RANT: TRINITY 2.0?

 

ON JULY 16/25 an anniversary passed by that most people ignored or were unaware of. It was the eightieth anniversary of the world’s first atomic explosion at Alamogordo, New Mexico, the famous (or infamous, take your pick) “Trinity Test”. At 5:29 a.m., in a tower above “ground zero”, the world’s first atomic bomb, called by all who worked on it, “the gadget”, was detonated, and a second sun briefly lit up the Tularosa Basin of the Chihuahuan Desert. The test came three-years after University of Chicago scientists, led by physicist Enrico Fermi, succeeded in developing the first sustained, nuclear chain reaction in 1942, which was a crucial step toward developing an atomic bomb.

Debates around the use of such a powerful, new weapon divided the scientific community built around the “Manhattan Project”—the secret, war-time effort to develop an atomic bomb before Germany did.* But after Germany’s defeat, in May 1945, the raison d’etre for developing such a weapon seemed misplaced. Some scientists resigned from the project and debate among the scientists at Los Alamos  (where research for the bomb was done) centred around whether such a destructive device was necessary to defeat Japan, which by the spring of 1945 seemed on its last legs. Nevertheless, work went ahead; the bombs were built and, scant months later, one was tested on July 16.

 

THE BOMB tested in the early morning New Mexican desert was the twin of the “Fat Man” bomb that would later be dropped on Nagasaki. Both had cores made of plutonium (Pu)  instead of uranium (U), the fissile material comprising the core of the "Little Boy" bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6. Plutonium does not exist in nature but is created within nuclear reactors from the intense flow of neutrons that almost “magically” transmutes ²³⁵U into ²³⁹Pu. This new element was then harvested and shipped¹ to Los Alamos to be used in the Trinity test, and later in the bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9.

The Trinity test of the plutonium bomb, the world’s first detonation of a nuclear weapon, was necessary because the fissile isotope required a complex ‘firing’ mechanism to achieve the necessary criticality, and so a test was made to ensure it would work. By contrast, the scientists at Los Alamos  did not need to test the uranium-cored Hiroshima bomb because the firing mechanism was relatively simple—essentially shooting a hunk of ²³⁵U into another hunk of ²³⁵U, with a high level of confidence it would work as designed. There was another reason to use plutonium cores for the Trinity test and Nagasaki atom bombs: it was because there was such a limited supply of enriched ²³⁵U. [“Enriched” means that 90% of the bomb’s core was composed of ²³⁵U. Ed.] During those early days of nuclear technology development, processing uranium ore into weapons’ grade fissile material was a slow, laborious process. 

 

AT THE OAK RIDGE laboratories in Tennessee, where uranium ore processing for the war effort was based, they used “electromagnetic and gaseous diffusion” methods (instead of the gas centrifuge cascades used today). By the summer of 1945 the United States had only enough processed uranium for a single uranium bomb. And it had only enough plutonium for 2-3 plutonium bombs (one for testing, one for deployment) with a third bomb under construction should they decide to attack another Japanese city.

 

FUN FACT: The raw uranium ore for the Hiroshima bomb came from Canada, notably from the Port Radium mines in the Northwest Territories. Go Canada!

 

I GUESS I HAVE fissile material and atom bombs on the brain these days, in part because of the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities during the “Twelve Day War” in June, but also because of the provocative July 16 redeployment of American nuclear weapons [twenty to thirty B61-12 gravity bombs kitted out with glide tech upgrades. Ed.] to  RAF Lakenheath, a US Air Force base in Suffolk, England, after a nearly twenty year hiatus. Why now? How is this in any way helpful in tamping down the flame wars between Western governments and Russia? America’s second-in-a-row geriatric president, Donald Trump, has given another of his ultimatums to Russia to make a "deal" with Ukraine. Or else! In a recent interview, Trump said he was “tired” of talking to Putin. If he’s that tired, he should move back to Mar-a-lago and let someone else pick up the damn phone with Putin. One suspects the 'or else' means further sanctions against Russia: Since 2022, there have been eighteen sanction packages between the EU and U.S. which have been totally useless wet squibs, and more harmful to European economies than  to Russia.

There is worry he will authorize the deployment of long-range American “Tomahawk” missiles to Ukraine with the dangerous possibility of strikes deep inside Russia, perhaps targeting its critical infrastructure or—saints preserve us!—another swipe at Russia’s strategic defence installations. Such an action could provoke a significant response from Moscow that will only add to the tensions. 

