From October 25, 2011, AP
Always good news when another nuclear weapon is dismantled, but always cause for thought when it's one of ours.
This last one was 600 times stronger than the one used at Hiroshima. It is being dismantled VERY CAREFULLY, let's hope, a half century after it was put into the arsenal at the height of the Cold War.
It is the B53 and its fuel components were being broken down at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas. No doubt this made those folk there and along Route 66 feel good.
It was made in 1962 and weighed 10,000 pounds and was the size of a minivan. The 9 megaton bomb was carried by B-52s and was designed to destroy facilities deep underground. Now, our biggest nuclear device is the 1.2 megaton B83 bomb.
The bomb was made using older technology and by engineers who have since retired or died so a system of disassemble had to be developed. The era of the really big megaton bombs, where size and destruction capacity made up for lack of accuracy, is over. Today's bombs are smaller and much more precise.
Most of the B53s were disassembled in the 1980s, but a significant number remained.
I'm not sure if this was the last one or whether there are still others.
Since I Didn't Hear of Any Nuclear Explosions I Have to Figure They Were Successful. --Cooter
No comments:
Post a Comment