Building the Bombs by Loeber
Ref: Charles Loeber (2002). Building the Bombs. A History of the Nuclear Weapons Complex. Sandia National Labs.
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Summary
The Nuclear Weapons Complex (NWC) is a nationwide group of government-owned sites that is responsible for the design, development, production, modification, repair, assemble, disassembly, and testing of all nuclear weapons in the U S stockpile. The NWC has evolved since the beginning of the Manhattan Project in 1942 to meet national security objectives. It has met these objectives by: building the weapons that ended World War II; building a stockpile of weapons that served as a deterrent to the Soviet Union during the Cold War; incorporating new technologies into the stockpile; safely downsizing the stockpile and dismantling the excess nuclear weapons after the Cold War was over, and ensuring that the remaining stockpile is safe and reliable. This book provides a high level summary of this story. It begins in 1905 with Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and his famous equation, E=mc2, and ends in the year 2001 with a discussion of the post-Cold War challenges for the NWC. It explains how and why the NWC grew from three sites at the start of the Manhattan Project to over fifty sites at the height of the Cold War, to eight sites-three laboratories, four production plants and one test site-after the Cold War ended (Google).
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Ch 1: Einstein Opens the Door
1919: Aston invents the mass spectrometer- allows elements to be separated by mass.
1919: Rutherford discovers transmutation of N into O using alpha particles.
1932: Chadwick (British) discovers neutral neutron which can be used as subatomic “bullet.”
1934: Szilard (Hungarian); patent for neutron-induced chain reaction- explained critical mass.
1934: Fermi (Italian); discovers moderation- slow neutrons are effective in producing radioactive atoms.
1936: Aston explains binding energy and mass defect.
Nov, 1938: Hahn & Strassman (German) split U into Ba (Fission).
Jan, 1939: Bohr shares Fission with 5th Washington Conference on Theoretical Physics in DC.
1939: Bohr and Einstein write a letter to POTUS FDR warning about the potential for nuclear weapons.
1939: POTUS FDR establishes Advisory Committee on U, which recommends purchase of graphite and U3O8 to support nuclear pile experiments.
Sep, 1939: Bohr & Wheeler publish “The Mechanism of Nuclear Fission”; U-235 is fissionable.
Spring, 1940: UK establishes the Military Application of Uranium Disintegration (MAUD) to study nuclear weapons.
Jan-Feb, 1941: Seaborg produces Pu-239 (1.7x more fissionable than U-235) at Lawrence’s cyclotron at Berkeley.
Jul, 1941: Bush receives MAUD report estimating that a critical mass of 10kg is enough for a nuclear weapon.
Oct, 1941: Bush is instructed by FDR to conduct R&D on physics and weapons design.
6 Dec, 1941: The Uranium committee reorganizes its work:
Urey at Columbia on gaseous diffusion for separating U-235 and U-238.
Lawrence at UCLA on electromagnetic method for separating U-235 and U-238.
Murphee at Standard Oil on a centrifuge method for separating U-235 and U-238.
Compton at U. of Chicago the design, build, and operation of a plant for U into Pu and weapon design.
Jun, 1942: Compton appoints Oppenheimer for fast neutron studies.
Summer, 1942: Oppenheimer assembles the luminaries; development of a bomb is a massive effort.
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Ch 2: The Manhattan Project
Jun, 1942: Bush tells FDR it was possible to make a bomb; Manhattan Engineer District (MED) formed under Groves.
Sep-Dec, 1942: Groves establishes Nuclear Weapons Complex (NWC).
23 Sep, 1942: Groves selects Oak Ridge, TN to produce enriched U.
15 Oct, 1942: Groves appoints Oppenheimer to lead bomb-design lab. Oppenheimer recommends Los Alamos.
2 Dec, 1942: Fermi achieves self-sustaining chain reaction in a “pile” at U. of Chicago; reactor Pu-239 is possible.
End Dec, 1942: Groves selects Hanford for Pu-239 production.
Dec, 1942: Fermi’s CP-1 goes operational at the U. of Chicago.
1943: Weapons designers develop “urchins” made of Po and Be as a source of neutrons to initiate chain reaction.
Po-210 naturally decays into Pb and an alpha particle (2 He4). When an alpha particle hits Be-9, it emits a neutron; 4 Be9 + 2 He4 = 6 C12 + 0 n1.
Charles Thomas, Research Director for Monsanto Chemical Company, borrowed the indoor tennis court on his mother in law’s estate and converted it into a lab for Po purification.
Because Po-210 has a half-life of only 138 days, it must be replaced very frequently.
Mar, 1943: CP-2 goes operational at the Palos Forest Preserve outside Chicago.
1943: Segre determines the U would not have to be brought together as quickly as thought, so the gun barrel could be shorter and lighter. When the barrel of the “Thin Man” was shortened, the name was changed to “Little Boy.”
Nov, 1943: X-10 graphite moderated reactor goes operational at Oak Ridge as a pilot plant for Pu production.
Mar, 1944: 305 Test Pile graphite moderated reactor goes operational at Hanford, WA.
1944-1963: The US builds 9x Pu production graphite moderated, light water-cooled reactors at Hanford.
Hanford produced Pu-239 by bombarding U-238 with neutrons in a nuclear reactor. The U-238 captured a neutron and transmuted into U-239. The U-239 transmuted via beta decay into Neptunium-239. The Neptunium then transmuted via beta decay into Pu-239.
Mar, 1944: Y-12 delivers its first enriched U to Los Alamos. By Sep, 1944, Y-12 delivers a full kg of HEU (64% U-235) and by Jul, 1945, 50kg had been delivered at 89% U-235.
Most of the U-235 used in the Manhattan project was produced by electromagnetic separation in a “calutron” (CA university cyclotron). In this process, natural U was combined with Cl to form U-tetrachloride, which was ionized and injected into one end of a D-shaped vacuum chamber. The ions passed through slotted electrodes to accelerate them into the chamber. A very strong magnetic field (perpendicular to the chamber) forced the ions to go around a curve, and because of inertia, the heavier U-238 isotope traveled on a larger radius than the lighter U-235. The separated isotopes were captured on collection plates. There were two stages of calutrons. The Alpha stage produced a low-enrichment of U-235 (15%). This fed into the Beta calutrons that enriched the U-235 up to weapons grade. The Alpha stages were arranged into oval-shaped “racetracks” containing 96 calutrons. The Beta stages were arranged into square shaped units containing 72 calutrons.
May, 1944: CP-3, a heavy-water moderated reactor, goes operational at Argonne, IL.
1 Aug, 1944: Allies capture Tinian, it becomes a major airbase for raids on Japan.
1945: Oxnard field is transferred from the Army Air Corps to the MED, and then became Sandia Base.
Jul, 1945: The Z Division is established at Los Alamos to perform engineering and weapons assembly work. They are transferred to Sandia Base (formerly Oxnard Field) in Albuquerque.
2 May, 1945: POTUS Truman and US War Secretary Stimson establish the Interim Committee. A month later on 1 Jun, 1945, the Interim committee recommends the atomic bomb be used against Japan as soon as possible.
16 Jul, 1945: Trinity Test near Alamogordo, NM using an implosion design with Pu. It had a 21 kt yield.
26 Jul, 1945: Potsdam Conference; Truman’s Potsdam declaration is rejected by Japan. Based on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, an invasion of Japan might cost ~250K-1M allied casualties; policy makers look towards bomb.
6 Aug, 1945: Little Boy is dropped on Hiroshima. It had a yield of 15kt and killed ~70K while wounding 130K.
9 Aug, 1945: Fat Man is dropped on Nagasaki. It had a yield of 21 kt and killed ~40K while wounding ~60K.
When the news of Nagasaki was brought in, the meeting was adjourned to convene that night with Emperor Hirohito. It was Hirohito who decided that they must “bear the unbearable” and surrender.
2 Sep, 1945: Japan formally surrenders aboard the USS Missouri.
Dec, 1946: The gaseous diffusion plant producing HEU and the beta calutrons are shut down. Thereafter, all enriched U was produced by the gaseous diffusion process.
1971: Sandia base is merged into Kirtland AFB.
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Ch 3: German Atomic Bomb Program
1911: The Norsk Hydro Plant is built in the Rjukan valley ~75 miles West of Oslo.
1927: Bohr’s Complementarity Principle- “particles and waves are mutually exclusive abstractions that complement each other.”
1932: Urey discovers the deuterium nucleus.
Urey found that H2O was more likely to dissociate during electrolysis than D2O. If 100K gallons of water were decomposed until only 1 gallon was left, this remaining liquid would contain ~99% pure heavy water. A large quantity of electrical power was required to produce heavy water by this process.
1934: Norsk Hydro managers realized that they could produce heavy water as a by-product of their fertilizer manufacturing process, and they built a neighboring electrolysis plant.
1938: Germany establishes a nuclear physics program under the Heereswaffenamt- Army Ordnance Research Dept.
26 Sep, 1939: Heisenberg joins the Heereswaffenamt; the group was called the Uranverein- “Uranium Club.”
Apr, 1940: Germany forces occupies Denmark.
May, 1940: Germany seizes the Norsk Hydro plant and forces its operators to increase heavy water production.
4 Jun, 1942: Speer asks Heisenberg “how nuclear physics could be applied to the manufacture of atomic bombs.” Heisenberg answered that, in theory, nothing stood in the way of building such a bomb, but it would take many years and enormous resources that Germany could not afford in wartime. Speer accepted Heisenberg’s opinion and decided to continue work on a reactor project, but only on a modest scale.
Some later historians with less personal reason for hostility and with access to the Farm Hall transcripts feel that Heisenberg purposely killed the German atomic bomb effort.
23 Jun, 1942: Heisenberg & Doepel’s heavy water moderated reactor in Leipzig explodes. All heavy water is lost.
Summer, 1943: Speer approves an army request to use natural U-238 for armor-piercing shells.
Late, 1943: Groves establishes the intel unit “Alsos” to provide information on the German Atomic Bomb program.
Dec, 1943: Alsos 1 enters Italy.
6 Jun, 1944: Operation Overlord; allied forces take Normandy; Alsos 2 enters France.
25 Aug, 1944: Allied forces liberate Paris; Alsos 2 determine the Germans are nowhere near a nuclear weapon.
24 Feb, 1945: Alsos 3 enters Germany. In Apr, they capture all German atomic scientists near Hechingen.
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Ch 4: Espionage During the Manhattan Project
Venona Project- Armed Forces Security Agency- NSA
Feb, 1943: The US launches the Venona Project under the Army Signal Intel Service to decipher encrypted messages used in the Soviet diplomatic cables.