 

GRAVITY BOMB WITH WING ATTACHMENT

UNDERLYING the conventional armed conflict is the nightmare scenario of nuclear weapons of one sort or another being used. During his first term in office, in 2019, Trump foolishly walked away from the INF Treaty (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) which opened the door to medium range nukes being stationed once more in Europe pointed towards Moscow. [Currently Poland and Romania host American Aegis missile arrays, ostensibly to prevent ballistic missile attacks from Iran. Bollocks! Russia rightly claims such missiles could be configured for offensive measures and pointed towards Moscow.]

Russia, since America’s 2002 walk-away from the critical, Cold War ABM treaty (Anti-Ballistic Missile), began work on a system to counter the possibility of nuclear-capable missile arrays being stationed in various NATO countries which could reach Russian targets in a matter of minutes. The system they developed was a family of hypersonic missiles that could act as deterrents against such attacks. Russia built them but did not deploy them, or even announce they had such weapons, until 2019 when Trump walked away from the INF Treaty which is seen in Moscow as a ploy to station medium/long-range missiles once more in Europe. So, there’s that.

Oh, and Germany’s PM Mertz wants to create the largest army in Europe (again); next year he may host American long-range missiles, including a newly developed (?) hypersonic missile, the “Dark Eagle”. And he’s recently opined that Germany should develop its own cache of nuclear weapons. What could possibly go wrong?

FINALLY, on July 17, the U.S. Army Europe and Africa commander General Chris Donahue (who should know better), bloviated publicly how NATO could overrun the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad in no time at all.  [If you don’t know where that is, get out a map. Ed.] WTF! Doesn’t the fucktard know Russia has nuclear weapons stationed there? This fool should be relieved of his command, but he’ll probably get another star. Poke the bear once too often and you will be mauled.

 

POINT BEING that underlying all these surface clusterfucks the Ukraine conflict has wrought (and there are others) is the spectre of the nuclear genie ready to pop its cork and explode upon the world. To tamp down such a possibility, treaties (nuclear and otherwise), dialogue, diplomacy (appointing a permanent American ambassador to Russia, for example); gestures of friendship or at least mutual tolerance; respectful relations in trade, sports, the arts, science etc., anything to deescalate tensions and make bridges should be of primary concern in any diplomacy or negotiations going forward. And acknowledging Russia’s legitimate security concerns and working to allay them must have the highest of diplomatic priorities. And that includes the EU and its increasingly fractious member states who are as bellicose in their dialogue and ‘diplomacy’ with Russia as they were with the USSR during the height of the Cold War. Even more so. At least back then people had a healthy respect for nuclear weapons and their destructive capabilities. It is time for the Europeans to cool their jets. 

It seems we've forgotten how to talk with one another in this shiny, new century of ours. 

 

FUN FACT: The Doomsday Clock is now set at eighty-nine seconds to midnight. For those unfamiliar with analogue timepieces, this is not a good thing.  The clock measures the global threat risks and how near we are to a nuclear war. Since the Clock's inception in 1947 as an annual insert in the "Bulletin of Atomic Scientists", it is set the closest it's ever been to midnight. Should the clock hands ever strike midnight, then its bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.

 

Nuke ‘em here.

Nuke ‘em there.

Soon they’re nuking

everywhere.

 

Have I mentioned Israel and Iran, nuke-wise? Well, ‘nough said, for now.

 

Cheers, Jake. ____________________________________ 

* Historians tell us that Nazi Germany’s quest for an atomic bomb was no where near as advanced as the Americans. The American project’s overseer, General Groves, and his ‘all-hands-on-deck’, crash program (the “Manhattan Project”) to develop the bomb got the Americans across the finish line first.

 

1. In 1943, the Army Corps of Engineers carved out roughly 600 square miles of rural Washington state, centered around the town of Hanford, and built the first large-scale “critical” reactor. At the Hanford-B reactor plant, Uranium-235 was processed into Plutonium-239 which was then secretly shipped to the Los Alamos labs to be fashioned into the core of “Fat Man”. A second plutonium bomb was prepared in the event a third bombing of a Japanese city would be deemed necessary before Japan would capitulate.