The energy yield from a salted weapon is usually lower than from an ordinary weapon of similar size as a consequence of these changes. Salted fission bombs can be made by replacing the neutron reflector between the fissionable core and the explosive layer with a metallic element. In a salted hydrogen bomb, the radiation case around the fusion fuel, which normally is made of some fissionable element, is replaced with a metallic salting element. The explosion scatters the resulting radioactive material over a wide area, leaving it uninhabitable far longer than an area affected by typical nuclear weapons. When the bomb explodes, the element absorbs neutrons released by the nuclear reaction, converting it to its radioactive form. Salted versions of both fission and fusion weapons can be made by surrounding the core of the explosive device with a material containing an element that can be converted to a highly radioactive isotope by neutron bombardment. A salted bomb is able to contaminate a much larger area than a dirty bomb. Ī salted bomb should not be confused with a " dirty bomb", which is an ordinary explosive bomb containing radioactive material which is spread over the area when the bomb explodes. The experiment was regarded as a failure and not repeated. The triple " taiga" nuclear salvo test, as part of the preliminary March 1971 Pechora–Kama Canal project, converted significant amounts of stable cobalt-59 to radioactive cobalt-60 by fusion-generated neutron activation and this product is responsible for about half of the gamma dose measured at the test site in 2011. However, the UK tested a one- kiloton bomb incorporating a small amount of cobalt as an experimental radiochemical tracer at their Tadje testing site in Maralinga range, Australia, on September 14, 1957. No intentionally salted bomb has ever been atmospherically tested, and as far as is publicly known, none has ever been built.
His intent was not to propose that such a weapon be built, but to show that nuclear weapon technology would soon reach the point where it could end human life on Earth. The idea originated with Hungarian-American physicist Leo Szilard, in February 1950. The term is derived both from the means of their manufacture, which involves the incorporation of additional elements to a standard atomic weapon, and from the expression "to salt the earth", meaning to render an area uninhabitable for generations.
These findings suggest that the Kremlin is not pursuing radiological “doomsday bombs,” even though the nuclear-powered drone on the slide seems to be a real research project.A salted bomb is a nuclear weapon designed to function as a radiological weapon, producing enhanced quantities of radioactive fallout, rendering a large area uninhabitable. While the underwater detonation of a massive cobalt or “conventional” nuclear weapon might create zones of long-lasting contamination, Russian decision makers would have little confidence that these areas would be in the intended locations, undermining the strategic case for such attacks. But exploiting this principle in practice would be forbiddingly difficult because of the difficulty of predicting the ultimate distribution of the radioactive contamination, particularly for an underwater detonation like that envisioned for the “Status-6” drone seen in the Russian slide. It argues that while the lethality of the cobalt bomb compares unfavorably to that of “conventional” thermonuclear weapons, it might actually be a preferred means of creating long-lasting radioactive contamination because it could force an adversary to abandon territory while minimizing the number of immediate fatalities. This article reviews the history and science of the cobalt bomb to assess the likelihood that Russia is developing such a weapon. Strangelove, would employ radioactive cobalt to create unusually intense long-lived fallout. This conjectural device, which served as the basis of the “doomsday machine” in the classic 1964 film Dr. Following the November 2015 “leak” of a classified slide purporting to show a Russian nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered drone intended to create long-lasting “zones of extensive radiological contamination,” both Russian and Western observers have suggested that Moscow may be developing a cobalt bomb.
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