Dec, 1946: US Venona project codebreakers read a suspicious cable containing the names of several Manhattan project scientists. Unfortunately, they had to work through a backlog of >10K messages.
1949: The Army Signal Intel Service, which included the Venona Project, was incorporated into the Armed Forces Security Agency. In 1952, POTUS Truman issued a directive to form the NSA within the DoD. The Armed forces security agency was included in the NSA. The NSA manages cryptological activities for the US.
Hans Fuchs, Harry Gold, David Greenglass, & Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Aug, 1943: The Quebec Conference; FDR and Churchill establish a combined policy committee to facilitate US, British, and Canadian collaboration on the atomic bomb. One of the first actions by the committee was to transfer a group of 15 British scientists to the US. This group included Klaus Fuchs, who later spies for the USSR.
Mar, 1944: Fuchs begins passing information on gaseous diffusion to Harry Gold, a Soviet courier, who passed the information on to a soviet agent. Information included valuable engineering details about the K-25 U diffusion plant at Oak Ridge, including the use of sintered Ni-powder to make gaseous diffusion membranes.
Feb, 1945: Fuchs passes a wealth of information on to Harry Gold who, in turn, gives it to Soviet agent Anatoly Yatsko in NY. This information included the principle of atomic bomb construction, the critical mass of Pu, the implosion method of detonation, and the high rate of spontaneous fission in Pu.
2 Jun, 1945: Fuchs gives Gold additional information in Santa Fe, including a sketch of the Pu-bomb and its components along with important dimensions, a description of the exact sketch of the initiator, the type of core, the importance of a tamper, and the intention to use the bomb against Japan.
Sep, 1949: Venona project codebreakers decipher a cable that showed the Soviets had stolen critical atomic bomb information. The FBI opened an investigation that linked this information to Klaus Fuchs. At the time, Fuchs was the Chief Scientist at England’s top-secret Harwell Nuclear Center. The FBI informed British security services, which then begin questioning Fuchs. Fuchs confessed on 2 Feb, 1950.
22 May, 1950: The FBI located Fuch’s courier, Harry Gold, who confessed. Gold also told the FBI that her served as a courier for a young soldier at Los Alamos. On 15 Jun, 1950, Gold identified David Greenglass from a photo provided by the FBI. Greenglass was arrested. He confessed and told the agents he had been recruited by his wife, Ruth, who, in turn, had been drawn into espionage by her brother-in-law, Julius Rosenberg. It was subsequently learned that Julius and his wife Ethel had been involved in a variety of espionage activities.
Harry Gold pleaded guilty to espionage and received a 30-year prison sentence.
Klaus Fuchs went to trial in Britain on 1 Mar, 1950. He received 14 yr, the max penalty under British law.
David Greenglass agreed to testify against Julius Rosenberg if charges could not be brought against his wife, Ruth. He pled guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and received a 15 yr prison sentence.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage and sentenced to death on 5 Apr, 1951. The died in the electric chair on 19 Jun, 1953; the only civilians ever to be executed under the General Espionage Act of 1917.
Morris and Lona Cohen escaped from the US in 1950 before the FBI could catch them. In 1961, the Cohens were arrested in England. They had changed their names to Peter and Helen Groger and were back in espionage. They were caught sneaking submarine technology out of the Portland Naval Research Base for delivery to the Soviets. They were convicted and sentenced to 20 years each.
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Ch 5: Creating the Cold War
5 Mar, 1946: Churchills’ Iron Curtain Speech from Fulton, MS.
1 Aug, 1946: POTUS Truman signs the Atomic Energy Act; the military MED will be managed by the civilian AEC.
14 Jun, 1946: US presents Baruch Plan for an IAEA; the USSR rejects it.
12 Mar, 1947: Truman advocates for support to anti-communist forces in Greece and Turkey; Truman Doctrine.
5 Jun, 1947: US SecState Marshall introduces the Marshall Plan. The USSR rejects it.
25 Feb, 1948: USSR moves military forces into Prague and takes over Czechoslovakia.
24 Jun, 1948: USSR blockades West Berlin, facilitating the US Berlin Airlift. In response, 12 nations create NATO.
29 Aug, 1949: The USSR tests its first atomic bomb, which had been nicknamed “Joe 1” after Stalin.
1 Oct, 1949: Chinese communists complete their victory over the Nationalists, and the PRC is formed.
25 Jun, 1950: North Korea invades South Korea; through the UN, the US and allies are drawn into the Korean War.
1950: The Savannah River site is established near Aiken, SC to be a second source of Pu and to produce heavy water.
1951: The Nevada test site (NTS) is established as the nation’s on-continent nuclear weapons testing area.
1951: The AEC requires the Pantex plant near Amarillo, TX, to produce HE and assemble nuclear weapons.
1958: US Weapon designs had improved such that the B28 bomb had a diameter of only 20”, weighed ~2500 lbs, and had a yield in the megaton range.
25 May, 1953: Shot Grable; initial test of the 280mm W-19, a gun-type artillery shell with a 15 kt yield.
16 Jan, 1953: The AEC and the DoD approved the Missiles and Rockets agreements.
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Ch 6: Two Scorpions in Battle
1952: The U of CA Radiation Lab (UCRL) joined the NWC as a design lab. Its mission was to compete with Los Alamos in physics package design. This lab was established largely because of the efforts of Teller, who felt that the leaders at Los Alamos, especially Oppenheimer, were not sufficiently enthusiastic about thermonuclear weapons, and he began a campaign to open a second nuclear weapon design lab. Lawrence supported Teller’s proposal and arranged to house the new organization temporarily within his Radiation Lab at Berkeley. It soon moved to Livermore, CA.
After Stalin’s death in Mar, 1953 and the end of the Korean War in July, Americans hoped for some change in the USSR’s foreign policy towards the US.
1953: The Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge began producing Li-6 and “secondaries” for the newly developed thermonuclear weapons. Li-deuteride was the key material. Natural Li is about 7.5% Li-6 and 92.5% Li-7. The Y-12 plant began to develop Li isotope separation processes in 1950.
8 Dec, 1953: POTUS Ike proposes an Atoms-for-Peace-plan. Ike pledged that the US would devote “its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.” The plan had three goals 1) to allocate fissionable materials to peaceful uses in medicine, agriculture, and in research, 2) to promote the production of power using atomic fuel; and 3) to divert U stockpiles from the nuclear arms race. This plan included an atomic bank for nuclear materials. The US contended that an atomic bank would siphon off nuclear material from national stockpiles and thus reduce the amount available for weapons. Nuclear power was to save the world from nuclear devastation. The US presented its plan for the IAEA to the USSR on 19 Mar, 1954, the Soviets rejected it. They claimed that the small amount of nuclear materials allocated to the IAEA would not significantly reduce the stock available for weapons, and the widespread use of nuclear power would result in the proliferation of weapons-grade material. They felt that a ban on nuclear weapons was needed first. Such a ban was politically impossible in the US because of the USSR’s hostile actions in Berlin and elsewhere.
Jun, 1954: POTUS Ike proceed with the IAEA and Atoms-for-Peace-plan unilaterally (without the USSR).
30 Aug, 1954: POTUS Ike signs the Atomic Energy Act (which supersedes the Atomic Energy Act of 1946) into law.
1958: Death of Ernest Lawrence; the U of CA Radiation Lab (UCRL) changes its name to the Lawrence- Livermore Lab.
Thermonuclear Weapon (‘Hydrogen/Fusion- Bomb’)
1946: Edward Teller invents a relatively simple single-stage design for a thermonuclear weapon.
Jan, 1944: German émigré physicist Hanse Bethe puts Hungarian émigré physicist Edward Teller, in charge of a small group to work on implosion theory. As winter turned to spring, Teller began to neglect implosion calculations. Teller felt he had more important work to do, including early theoretical study of the possibility of using an atomic bomb to ignite a mass of deuterium for a weapon he called the “Super.”
23 Sep, 1949: POTUS Truman announced that an atomic explosion had occurred in the USSR.
Oct, 1949: The GAC issued a report that recommended against developing a H-bomb.
13 Jan, 1950: The CJCS send a memo to the GAC stating that they considered it “necessary to have within the arsenal of the US a weapon of the greatest capability, in this case the super bomb.” The SECDEF sent this memo directly to POTUS Truman. On 31 Jan, 1950, Truman announced that he was directing “the AEC to continue its work on all forms of atomic weapons, including the so-called H or super-bomb.”
Dec, 1950: Ulam proposes to use the fission reaction to compress a secondary.
9 Mar, 1951: Teller-Ulam concept; Teller and Ulam write a joint report describing the potential to use the fission reaction to compress a secondary. Thereafter, Teller pushed Ulam aside and refused to deal with him any longer. Teller found it intolerable to share credit for his concept.
1954: The B-14 enters the US stockpile as the first thermonuclear warhead.
1955: The B-15 thermonuclear warhead replaces the B-14.
Communism & McCarthyism
Aug, 1948: HUAC begins investigating communist penetration of the USG with hearings against Alger Hiss.
3 Feb, 1950: After the arraignment of Klaus Fuchs, Joseph McCarthy began a communist witch hunt.
1948-1954: McCarthyism; characterized by a national paranoia towards communism.
Secret FBI interviews with Teller dating from May, 1952 provided several new allegations against Oppenheimer. Teller told the FBI that Oppenheimer had opposed the development of the H bomb since 1945, that the H-bomb would have been a reality by 1951 or earlier if Oppenheimer had not opposed it, and that Oppenheimer wrote the majority opinion for the Oct, 1949 GAC report and was the dominating influence on the committee…On 21 Dec, 1953, Strauss handed Oppenheimer a list of charges against him. Oppenheimer had the choice of resigning from his position as a consultant to the AEC or requesting a security hearing. Oppenheimer told Strauss that he wanted a hearing. The hearing ended on 6 May, 1954. On May 27 the Security board recommended against reinstating Oppenheimer’s security clearance. Many of Teller’s scientific colleagues were appalled. Edward Teller became a pariah within the larger scientific community.
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Ch 7: Tests and Test Sites
Total Nuclear Tests Worldwide: ~2070; US- 1030, USSR- 715; UK- 57 (24 joint with US); France- 210; China- 44; India- 6 (5 between 11-13 May, 1998); Pakistan- 6 (5 on 28-30 May, 1998); North Korea- 2.
