets have some music in here, Boiler

[The Natural Philosopher]

Uranium 235 yes. The reason it exists in nature is because it has a multi-million year half life.

PU239 is also very long lived.

The art of nuclear weapeaons is to have a very long lifed=low radiation fissile material so its safe to handle. But one just fissile enough to sustain a chain reaction if slapped together very hard.

[The Natural Philosopher]

safest place for atomic stuff is at the bottom of the sea.

[The Natural Philosopher]

theres a couple of nukey subs down there as well.

[GB]

You 100% sure about that? Seems a daft location to me.

[GB]

I did wonder whether the Polonium used on Litvinenko had a 'Not lethal after" label on it?

[Tim Streater]

No. The deep ocean is the best place because it gets covered, slowly, with silt, and eventually will get sub-ducted into the Earth's crust, to join the rest of the radioactive material that is already there (and which is largely the reason that the interior of the planet is molten).

If we had any sense any nuclear waste would just be dumped into, f'rinstance, the Marianna Trench. After tying it to harry's leg, that is.

[bert]

SO that' the answer to Harry's perpetual question on how to safely dispose of nuclear waste - give it to the USAAF

[GB]

I'm pretty sure the rate of subduction (is that the right word?) is only around 1-2 cms a year. So the stuff will be around a long time. In the meantime, any leaks can be swirled around in the ocean currents.

[JimK]

/any leaks can be swirled around in the ocean currents/q

Diluted by a factor of ? Billion?

Jim K

[The Natural Philosopher]

water is a fantastic shield, and people don't live at the bottom of the sea

And there's 4.6 *billion* tonnes of uranium in the sea already. Another

3 tonnes won't make any difference.

[The Natural Philosopher]

[The Natural Philosopher]

around 1 billion.

[GB]

It's the plutonium that's much more worrying. Especially if it gets concentrated by the little fishes, etc.