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posted by
martyb
on Saturday April 11 2015, @09:42AM
from the US-Military--and/or--the-Military-Industrial-Complex? dept.
from the US-Military--and/or--the-Military-Industrial-Complex? dept.
I guess we have all seen all those wonderful toys coming from China. Technologies unimaginable a few years ago, like quadricopters and microminiature concealed cameras. It looks like the US Military is taking notice.
Other countries (such as China) build our stuff, understand how it works, and have found out how to make it very inexpensively. A remote-controlled drone was once the exclusive domain of law enforcement... now just about anyone who wants one can buy one.
Yup, it looks like the-powers-that-be are realizing their cats are getting out of the bag...
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US Military Concerned About Losing Their High Tech Edge
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The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday April 11 2015, @04:10PM
That's the name of a really good movie, starring Kirk Douglas I think, telling the true story of fifteen Norwegian Commandoes who landed in Norway in a glider. They blew up the Norsk Hydro heavy water plant, then when the NAZIs tried to make off with the "product" they already had in storage, the Commandoes sunk a fully-loaded passenger ferry.
After the war, a heavy water reactor was discovered hidden under a mountain. It was 1/3 full of heavy water.
Heavy water reactors are the best way to make plutonium.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by JNCF on Saturday April 11 2015, @05:35PM
This [dailymail.co.uk] is probably different than whatever you're talking about, but related. 126,000 barrels of decaying nuclear waste in Nazi tunnels.
Immediately after the war, elements of the American government were publicly contending that nuclear-weapons technology could be suppressed and made available only to close allies. Knowledge of a German bomb would have certainly undercut those claims, and a conspiracy to hide how close the Germans were to making a bomb isn't unthinkable. There are even a couple of eye-witness accounts of a German bomb being tested, but they're pretty-fucking-sketchy.
(Score: 3, Informative) by kaszz on Saturday April 11 2015, @05:39PM
Catch.. The Nazi scientist didn't know what to do with the Plutonium except for poisoning areas with population which is really a waste.
However the Nazi regime were quite near to succeed with production of jet fighters which could have thwarted the invasion by getting dominance in the airspace.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday April 11 2015, @06:21PM
that's why the US tested one Alamagordo, New Mexico - to make sure it would really detonate, and if it didn't to gain the insight required to make one that would.
We didn't test the Uranium bomb as we were certain it would work: just shoot a uranium slug out of a cannon into the center of a uranium ring.
That doesn't work with plutonium because its cascade reaction is far too fast, the slug and ring would vaporize before they went critical.
If you put two pieces of either of them closer together they get more radioactive. However that increasing radioactivity is highly nonlinear. With plutonium it wasn't feasible to calculate numerically.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday April 11 2015, @06:55PM
They have figured out the numerical simulation models by now I presume? and the current level of computing at 180 PFlops should make this possible?
I'm kind of impressed how they figured out the implosion parameters.
Anyway, your statements make it clear why spheric implosion was the method of choice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @07:32PM
were quite near to succeed with production of jet fighters
They made fighter jets, and were in the air with them, shooting down the invaders. Your knowledge of history is flawed.
Where Germany did go wrong was that it was very late in putting the resources in for fighter jets. You can blame Hermann Göring for this.
The first German fighter jet (ME-262) was tested before 1939, and was in production by 1944. Actually, the jet engine was invented in 1936, and a few prototypes were built before 1939.