30 Jun, 1946: The first nuclear test after WWII is conducted at Bikini Atoll.
9 May, 1951: The US tests the world’s first thermonuclear device at Enewetak Atoll. It had a yield of 225 kt.
3 Oct, 1952: The UK conducts its first nuclear test.
31 Oct, 1952: The US tests the world’s first staged thermonuclear device at Enewetak. It had a yield of 10.4 Mt.
Mike used the fission-fusion-fission concept, in which the reaction begins with fission in a Pu primary that ignites a liquid deuterium secondary. Fusion in the secondary produces high-energy neutrons that cause U-238 around the secondary to fission.
The Mike device could not serve as a deliverable weapon because it required very large cryogenic equipment to cool the liquid deuterium. Mike was almost 7’ in diameter, 20’ long, and weighed 82 tons.
12 Aug, 1953: The USSR tests its first thermonuclear device. It had a yield of 400 kt.
1 Mar, 1954: The US tests its first deliverable thermonuclear weapon at Bikini atoll. It had a yield of 14.8 Mt; 3Li7 + 0n1 = 3Li6 + 0n1 + 0n1
3 Dec, 1960: France conducts its first nuclear test.
1 Sep, 1961: The USSR resumes a series of the largest tests ever conducted. In response, the US resumes testing.
30 Oct, 1961: The USSR detonates the largest nuclear device ever tested, with a yield of 58 Mt.
1962: In response to a USSR violation of the nuclear test moratorium, the USG establishes a rocket launching facility on Kauai. This site was initially called the Barking Sands Rocket Complex because nearby coral sand, when stepped on, made crunching noises similar to a yapping dog. In the 1970s, it was renamed the Kauai test facility. This site was subsequently used to support a NASA project for study of the upper atmosphere. It was used to launch scientific experiments for the Los Alamos and LLNL and for some universities.
5 Aug, 1963: US and USSR sign the Limited Test Ban Treaty- prohibits underwater, atmospheric, and space tests.
16 Oct, 1964: China conducts its first nuclear test.
18 May, 1974: India conducts its first nuclear test.
16 Oct, 1980: China conducts the world’s last nuclear atmospheric test.
23 Sep, 1992: The US conducts its last nuclear test.
28 May, 1998: Pakistan conducts its first nuclear test.
9 Oct, 2006: North Korea conducts its first nuclear test.
25 May, 2009: North Korea conducts its second nuclear test.
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Ch 8: Performance Improvements
1953: Sandia begins the engineering development of the “wooden bomb concept” in conjunction with GE’s X-Ray Department in Milwaukee, WI.
Wooden Bomb Concept: A nuclear weapon that could lie in storage for 20yr or more without major maintenance, yet, could be pulled from the stockpile and used at a moment’s notice.
1954: GE’s X-ray Department in Milwaukee, WI produces the first neutron generators.
Neutron Generators: Provides high-energy neutrons to initiate nuclear weapons and test devices; consist of a miniaturized linear accelerator assembled with a pulsed electrical power supply for their operation. Their principle of operation is: 1) Deuterium atoms are entrapped in a source material located at one end of a high-vacuum tube while Tritium atoms are entrapped in a target material at the other end. This tube is connected to an electronic circuit. 2) The weapon system provides an input signal to a timer in the neutron generator. The timer is synchronized with the weapon system’s fuzing circuitry to ensure that neutrons are released at the precise time for initiation. 3) A high current is sent to the source and ionizes the deuterium into a plasma. A very High voltage is placed between the source and the target and accelerates the deuterium ions into the tritium. A very high voltage is required in order to overcome the electrostatic repulsive force between the deuterium and tritium nuclei. 4) Fusion reactions occur between the D and T nuclei and produce neutrons.
1956: The NWCs electrical consumption peaks at 60.7B KWh (~12% of the US’ total output). This high usage was largely for U enrichment activities at the three gaseous diffusion plants, which consumed more electricity than was produced by the Hoover, Grand Coulee, and Bonneville dams plus the entire TVA system combined.
1956: At the direction of the AEC, Sandia establishes a facility in Livermore, CA, with the mission to provide ordnance engineering support to the Lawrence Livermore Lab.
1957: Los Alamos introduces the first sealed pit weapon.
Jun, 1958: The first externally mounted neutron generators go into the stockpile on the W34 nuclear depth bomb.
1970: Sandia completes the arming, fuzing, and firing (AF&F) package for the Navy’s Mk-3 reentry body, which is built around the W68 warhead. The Mark 3 was used on the Poseidon C3 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SBLM). This AF&F design set new standards for miniaturization and provided improved protection against radiation.
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Ch 9: To the Brink
Jun, 1953: An anti-communist uprising in East Berlin and other East German cities is crushed by USSR tanks.
12 Jan, 1954: US SecState John Dulles- “massive retaliation” speech if USSR attacks Western interests.
Oct, 1956: A nation-wide anti-communist revolt occurs in Hungary and is crushed by Soviet tanks.
Nov, 1958: USSR announces a plan to end the four-power occupation of East Berlin to force an Allied withdrawal from West Berlin.
1 Jan, 1959: Castro and a group of rebels overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.
2 May, 1960: A US U-2 recon aircraft is shot down over the USSR. Khrushchev cancels the Paris Conference.
9 Jul, 1960: Khrushchev warns the US that, if it attacked Cuba, the USSR would come to Cuba's assistance.
6 Jan, 1961: Khrushchev pledges support for "wars of national liberation."
20 Jan, 1961: POTUS Kennedy- "let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." He also cautioned the Soviets against "aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas" and went on to say, "we dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain that they will never be employed.”
Apr, 1961: Bay of Pigs Invasion; 1400 Cuban exiles are killed and captured attempting to invade Cuba.
Between 1948 and 1960, over 2.5 million East Germans migrated to the West. This was 20% of East Germany's population. This exodus included many highly-trained professionals and deprived the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) of the people it needed to compete with the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). Over 200,000 people escaped during the first half of 1961. In June 1961, Khrushchev said he would sign a separate peace with East Germany if there were no agreement within six months (i.e., by Dec, 1961) to change the status of Berlin. This plan was unacceptable to the US and its allies. On August 13, 1961, East Germany begin building the Berlin Wall to eliminate the escape hatch for East Germans. Because the West's conventional forces were very weak, a conflict would result in surrender or escalation to nuclear war. Kennedy told his aides, "it's not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war."
27 Oct, 1961: East Germany closes Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin.
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Ch 10: Safety and Security Improvements
Permissive Action Link (PAL): A system that prevents a nuclear weapon from being armed until a prescribed code or combination is inserted. A typical system includes a motor-driven electrical switch that is installed inside a nuclear weapon. It is operated remotely by electrical signals from a ground or aircraft controller. The weapon-arming signal is blocked until this switch is closed. With this design, a nuclear weapon cannot be armed until the President’s order passes through the command channels to an officer controlling the weapon system, who then enters the code.
The first PAL hardware was delivered to the USAF in 1961 for installation in the W49/Jupiter system.
One-point Safe: A weapon design where if HE is initiated at any one point, there will be no significant nuclear yield.
19 Jan, 1975: The AEC is replaced by two new federal agencies; 1) the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which was charged with regulating the civilian use of atomic energy, and 2) the energy research and development administration (ERDA), which became the managing agency for the NWC.
1977: The 5th mod to the B61 bomb is fielded; the first to incorporate the weak link/strong link/exclusion barrier/unique-signal design. This concept became known as the enhanced nuclear detonation safety (ENDS).
1 Oct, 1977: The DOE replaces the ERDA.
End Dec, 1979: Los Alamos, Sandia, and UCRL become the US’ National Labs- LANL, SNL, LLNL.
1982: The heavy water plant at Savannah River is shut down.
1989: DOE Secretary Watkins establishes the Office of Environmental Management within the DoE to deal with environmental problems.
1992: The USC passes the Energy Policy Act. Under its provisions, U enrichment at the Portsmouth and Paducah plants are leased by the DoE to the newly-created US Enrichment corporation.
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Ch 11: Ending the Cold War
In Jan, 1969, Nixon began his first term as POTUS, and he adopted a new, less ideological foreign policy toward the USSR. His objective was to encourage the USSR to become a part of a stable international system. In particular, Nixon wanted the USSR to join the US in limiting the nuclear arms race and reduce its support for revolutions in the Third World (i.e., the underdeveloped nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, which were part of neither the First World of industrialized nations led by the US nor the Second World led by the USSR). This policy became known as détente. The high point for détente came in 1972 when the SALT I agreement and the ABM were signed.
Although the US and the USSR had some common interests, most notably on nuclear arms control, they differed sharply in their interests in the Third World.
Reagan once asked, "What arms race? We stopped, they raced." Reagan was suspicious of previous nuclear weapon limitation agreements. He felt that the US should aim for deep reductions, not just limitations. Toward that end, he changed the name of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) to Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START).
During the Reagan era, the US fielded several new nuclear weapon systems, including the Air-launched Cruise Missile (W80); Modern strategic bomb (B83); Ground launched Cruise Missile (W84); Intermediate-Range Missile- Pershing (W85); Land Based ICBM- Peacekeeper (W87); Sea- Launched ICBM for the Trident Sub (W88).
Production Sites
Kansas City Plant
Produce, procure non-nuclear components (electrical, electronic, mechanical).
Conduct surveillance testing on and repair non-nuclear components.
Pantex Plant
Assemble, maintain, and conduct surveillance on warheads.
Disassemble nuclear warheads being retired.
Fabricate chemical high-explosive components.
Store plutonium components from dismantled warheads.
Establish capability for non-intrusive modification pit reuse.
Y-12 Plant
Maintain capability to produce secondaries and cases.
Conduct surveillance on and dismantle secondaries.
Store and process uranium and lithium materials and parts.
Provide production support to weapons laboratories.
Savannah River/Tritium Operations
Recycle (unload/purify/load) tritium from dismantled warheads.
Conduct surveillance on and reclaim returned tritium reservoirs.
Support tritium source projects.
Labs and the Nevada Test Site
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL)
Conduct research and engineering activities.
Conduct experiments on nuclear weapons effects.
Design non-nuclear components and perform related systems engineering.
Manufacture selected non-nuclear components.
Provide safety and reliability assessments of the stockpile.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)
Conduct research and development (R&D) in basic sciences, mathematics, and computing.
Conduct experiments on physics of nuclear weapons.
Maintain capability to design nuclear explosive packages.
Design and test advanced technology concepts.
Provide safety and reliability assessments of the stockpile.
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
Conduct R&D in basic sciences, mathematics, and computing.
Conduct experiments on physics of nuclear weapons.
Maintain capability to design nuclear explosive packages.
Design and test advanced technology concepts.
Provide safety and reliability assessments of the stockpile.
Manufacture and conduct surveillance on selected non-nuclear components.
Conduct pit surveillance and intrusive modification for reuse; fabricate pits.
Nevada Test Site (NTS, now NNSS/N2S2)
Maintain capability to conduct underground nuclear tests, and evaluate effects.
Conduct experiments on physics of nuclear weapons.
Support emergency response and radiation-sensing activities.
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Ch 12: Maintaining Deterrence
1992: The US ends underground nuclear testing.
Storage (Issued by DOE in Jul, 1996): Consolidate storage of Pu pits at Pantex; send surplus non-pit Pu materials from Rocky Flats to the Savannah River Site for storage pending disposition; store surplus and non-surplus HEU at the Y-12 plant.
Disposition: Convert surplus fissile materials into forms that are unsuitable for use in nuclear weapons; convert some surplus Pu into mixed oxide (MOX), which is a blend of U-dioxide and Pu-dioxide, for use as fuel in commercial reactors; downblend surplus HEU into LEU for use as fuel in commercial reactors.
Seven phases in a weapon program
Phase 1: Weapon Conception
Phase 2: Program Feasibility Study
Phase 3: Development Engineering
Phase 4: Production Engineering
Phase 5: First Production
Phase 6: Quantity Production and Stockpile
Phase 7: Dismantlement
Current US policy dictates no new weapon development. Consequently, all US nuclear weapon programs are in either Phase 6 or Phase 7.
1996: DOE establishes a Stockpile Life Extension Program (SLEP).
Apr, 1999: DOE/AL revised the Development and Production Manual to add Phase 6.X- "Stockpile Life Extension,"
Oct, 1999: POTUS Clinton signed the NDAA for FY 2000, which establishes the NNSA within the DOE.
9 Oct, 2008: Thomas D'Agostino of the NNSA changed the name NWC to Nuclear Security Enterprise (NSE).
23 Aug, 2010: D'Agostino of the NNSA changes the name Nevada Test Site to Nevada National Security Site.
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Epilogue
What caused the Cold War and who started it?
Opposing visions for the postwar world- democratic capitalism versus authoritarian communism.
How much did the US spend on nuclear weapons?
From 1940- 1996, the US spent ~$5.5T (1996 dollars) on nuclear weapons and related programs.
Was this expenditure worth the cost?
This figure represents ~29% of all military spending from 1940- 1996. In 1948, POTUS Truman decided to place increased reliance on nuclear weapons in order to save money. His successors followed suit. In general, the costs for national defense would have been much higher without nuclear weapons.
What impact has the production of nuclear weapons caused to the environment?
Fissile materials production encompasses seven steps: (1) U mining, (2) milling, (3) refining, (4) U enrichment, (5) fuel and target fabrication, (6) reactor operations, and (7) chemical separations. The last step accounted for most of the waste and contamination. Chemical separations involve dissolving spent nuclear fuel rods and targets in acid and separating out the Pu and U using a chemical process. Waste generated by chemical separations processes accounted for >85% of the radioactivity generated in the nuclear weapons production process. Most of the contamination from the production of Pu and HEU exists at the Hanford and Savannah River sites and the three gaseous diffusion plants, K-25, Portsmouth, and Paducah.
What affect has the testing of nuclear weapons had on human health?
Many different isotopes are formed during a nuclear explosion, but only the relatively long-lived isotopes are deposited as fallout, in particular, St-90, C-14, and Cs-137. St-90 presents the greatest hazard because it is chemically similar to Ca and may become concentrated in the human body, especially in the bones of growing children. St-90 has a half-life of 28 yr.
Is it true that the US conducted some unethical medical experiments with radioactive materials?
On 7 Dec, 1993, DOE Secretary Hazel O'Leary held a press conference during which she acknowledged that the DOE had conducted human radiation experiments. President Clinton then established an Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments to investigate the studies. The committee found that many of the studies were unethical, that the doctors routinely violated their patients' trust, and that subjects were not fully informed. With few exceptions, though, the panel declared no one was harmed, no one was to blame, and no one needed medical monitoring.
Why are some people so opposed to nuclear weapons and the NWC?
Freeman Dyson is an internationally acclaimed scientist; he has also addressed this question. In his book, Weapons and Hope, Dyson feels that people live in two different worlds, which he calls warriors and victims. The warriors accept the world with all of its imperfections as a given and then work to preserve it. By contrast, the victims worry about the world and want to rebuild it from its foundations. Since they have such divergent views of the world, it is very difficult for them to communicate with each other.
Was the US justified in dropping atomic bombs on Japan in WWII?
After the war, POTUS Truman said that an invasion would have cost between 250K- 1M American casualties. Similarly, British PM Churchill claimed that an invasion would have cost 1M American and 500K British lives. In addition, the number of Japanese lives lost would have been many times greater.
All things considered, have nuclear weapons been a force for good or for evil?
“Is atomic energy a force for good or evil? I can only say, as mankind wills it.”-General Leslie Groves.
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National Environmental Policy Act
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has been heralded as the Magna Carta of the country's environmental movement. It was signed into law on January 1, 1970, to address the need for an environmental policy to guide the growing environmental consciousness and to shape a national response. The essential purpose of NEPA is to ensure that environmental factors are given the same consideration as other factors in decisions by the federal agencies.
There are several types of NEPA documents that a federal agency may prepare to document the potential environmental impacts of a proposed action and its alternatives. The two most common NEPA documents are an Environmental Assessment (EA) and an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
Environmental Assessment (EA): Prepared by a government agency if it unclear whether a proposed action may cause significant environmental impact. An EA is used as a screening document to determine whether an action will have significant impacts to the environment. If there is no potential for significant impact, the agency will make a finding of no significant impact.
Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI): Briefly presents why an action will not have a significant impact on the human environment. It must include the EA or a summary of the EA in supporting the FONSI determination.
Environmental Impact Statement (EIS): Prepared by a government agency if there are potential significant impacts. The major steps in the NEPA process for preparing an ElS are as follows: issuing a Notice of Intent (NOl) to begin the ElS process; gathering input from federal agencies, state and local governments, tribes, and other stakeholders (the public) during a process known as "scoping"; preparing the draft EIS; holding public meetings to discuss the draft EIS; receiving a responding to public comments on the draft EIS; preparing the final EIS; and issuing a Record of Decision (ROD). Decisions are not made in an EIS; rather, an EIS is one tool federal decision-makers must consider when deciding among various alternatives for a program or project.
Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS): A type of EIS that is prepared for large programs.
The NEPA process does not dictate that an agency select the most environmentally beneficial alternative. Rather, the NEPA process ensures that accurate environmental studies are performed; that they are done with public involvement and full public disclosure; and that public officials make decisions based on an understanding of the potential environmental consequences.
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Nuclear Weapons Treaties
Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT): Bans tests in the atmosphere, outer space, and under water. This treaty does not ban tests underground, but it does prohibit nuclear explosions in this environment if they cause radioactive debris to be present outside the territorial limits of the State under whose jurisdiction or control the test is conducted. The LTBT was signed in Moscow in August 1963, ratified by the US Senate in Sep, 1963, and became effective in Oct, 1963. This treaty involved the governments of the US, UK, and USSR. The LTBT is of unlimited duration.
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM): Limits anti-ballistic missile systems of the US and USSR through an agreement that each may have two ABM deployment areas. Both parties agreed to limit the improvement of their ABM technology. The ABM Treaty was signed in Moscow in May 1972, ratified by the US Senate in Aug, 1972, and became effective in Oct, 1972. This treaty is between the US and the USSR. The US has expressed a desire to modify or abandon this treaty in anticipation of its National Missile Defense Program, but as of this writing, no such action has been taken.
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT 1): Freezes the number of strategic ballistic missile launchers and permits an increase (agreed upon level) in submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launchers. SALT I was signed in Moscow in May 1972 and became effective in Oct, 1972. These talks involved the US and the USSR.
Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT): Establishes a nuclear test "threshold" by prohibiting underground tests having a yield exceeding 150 kt. The TTBT was signed in Jul, 1974, ratified and became effective in Dec, 1990. This treaty involved the US and USSR.
Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty (PNET): Governs all nuclear explosions outside the locations specified under the Threshold Test Ban Treaty. As with the TTBT, the "peaceful" explosions (such as big earth moving projects) must be conducted in compliance with the LTBT (e.g., underground with no radioactive release outside a country's borders) and cannot exceed 150 kt in yield for any single explosion. Aggregate explosions up to 1.5 MT are permitted if each explosion can be verified to be less than 150 kt. The PNET was signed in Washington and Moscow in May, 1976 and became effective in Dec, 1990. This treaty involved the US and the USSR.
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II): Agrees on a long-term comprehensive treaty providing limits on strategic offensive weapons systems. SALT Il negotiations began in Nov, 1972. The agreement was signed in Vienna in Jun, 1979. These talks involved the US and the USSR. POTUS Reagan declared that the USSR had violated its political commitment to observe the SALT Il Treaty in 1984 and 1985. Therefore, in May 1986, Reagan stated that "the US must base decisions regarding its strategic force structure on the nature and magnitude of the threat posed by Soviet strategic forces and not on standards contained in the SALT structure."
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF): Eliminated all nuclear-armed, ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. This treaty resulted in the elimination of 846 long-and short-range US INF missile systems and 1846 Soviet INF missile systems. The INF was signed in Washington in 1987, ratified in May 1988, and became effective in Dec, 1988. This treaty involved the US and the USSR.
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START 1): Equals the level of strategic offensive arms. Both sides agreed to reduce the number of strategic delivery vehicles (ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers) from about 2500 to 1600 and to reduce the number of accountable warheads on these vehicles from about 10,200 to 6000. These reductions were to be carried out in three phases over 7 yr (after the treaty became effective). START I was signed in Jul, 1991 between the US and the USSR. Five months later, the USSR dissolved and became four independent states - Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine. In May of 1992, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine became parties to the START I treaty as legal successors to the USSR. The US Senate ratified the treaty in Oct, 1992 and Russia ratified it in Nov, 1992. Russia decided not to exchange the instruments of ratification until Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine reached an agreement on the dismantlement of their nuclear forces and join the NPT. In Dec, 1994, the five parties to the START I Treaty exchanged instruments of ratification at the Budapest summit.
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II): A bilateral treaty between the US and Russia that will reduce deployed accountable strategic warheads to no more than 3500 for each side (down from 6000 in START I) and will eliminate all MIRVed ICBMs. START II was signed in Jan, 1993 by POTUS Bush and Soviet President Yeltsin. This treaty was ratified by the US Senate in Jan, 1996. It was not ratified by the Russian Duma until Apr, 2000 and then only with some modifications. The US Senate has not approved these modifications. Consequently, this treaty is still not in effect. The proposed reductions were originally targeted to be complete by 2003. However, in 1997, both sides agreed to extend the completion date to 2007.
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT): Obligates the five acknowledged nuclear-weapon states (US, Russian Federation, UK, France, China) to not transfer nuclear weapons, other nuclear explosive devices, or their technology to any nonnuclear weapons state. Nonnuclear weapon states agree not to acquire or produce nuclear weapons and are obligated to accept nuclear safeguards agreements with the IAEA to preclude diversion of nuclear materials from peaceful activities to other uses. The treaty was opened for signature (US, UK, and USSR signed) in Jul, 1968 and became effective in Mar, 1970. China signed the NPT in Mar, 1992, and France signed in Aug, 1992. Over 180 nonnuclear-weapon states are parties to the NPT. Israel, India, and Pakistan are not parties to the NPT.
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT): Prohibits "any nuclear weapon test or any other nuclear explosion" either for weapons or peaceful purposes. The treaty includes provisions for an International Monitoring System, On-Site Inspections (OSI), and Confidence Building Measures. The CTBT was signed in Sep, 1996; however the US Senate voted it down for ratification in Oct, 1999. As of Oct, 2001, all but three (India, Pakistan, and North Korea of the 44 nations required for Entry into Force have signed the CTBT, but only 31 of those 44 countries have ratified. Overall, 160 countries have signed and 76 have ratified.
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START III): In Mar, 1997, at the Helsinki Summit, the US and Russian Presidents agreed to begin negotiations on a START Ill agreement immediately after START Il is ratified, but no formal negotiations have yet begun. Proposals for START Ill include further reductions in the number of strategic nuclear warheads to 2000 to 2500 for each side.
Cooperative US - Former Soviet Union (FSU) Programs: Following the breakup of the USSR, the Nunn-Lugar Act of 1991 put in motion a set of programs aimed at reducing the likelihood of accidents or thefts of nuclear weapons or materials. Through these efforts, the US has worked with Russia and other FSU states to support safe, secure implementation of START I agreements (e.g., the destruction of delivery systems and the transportation and storage of nuclear weapons downloaded from such systems); to consolidate and secure fissile materials; and to verifiably remove weapons grade fissile materials from the stockpiles.
Moscow Treaty: On 24 May, 2002, POTUS Bush and Russian President Putin signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT). Because the signing took place in Moscow it is commonly called the Moscow Treaty. The US Senate ratified it on 6 Mar, 2003. This treaty requires both sides to reduce their number of operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 by 31 Dec, 2012. This treaty does not require the destruction of any nuclear weapons or delivery systems. It merely changes their operational status. Each side can keep an unlimited number of nuclear weapons in storage. Also, it does not contain any verification measures to create confidence that either country is carrying out the required changes in operational status.
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Misc Quotes
“We face a hostile ideology- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method.”-POTUS Ike during his farewell address to the nation (17 Jan, 1961).
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex…Only an alert knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper.”-POTUS Ike.
“Would it not be wonderful for this whole nation to be destroyed like a beautiful flower?”-Japanese War Minister General Anami.
“The U bomb, since it was designed on the gun barrel principle, was named the “Thin Man” after FDR. The Pu bomb would have to the shape of a sphere and was called the “Fat Man” in line with the proportions of Churchill.”
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Terminology
Atomic Mass Unit (AMU): One twelfth of the mass of the C-12 isotope. In the conversion of mass to energy, one amu is equivalent to 931Mev.
Ballistic Missile: A rock-propelled self-guided strategic weapon system that follows a ballistic trajectory to deliver a payload from its launch site to a predetermined target.
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM): A rocket-propelled vehicle capable of delivering a warhead to intercontinental ranges. An ICBM consists of a booster, one or more reentry vehicles, possibly penetration aids, and in the case of a MIRVed missile, a post-boost vehicle.
Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM): A rocket-propelled vehicle with a range of ~1500-3000 NM.
Short-Range Ballistic Missile (SRBM): A rocket-propelled vehicle capable of delivering a warhead at ranges up to about 600 NM; Pershing and Lance are SRBMs.
Fissile: Isotopes capable of being split by slow (low-energy) and fast (high-energy) neutrons (U-235 & Pu-239).
Fission: The splitting of a heavy atomic nucleus into two lighter nuclei, accompanied by the release of energy and generally one or more neutrons. Fission can occur spontaneously or be induced by neutron bombardment.
Fusion: The process whereby the nuclei of lighter elements, especially the isotopes of H (D & T) combine to form the nucleus of a heavier element, such as He, with the release of substantial amounts of energy and neutrons. All modern weapons require D, T, and Li-6; there are two methods to achieve fusion:
Gas Boosting: Deuterium (D) and tritium (T) are stored at HP in reservoirs outside the primary (pit). Shortly before detonation, a mixture of D and T is injected into the pit. The implosion of the pit along with the onset of the fissioning process heats the mixture to a temperature at which the D-T nuclei undergo fusion. This reaction releases 17.6 MeV of energy; 1D2 + 1 T3 + 2He4 + 0n1 + 17.6 MeV.
Secondary Assembly: A primary explosion activates a secondary composed of Li-deuteride and other materials. As the secondary implodes, the Li, in the isotopic form of Li-6, is converted to T by neutron interactions. The T then undergoes fusion with the D; 3Li6 + 0n1 = 2He4 + 1T3 + 4.78 MeV.
Gun Type: A type of fission nuclear weapon in which an electrical signal is sent to a detonator, igniting an explosive, which quickly drives one mass of U-235 into another to form a supercritical mass. At that point, an initiator gives off a burst of neutrons, which initiates a fission chain reaction.
Heavy water (D2O): Water (H20) that contains deuterium atoms in place of hydrogen atoms (D2); a good moderator because it has a low cross section for neutron absorption. Heavy water is extracted from natural water, which contains small amounts of deuterium (.015%). The heavy water is concentrated by a combination of three processes: 1) H sulfide water chemical exchange, 2) water distillation, and 3) electrolysis. Each of these processes exploits the difference in the masses of the two isotopes.
Ionizing: Radiation with enough energy to remove the electrons from an atom.
Moderator: A material used to slow down fast neutrons. A good moderator reduces the speed of neutrons in a small number of atomic collisions but does not absorb them to any great extent. Heavy water and very pure graphite are good moderators. Slow neutrons are more likely to be captured by a nucleus. Neutrons can be slowed by the use of a moderator. Heavy water and pure graphite are both good moderators.
Nuclear Weapons Complex (NWC): A nationwide group of government-owned and contractor-operated laboratories and production plants that are currently administered by the DoE. The NWC is responsible for the research, development, design, manufacture, testing, assessment, certification, and maintenance of the Nation's nuclear weapons and the subsequent dismantlement of retired weapons.
Natural Uranium: U that has not been through the enrichment process; consists of 99.3% U-238 and .7% U-235.
Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU): U with >3% U-235 and ~97% U-238; used as reactor fuel.
Highly-Enriched Uranium (HEU): U with >20% U-235, used for making nuclear weapons and also as fuel for some nuclear reactors. Weapons-grade uranium is a subset of this group.
Weapons-Grade Uranium: U with >90% U-235.
Neutron Generator: A device that produces a timed burst of neutrons to initiate a fission chain reaction in a nuclear weapon.
One-point Safe: A weapon design where if HE is initiated at any one point, there will be no significant nuclear yield.
Permissive Action Link (PAL): A system that prevents a nuclear weapon from being armed until a prescribed code or combination is inserted.
Pit: The central core of the primary stage of a nuclear weapon consisting of fissile materials surrounded by a tamper and sometimes by a sealed metal shell.
Sealed Pit: A pit that is hermetically closed to protect the nuclear materials from the environment.
Primary: Provides the initial source of energy to initiate a nuclear chain reaction for a nuclear weapon. Consists of a central core, called the pit, surrounded by a layer of high explosive. The pit is typically composed of Pu-239 and/or HEU surrounded by a tamper.
Secondary: Provides additional explosive energy release for the detonation of a nuclear weapon. Activated by the explosion from the primary. Can be composed of Li- Deuteride, U, and other materials. Within the secondary, Li is converted to tritium, which undergoes fusion with deuterium to create a thermonuclear explosion.
Tamper: The portion of a fission device that surrounds the fissile components and provides neutronic and/or inertial enhancement of the fission reaction. It is not a nuclear component.
Thermonuclear Weapon (‘H-Bomb’): A nuclear weapon that uses fission to start a fusion reaction.
Tritium: The heaviest isotope of the element H; produced in nuclear reactors by bombarding Li with neutrons and has a half-life of 12.3 years. Tritium is used to boost the explosive power of most modern nuclear weapons.
X-rays: Occur when electrons charge the orbital shell of an atom, generally after alpha decay.
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Chronology
25 May, 2009: North Korea conducts its second nuclear test (Bombs by Loeber).
9 Oct, 2006: North Korea conducts its first nuclear test (Bombs by Loeber).
28 May, 1998: Pakistan conducts its first nuclear test (Bombs by Loeber).
3 Jan, 1993: POTUS Bush and Russian President Yeltsin sign the START II protocol that formalizes their agreement of June 1992. START II would reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads to no more than 3500 for each side. The US Senate ratified START II in Jan, 1996. It was not ratified by the Russian Duma (parliament) until Apr, 1996 and then only with some modifications. At the end of 2000, the US Senate had not approved these modifications, and START II remained a protocol rather than a treaty (Bombs by Loeber).
23 Sep, 1992: The US conducts its last nuclear test (Bombs by Loeber).
1992: The US declares a moratorium on underground nuclear testing. In Aug, 1995, POTUS Clinton extended the moratorium to pursue a "zero-yield" Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which he signed on 24 Sep, 1996, but it was rejected by the Senate in 1999. Nevertheless, the US has been complying with this moratorium (Bombs by Loeber).
Jun, 1992: POTUS Bush and Soviet Premier Gorbachev sign an agreement that effectively cancels all new weapons production. Later in 1992, Bush and the military cancel phase 3 engineering for the W82, W89, B90, and W91 weapons. This was the first time that the NWC had no active weapon development programs (Bombs by Loeber).
25 Dec, 1991: The USSR is formally disintegrated. The red hammer-and-sickle Soviet flag atop the Kremlin is replaced with the white, red, and blue flag of pre-revolutionary Russia (Bombs by Loeber).
21 Dec, 1991: 11 former Soviet republics declare independence (Bombs by Loeber).
6 Sep, 1991: The USSR recognizes the independence of the Baltics- Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia (Bombs by Loeber).
Jul, 1991: POTUS Bush and Soviet Premier Gorbachev sign the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which reduces the number of strategic nuclear warheads on each side to 6000 (Bombs by Loeber).
21 Nov, 1990: POTUS Bush declares the end of the Cold War as relations ease with the USSR (Bombs by Loeber).
Oct, 1990: Reunification of Germany followed by the abolition of the German Democratic Republic (‘Communist government of East Germany’) (Bombs by Loeber).
Nov, 1989: The Berlin Wall is torn down (Bombs by Loeber).
May, 1989: Hungary begins dismantling the 250 km- long barbed wire fence along its border with Austria, which eventually leads to the collapse of the Socialist Unity (Communist) Party in East Germany. Tens of thousands of East Germans take advantage of their right to travel to Hungary and cross the border into Austria on their way to West Germany (Bombs by Loeber).
Dec, 1987: The US and USSR sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which eliminates all land-based missiles with ranges from 300 to 3400 miles (Bombs by Loeber).
16 Oct, 1980: China conducts the world’s last nuclear atmospheric test (Bombs by Loeber).
1979: 3 Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant Accident (Bombs by Loeber).
18 May, 1974: India conducts its first nuclear test (Bombs by Loeber).
1 Jan, 1970: POTUS Nixon signs the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) into law (Bombs by Loeber).
Jan, 1969: POTUS Nixon begins his first term with the objective to encourage the USSR to become a part of a stable international system. In particular, Nixon wanted the USSR to join the US in limiting the nuclear arms race and reduce its support for revolutions in the Third World. This policy became known as détente (Bombs by Loeber).
21 Jan, 1968: The US’ second nuclear accident; a B-52 carrying 4x bombs catches fire and crashes near Thule, Greenland. One of the seven crew is killed and the HE in all four of the bombs detonates, contaminating sea ice in the area of the crash. ~237K ft3 of ice, snow, and water is removed for storage in the US (Bombs by Loeber).
17 Jan, 1966: The US’ first nuclear accident; a B-52 collides with a KC-135 tanker during a routing refueling operation over Palomares, Spain. Three of the seven crew of the B-52 are killed along with all four of the crew of the KC-135. The B-52 was carrying 4x B-28 bombs, which fell 28,000’. One bomb fell into the sea and, after an extensive search, was found 8 km off the coast at a depth of 2500’. The other three landed on the ground with two of the three’s HE materials detonating on impact and contaminating soil and vegetation in the area with radioactive materials. The US removed ~1400 tons of soil and vegetation for storage at Savannah River (Bombs by Loeber).
16 Oct, 1964: China conducts its first nuclear test (Bombs by Loeber).
5 Aug, 1963: The US and the USSR sign the Limited Test Ban Treaty which prohibits underwater, atmospheric, and outer space nuclear tests. This treaty did not ban underground tests (Bombs by Loeber).
Fall, 1962: Photographs from a U-2 recon aircraft show that the USSR is building launch sites for ~70 medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Kennedy places a blockade around Cuba to prevent any additional missile shipments and demands the removal of the missiles in place. American firmness and determination leaves Moscow little choice. Khrushchev backs down and removes the missiles from Cuba (Bombs by Loeber).
30 Oct, 1961: The USSR detonates the largest nuclear device ever tested, with a yield of 58 Mt (Bombs by Loeber).
1 Sep, 1961: The USSR resumes nuclear tests, with a series of the largest tests ever conducted. In response, the US also resumes testing (Bombs by Loeber).
13 Aug, 1961: East Germany begins building the Berlin Wall to stop East Germans from escaping (Bombs by Loeber).
Because the West's conventional forces were very weak, a conflict would result in surrender or escalation to nuclear war. Kennedy told his aides, "it's not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war."
Apr, 1961: Bay of Pigs; the Kennedy Admin supports a CIA plan to invade Cuba with 1400 Cuban exiles to overthrow Castro. The operation results in a dramatic failure and the deaths of nearly all 1400 exiles (Bombs by Loeber).
20 Jan, 1961: In his inauguration address, POTUS Kennedy says, "let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." He also cautioned the Soviets against "aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas" and went on to say, "we dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain that they will never be employed” (Bombs by Loeber).
3 Dec, 1960: France conducts its first nuclear test (Bombs by Loeber).
2 May, 1960: A US U-2 recon aircraft is shot down 1300 miles over the USSR. The pilot, Francis Powers, is captured and confesses to his spy mission. Outraged, Khrushchev cancels the Paris summit conference (Bombs by Loeber).
1959: The world’s first nuclear-powered cargo ship, the Savannah, is launched at Camden, NJ (Bombs by Loeber).
1 Jan, 1959: Cuba Coup; a group of rebels led by Fidel Castro overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. During the revolutionary struggle, Castro had identified himself with democratic government and social and economic justice and had gained widespread popularity among the Cuban people. Before long, Castro abolishes all parties except his, the Communist party, and establishes a dictatorship (Bombs by Loeber).
Nov, 1958: The USSR announces a plan to end the four-power occupation of East Berlin and hand control of the area and the routes leading into West Berlin to the East Germans. The Soviet goal was to force an allied withdrawal from West Berlin (Bombs by Loeber).
31 Oct, 1958: POTUS Ike announces a unilateral nuclear testing moratorium in an attempt to curb the nuclear arms race (Bombs by Loeber).
Oct, 1957: The USSR launched Sputnik, the world’s first orbiting satellite (Bombs by Loeber).
1957: The first commercial nuclear power reactor goes into operation at Shippingport, PA (Bombs by Loeber).
1957: Los Alamos introduces the first sealed pit weapon. With this new approach, the capsule was sealed hermetically and contained permanently within the pit at the center of the weapon (Bombs by Loeber).
Oct, 1956: A nation-wide anti-communist revolt occurs in Hungary and is crushed by Soviet tanks (Bombs by Loeber).
30 Aug, 1954: POTUS Ike signs the Atomic Energy Act (which supersedes the Atomic Energy Act of 1946) into law (Bombs by Loeber).
Jun, 1954: POTUS Ike decides to proceed with the IAEA and the Atoms-for-Peace-plan unilaterally (without the USSR). The US began entering in bilateral agreements with other nations (Bombs by Loeber).
1954: GE’s X-ray Department in Milwaukee, WI produces the first neutron generators (Bombs by Loeber).
1 Mar, 1954: Nuclear Test Bravo; the US tests its first deliverable thermonuclear weapon at Bikini atoll in the Marshall Islands. It used solid Li-deuteride (40% Li-6) in the secondary and had a yield of 14.8 Mt. Bravo was the largest yield thermonuclear device ever tested by the US. It was almost 1000x more powerful than Little Boy and surprised the scientists because it was expected to yield ~5 Mt (Bombs by Loeber).
8 Dec, 1953: In a speech to the UN, POTUS Ike proposes an Atoms-for-Peace-plan, which included a recommendation to establish an IAEA (Bombs by Loeber).
12 Aug, 1953: USSR Nuclear Test Joe 4 (US codename); the USSR tests its first thermonuclear device. It had a yield of 400 kt (Bombs by Loeber).
Jun, 1953: An anti-communist uprising occurs in East Berlin and other East German cities; they are crushed by USSR Tanks (Bombs by Loeber).
25 May, 1953: Shot Grable; initial test of the US’ 280mm W-19, a gun-type artillery shell with a 15 kt yield (Bombs by Loeber).
16 Jan, 1953: The AEC and the DoD approve the Missiles and Rockets agreements, which defined their respective responsibilities for nuclear weapons; 1) the AEC would be responsible for the warhead, including the nuclear components, detonators, and firing unit; 2) the DoD would be responsible for all rocket or guided missile parts; 3) Responsibilities for the “adaption kit,” which included the arming and fuzing systems, power supply, and all hardware needed to install the warhead on a missile, were left in a gray area (Bombs by Loeber).
31 Oct, 1952: Nuclear Test Mike; the US tests the world’s first staged thermonuclear device at Enewetak. This device, code named Mike, had a yield of 10.4 Mt, which was ~700x more powerful than the Little Boy which destroyed Hiroshima (Bombs by Loeber).
3 Oct, 1952: The UK conducts its first nuclear test (Bombs by Loeber).
9 May, 1951: Nuclear Test George; the US tests the world’s first thermonuclear device at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands, ~5000km west of Hawaii. This test was a part of the Greenhouse series, had a yield of 225 kt, and proved that the Teller-Ulam concept was valid (Bombs by Loeber).
1951: The Nevada test site (NTS) is established as the US’ on-continent nuclear weapons testing area. Prior to 1950, most tests were conducted in the Pacific. This was costly, time-consuming, and logistically difficult. The first nuclear weapon tested at NTS, a 1kT bomb dropped from an airplane, was detonated on 27 Jan, 1951 (Bombs by Loeber).
1951: The AEC acquires the Pantex plant near Amarillo, TX, to produce HE and assemble nuclear weapons (Bombs by Loeber).
Dec, 1950: Stanislaw Ulam proposes to use the fission reaction to compress a secondary. Ulam passes his idea onto Teller in Jan, 1951. Teller than proposes to use the X-rays coming off the fission primary- rather than other products- to compress the fusion secondary (Bombs by Loeber).
1950: The Savannah River site is established near Aiken, SC to be a second source of Pu and produce both heavy water and Tritium for thermonuclear weapons (Bombs by Loeber).
25 Jun, 1950: North Korea invades South Korea and through the UN, the US, and its allies are drawn into the Korean War (Bombs by Loeber).
3 Feb, 1950: The arraignment of Klaus Fuchs made headlines throughout the world. Six days later, Senator Joseph McCarthy began a witch hunt with a speech in which he claimed to have a list of 205 communists who worked in the State department. This claim turned out to by a big lie (Bombs by Loeber).
1 Oct, 1949: Chinese communists defeat the Nationalists, and form the PRC (Bombs by Loeber).
23 Sep, 1949: POTUS Truman announces that an atomic explosion had occurred in the USSR. Lewis Strauss, one of the AEC commissioners, felt that it was not enough for the US to have a larger nuclear weapon stockpile than the USSR; he wanted the US to make a quantum leap forward by developed the “super” (H-bomb) (Bombs by Loeber).
29 Aug, 1949: The USSR tests its first atomic bomb- nicknamed “Joe 1” after Stalin (Bombs by Loeber).
1948-1954: McCarthyism (named for WI Senator Joseph McCarthy); characterized by a national paranoia towards communism. McCarthyism stood for an era in which fundamental American freedoms are suppressed in the name of national security. This period ended on 2 Dec, 1954, when McCarthy was censured by the Senate (Bombs by Loeber).
Aug, 1948: The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) begins to investigate alleged communist penetration of the USG. Hearings were held against Alger Hiss, a former government official in various agencies including the state department. Hiss was accused of espionage by a former associate, Whittaker Chambers, and subsequently indicted and brought to trial. In Jan, 1950, after two trials, Hiss was convicted of perjury, not espionage, and sentenced to 5y imprisonment. The Hiss case had the effect of licensing a hunt against communists. Many politicians jumped on the bandwagon (Bombs by Loeber).
25 Feb, 1948: The USSR moved military forces into Prague and took over Czechoslovakia. Shortly thereafter, on 24 Jun, 1948, the USSR blockaded West Berlin, and the US responded with the Berlin Airlift. In order to deal with this aggression, 12 western nations signed a document in Apr, 1949, creating NATO (Bombs by Loeber).
5 Jun, 1947: The Marshall Plan; in a commencement address at Harvard University, SecState George Marshall offered US aid and cooperation in rebuilding Europe’s shattered economy. He extended this offer to all of Europe including the USSR. On 27 Jun, 1947, the USSR rejects the Marshall Plan, effectively completing the economic and political division of Europe. At this point it became clear that the Cold War had really started (Bombs by Loeber).
12 Mar, 1947: Truman Doctrine; POTUS Truman makes a speech to Congress, requesting authorization to send aid and advisors to Greece and Turkey to help them resist the spread of communism. This willingness to actively oppose communism was viewed by the Soviets as a declaration of a Cold War (Bombs by Loeber).
1 Aug, 1946: POTUS Truman signs the Atomic Energy Act, which transfers responsibility for managing the design and production of nuclear weapons from the military-led MED to the civilian- led Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The AEC assumes responsibility 5 months later on 1 Jan, 1947 (Bombs by Loeber).
30 Jun, 1946: The first nuclear test after WWII is conducted at Bikini Atoll (Bombs by Loeber).
Five days later, on 5 Jul, 1946, French designer, Louis Reard, created a scandal by unveiling his latest creation, the bikini bathing suit. It consisted of four tiny triangles of fabric and a handful of string. The Vatican denounced the suit as immoral, and it was prohibited in Spain and Italy. Reard chose the name bikini because it was an “explosive fashion” (Bombs by Loeber).
14 Jun, 1946: The US presents the Baruch Plan to the UN (Baruch was a long-term presidential advisor). Baruch proposed the creation of an international atomic energy authority, which would control all atomic energy activities potentially dangerous to world security. It would also have the power to control, inspect, and license all other atomic activities (reactors). 2 weeks later on 1 Jul, the USSR rejects the plan, claiming it was a trick to maintain the US nuclear monopoly (Bombs by Loeber).
1946: Edward Teller invents a relatively simple single-stage design for a thermonuclear weapon (Bombs by Loeber).
5 Mar, 1946: During a tour of the US, Churchill makes a speech at Fulton, where he issues a warning about Soviet aggression- “from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent” (Bombs by Loeber).
2 Sep, 1945: Japan formally surrenders aboard the USS Missouri (Bombs by Loeber).
9 Aug, 1945: Major Charles Sweeney took from Tinian in a B-29 named Bock’s Car and dropped “Fat Man” on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Fat Man was 60” in diameter, 128” long, and weighed 10,300 lbs. It had a yield of 21 kt and killed ~40K while wounding ~60K. By the end of 1945, the death toll had grown to 70K and reached 140K after 5y (Bombs by Loeber).
When the news of Nagasaki was brought in, the meeting was adjourned to convene that night with Emperor Hirohito. It was Hirohito who decided that they must “bear the unbearable” and surrender.
6 Aug, 1945: Col. Paul Tibbets took from Tinian in a B-29 named the Enola Fay and dropped “Little Boy” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Little Boy was 26” in Diameter, 126” long, and weighed ~8900lbs. It had a yield of 15kt and killed ~70K while wounding 130K. By the end of 1945, the death toll had grown to 140K from radiation sickness and other injuries and reached 200K after 5y (Bombs by Loeber).
26 Jul, 1945: Potsdam Conference; POTUS Truman releases the Potsdam declaration to the press to give Japan “an opportunity to end this war.” The Japanese rejected this offer. Based on experience in taking Iwo Jima and Okinawa, an invasion of the Japanese mainland would be very bloody. Estimates of American casualties ranged from 250,000 – 1M. As a result, American policy makers concluded that the atomic bomb must be used (Bombs by Loeber).
16 Jul, 1945: The first atomic device is tested at Trinity site near Alamogordo, NM. The device used a Fat man- type implosion design with Pu as the fissionable material. It had a yield of 21 kt and left a crater 2400’ across and ~10’ deep (Bombs by Loeber).
Jul, 1945: The Z Division is established at Los Alamos to perform engineering and weapons assembly work. They are transferred to Sandia Base (formerly Oxnard Field) in Albuquerque (Bombs by Loeber).
1 Jun, 1945: The Interim committee recommends the atomic bomb be used against Japan as soon as possible, that it be used on a dual target (i.e. a military installation or war plant surrounded by workers homes), and that it be used without warning. Truman could see no alternative and agreed reluctantly (Bombs by Loeber).
2 May, 1945: US War Secretary Stimson proposes the formation of a group to develop recommendations on the proper use of atomic weapons. Truman approved this proposal and called this group the interim committee to avoid appearing to usurp congressional prerogatives (Bombs by Loeber).
Feb, 1945: Yalta conference; allied leaders meet in Yalta in the Crimea to confirm the final plans for the conquest of Germany. They agree that the USSR should have the honor of taking Berlin, which helped set the stage for the Cold War (Bombs by Loeber).
20 Nov, 1944: Allied commandos sink a ferry transporting Heavy Water in Norway; 45 of the 49 drums of heavy water sink. Of the 53 people aboard, 18 lose their lives- 12 passengers, 2 crew, and 4 Germans (Bombs by Loeber).
25 Aug, 1944: Allied forces liberate Paris (Bombs by Loeber).
1 Aug, 1944: Allied forces capture the coral island of Tinian from the Japanese. This island, located 2500km SE of Japan, became the major airbase for the ensuing raids on Japan (Bombs by Loeber).
Mar, 1944: The Y-12 plant delivers its first enriched U to Los Alamos. By Sep, 1944, Y-12 delivers a full kg of HEU (64% U-235) and by Jul, 1945, 50kg had been delivered at 89% U-235 (Bombs by Loeber).
Late, 1943: General Groves establishes an intel unit to provide information on the German Atomic Bomb program. The first mission for this new unit was to enter Italy. Groves was horrified when he learned that the War Departments CI organization had given this mission the name “Alsos,” which is Greek for Grove (Bombs by Loeber).
15 Nov, 1943: 174 American aircraft, mostly B-17s and B-24s, drop 828 bombs of the 500 and 1000lb varieties on the plant; only two of these bombs hit the electrolysis building, but the heavy-water equipment in the basement was untouched. However, damage to the plant was extensive. At that point, the Germans decided to dismantle the plant and rebuild it in Germany. The bombing cost the lives of 22 Norwegian civilians (Bombs by Loeber).
Aug, 1943: The Quebec Conference; FDR and Churchill establish a combined policy committee to facilitate US, British, and Canadian collaboration on the atomic bomb. The Quebec agreement, which FDR signs on 17 Aug, established the official basis for collaboration between the US and UK on the atomic bomb. One of the first actions by the combined policy committee was to transfer a group of 15 British scientists to the US. This group included Klaus Fuchs, who later spies for the USSR (Bombs by Loeber).
1943: Emilio Segre determines that the subcritical U masses would not have to be brought together as quickly as previously thought, so the gun barrel could be shorter and lighter. When the barrel of the “Thin Man” was shortened, the name was changed to “Little Boy” (Bombs by Loeber).
Apr, 1943: The heavy water equipment at the Norsk Plant is repaired; the plant reached full production in Aug (Bombs by Loeber).
16 Feb, 1943: Operation Gunnerside; Six Norwegian commandos parachute into the vicinity of the Norsk Hydro Plant. On 23 Feb, they met with the four Norwegian commandos from Operation Freshmen. On 24 Feb, nine commandos left to attack Norsk Hydro while one stayed back to handle the radio and keep British Intel informed of developments. The heavy water plant was located at the edge of an almost perpendicular 600’ cliff. German forces had placed a strong guard around the plant with mines, machine guns, and artillery protecting all approaches except the cliff because they did not believe anyone could scale it. In spite of dark, cold conditions and 65lb packs, the commandos managed to scale the cliff and sneak into the electrolysis building without alerting the guards. They placed explosive charges on the 18 heavy water cells in the plant. Half a ton of the precious heavy water went down the drain, which was about 5 months worth of production. Although 10,000 soldiers were sent out to find the commandos, all nine made a successful escape (Bombs by Loeber).
2 Dec, 1942: Enrico Fermi achieves the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in a “pile” experiment under the stands of Stagg Field at the U. of Chicago. Fermi’s pile was a massive latticework of 400 tons of graphite, 6 tons of U metal, and 50 tons of U oxide. This demonstration proved that it would be possible to produce Pu-239 in a nuclear reactor (Bombs by Loeber).
Compton said “The Italian navigator (Fermi) has just landed in the New World (conducted his experiment).” Conant asked, “Were the natives friendly?” Compton replied, “Everyone landed safe and happy (successful chain reaction experiment).”
20 Nov, 1942: Operation Freshmen; Two gliders carrying 41 British commandos are released in the vicinity of the Norsk Hydro plant. Unfortunately, the visibility was poor and both gliders crashed. Several of the commandos were killed and many were badly injured. The others surrendered without a fight in the belief that they would be treated as POWs and that their comrades would receive medical attention. Unbeknownst to the British, on 16 Oct, 1942, while enraged by other acts of sabotage in Norway, Hitler issued an order to his commanders that opponents engaged in commando operations “are to be exterminated to the last man.” The survivors were captured by the Germans, and although they were in British uniforms, all were shot (Bombs by Loeber).
Sep- Dec, 1942: General Groves selects the first three sites in the nationwide group of laboratories and production plants that came to known as the Nuclear Weapons Complex (NWC) (Bombs by Loeber).
End Dec, 1942: Groves selects Hanford, Washington, as the site for Pu-239 production (Bombs by Loeber).
15 Oct, 1942: Groves appoints J. Robert Oppenheimer as the Director of the new bomb-design lab. Oppenheimer recommended Los Alamos as the site for the lab. He owned a summer home near Santa Fe and had discovered the area some years earlier while on a pack trip (Bombs by Loeber).
23 Sep, 1942: Groves selects Oak Ridge, TN as the site to produce enriched U. Three major enrichment plants were built at Oak Ridge, which were code named Y-12, K-25, and S-50. The Y-12 plant used an electromagnetic separation process, the K25 plant used gaseous diffusion, and the S-50 plant used thermal diffusion. Y-12 produced all of the enriched U needed for the first atomic bomb (Bombs by Loeber).
Summer, 1942: Oppenheimer assembles a group of theoretical physicists at Berkeley that he calls the “luminaries” because they were supposed to “throw light” on the design of an atomic bomb. The group includes Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, Felix Boch, Emil Konopinski, Robert Serber, and John Van Vleck. The luminaries concluded that the development of an atomic bomb would require a massive scientific and technical effort (Bombs by Loeber).
Jun, 1942: Arthur Compton appoints the brilliant physicist Robert Oppenheimer to take over the responsibility for fast neutron studies (Bombs by Loeber).
Jun, 1942: Vannevar Bush gave a report to POTUS FDR that said it was possible to make an atomic bomb in time to influence the outcome of the war. FDR gave his approval to proceed. Colonel James Marshall, of the Army Corps of Engineers, was directed to form a new engineer district. Marshall established his main office in Manhattan. At this time, Colonel Leslie Groves was the Deputy Chief of Construction for the Corps. Marshall and Groves did not want to arouse curiosity about the project and chose the name “Manhattan Engineer District (MED)” (Bombs by Loeber).
May, 1942: Vannevar Bush pursues all four of the fissile material production processes under consideration- electromagnetic separation, gaseous diffusion, gas centrifuge to produce enriched U, and a U “pile” (reactor) to produce Pu (Bombs by Loeber).
11 Dec, 1941: Germany and Italy, allied with Japan, declare war on the USA (Bombs by Loeber).
8 Dec, 1941: The US declares war on Japan (Bombs by Loeber).
6 Dec, 1941: The Uranium committee meets in DC and reorganizes the work as follows: 1) Harold Urey at Columbia University would work on a gaseous diffusion method for separating U-235 and U-238; 2) Ernest Lawrence at UCLA would pursue an electromagnetic method for separating U-235 and U-238; 3) Eger Murphee, Director of Research for Standard Oil of NJ, would supervise a centrifuge method for separating U-235 and U-238; 4) Arthur Compton at the U. of Chicago would manage the research for the theoretical design of the bomb and to build and operate a plant for the conversion of U into Pu. This work laid the foundation for the collection of labs and plants that would later become the Nuclear Weapons Complex (NWC) (Bombs by Loeber).
9 Oct, 1941: Vannevar Bush meets with POTUS FDR and summarizes the British MAUD report findings. FDR instructs Bush to move as quickly as possible but not to go beyond R&D. Bush also received FDR’s permission to explore construction needs with the Army (Bombs by Loeber).
Jul, 1941: Vannevar Bush receives a MAUD committee report estimating that a critical mass of 10kg would be large enough to produce a nuclear explosion (previous estimates had been much higher). This report helped turn the US bomb effort into a major project (Bombs by Loeber).
28 Jun, 1941: POTUS FDR issues an Executive Order that establishes the Office of Scientific Research and Development; Vannevar Bush is asked to lead it (Bombs by Loeber).
Jan-Feb, 1941: Glenn Seaborg uses Ernest Lawrence’s cyclotron at Berkeley to produce Pu-239 by bombarding U-238 with neutrons. He then develops a chemical technique for separating it from the other elements. By May, 1941, Seaborg had shown that Pu-239 was 1.7x more likely to fission than U-235 (Bombs by Loeber).
12 Jun, 1940: POTUS FDR establishes the National Defense Research Council (NDRC) under the direction of Vannevar Bush. The Uranium Committee operated under the Bush committee (Bombs by Loeber).
May, 1940: Germany takes control of the world’s only heavy-water plant in Norway (Bombs by Loeber).
Spring, 1940: The British government establishes the Military Application of Uranium Disintegration (MAUD) Committee to study the possibility of developing a nuclear weapon (Bombs by Loeber).
Apr, 1940: The Germany army occupies Denmark (Bombs by Loeber).
1939: POTUS FDR responds to Einstein’s letter by establishing the Advisory Committee on Uranium under the leadership of Lyman Briggs, Director of the National Bureau of Standards. This committee held its first meeting on 21 Oct, 1939 and issued its first report 12 days later (1 Nov, 1939) recommending the purchase of 4 tons of high purity graphite and 50 tons of uranium-oxide (U3O8). This recommendation resulted in the first outlay of government funds for the atomic bomb effort in the amount of $6000. The purpose was to support Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard’s U pile experiments, the goal of which was to produce a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction (Bombs by Loeber).
26 Sep, 1939: Werner Heisenberg is conscripted by the Heereswaffenamt to join the War Office’s Nuclear Physics research group. This group was called the Uranverein or “Uranium Club” (Bombs by Loeber).
Sep, 1939: Niels Bohr and John Wheeler publish a paper in Physical Review entitled “The Mechanism of Nuclear Fission.” One of their conclusions was that atoms with a high mass number that contain an even number of protons and an odd number of neutrons will fission rather easily (i.e. with slow neutrons). U-235 is an even-odd combination with 92 protons and 143 neutrons. By contrast, heavy nuclei with an even-even combination, such as U-238, would require fast neutrons to fission (Bombs by Loeber).
Jan, 1939: The 5th Washington conference on Theoretical Physics takes place in DC. Before Bohr sailed from Europe, Otto Frisch handed him a note with the conclusions that he and Lise Meitner had reached. On Jan 26, 1939, Bohr shared the news of nuclear fission at the conference. The world’s top physicists recognized the possibility that the fissioning of a heavy atom like U could produce fission fragments that, due to their lower atomic weights, would shed excess neutrons. The Multiplying chain reaction envisioned and patented by Leo Szilard in 1934 had been realized. Theoretically, 1kg of U-235 would equal the energy from the detonation of 17 kt of TNT (Bombs by Loeber).
Nov, 1938: German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman bombard U (atomic number 92) with neutrons and are shocked to find that this results in the production of Ba (atomic number 56). It appeared that the U atom had split, a theoretical impossibility at that time. They shared their results with physicists Lise Meitner and her nephew, Otto Frisch, who interpreted the experiment as “nuclear fission.” The Hahn-Strassman discovery was submitted to the German scientific magazine Naturwissenschaften in Berlin on Dec 22, 1938 and published 2 weeks later. The Frisch-Meitner interpretation of the Hahn-Strassman discovery was submitted to the English scientific magazine nature on 16 Jan, 1939 and published on 11 Feb, 1939 (Bombs by Loeber).
1938: Germany establishes a program to study nuclear physics under the Heereswaffenamt- the Army Ordnance Research department (Bombs by Loeber).
1936: Francis Aston explains that elements/isotopes at the ends of his “Binding Energy and Mass Defect” curve have the potential to reduce their mass by transmuting into something closer to the center. This process would release energy as per Einstein’s equation, E=mc2 (Bombs by Loeber).
15 Sep, 1935: The Nuremberg Laws are passed in Germany, making anti-Semitism the official policy of the German government. These laws deprived Jews of German citizenship, prohibited them from marrying non-Jews, from writing or publishing, from teaching in any educational institution, from working in a bank or hospital, from exhibiting paintings or giving concerts, and from entering any of the governments labor or professional bodies (Bombs by Loeber).
1934: Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard files a patent application for the concept of using neutron-induced chain reactions to liberate energy. This application also described the key concept of critical mass and stated that “if the thickness is larger than the critical value…I can produce an explosion.” Although the mechanism for producing such reactions had not yet been discovered, Szilard was awarded British patent No. 630,726 titled “Improvements in or Relating to the Transformation of Chemical Elements” and thus legally could claim to be the inventor of the atomic bomb. Szilard’s motivation was to protect the idea in order to prevent its harmful use and later gives it to the British Admiralty in Feb, 1936, so that it could be classified and protected under British secrecy laws (Bombs by Loeber).
1934: Italian physicist Enrico Fermi bombards elements with neutrons and discovers the principle of moderation- neutrons are slowed down by collisions with light atoms. He proves that slow neutrons are effective in producing radioactive atoms. Slow neutrons are “captured” by a nucleus, which was then transmuted into a different isotope or atom (fast neutrons generally pass through a nucleus without being captured) (Bombs by Loeber).
7 Apr, 1933: The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Career Civil Service is passed in Germany, requiring civil servants of non-Aryan descent to retire. Because universities were state institutions, members of their faculties were civil servants. As a result of this law, ¼ of the physicists in Germany were removed from their university positions (Bombs by Loeber).
1932: British physicist James Chadwick discovers the neutron as a chargeless particle in the nucleus; therefore, it could be used effectively as a subatomic “bullet” to probe the interior of atoms (Bombs by Loeber).
1932: American Chemist Harold Urey discovers the deuterium nucleus (Bombs by Loeber).
1927: Niels Bohr develops the Complementarity Principle which states that particles and waves are mutually exclusive abstractions that complement each other. After much argument, Bohr and Heisenberg agree that Uncertainty and Complementarity were different ways of saying the same thing. Uncertainty and Complementarity become the basis for the “Copenhagen School” of quantum mechanics (Bombs by Loeber).
1927: Heisenberg publishes his Uncertainty Principle, which explains the fact that light and matter exhibit properties of both waves and particles. In brief, it states that it is impossible to simultaneously determine the position and velocity of a particle. Any attempt to measure one of these immediately affects the other (Bombs by Loeber).
1919: Francis Aston invents the Mass Spectrometer which allows elements to be separated by mass and to have these masses measured accurately. He wins the Nobel Prize in 1922 for this discovery (Bombs by Loeber).
1919: Ernest Rutherford achieves the first artificial transmutation of an element by bombarding atoms of N with alpha particles (He nucleus). Some of the N atoms are transmuted into O by having a proton from the He become part of the N nucleus (Bombs by Loeber).
1913: Danish physicist Niels Bohr modifies Rutherford’s model to incorporate the ideas of quantum physics. He shows that electrons exist in discrete energy levels. An atom’s chemical properties are a function of the number and arrangement of its elections (Bombs by Loeber).
1911: The Norsk Hydro Plant is built in the Rjukan valley ~75 miles West of Oslo at the base of a 380’ waterfall. Its’ generators produce 120K kW of electrical power (the largest in the world at the time). Much of this power was used to separate N from the atmosphere in order to produce nitrate for fertilizer (Bombs by Loeber).
1898: Polonium is discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie. They name it after Marie’s native country, Poland (Bombs by Loeber).
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