456 posts
Dafna Linzer reports the IAEA empaneled an international group of scientists to confirm that traces of highly enriched uranium in Iran originated with contaminated centrifuge components obtained through the AQ Khan network: Scientists from the United States, France, Japan, Britain…
How do you do, Joe? Find the room comfortable, do you? No complaints? In May, the Washington AeroSpace Briefing reported that MDA Director Trey Obering “appeared to imply that a controversial kill vehicle payload [for the Near Field Infra Red…
During last year’s budget process, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) objected to “a particular major funding acquisition program that I believe is totally unjustified and very wasteful and dangerous to national security.” Rockefeller was criticizing a “stealth” satellite named Misty, which…
Iowa State students taking Aerospace Engineering 462: Design of Aerospace Systems had a novel idea for a course project: Design an air launched anti-satellite weapon. What is needed by the Air Force is a new and inexpensive design that improves…
From what I am being told, the UNSC will not make a decision about UNMOVIC’s future during its upcoming meeting. Whether or not to keep UNMOVIC or a similar organization has been a matter of debate for quite a while…
Several loyal readers have drawn my attention to a heretofore undetected nuclear threat, as reported by The Onion: U.S. Intelligence: Nukehavistan May Have Nuclear Weapons WASHINGTON, DC—A report released Monday by the Defense Intelligence Agency suggests that there is reason…
General Obering and the Missile Defense Agency want to build microsatellites that look like warheads and decoys to help them practice looking dumbfounded when the interceptor fails to leave the silo. Sorry, that was peevish. Let me try again: MBA,…
I had a nice discussion with Bob Peurifoy today. He has kindly agreed to let me post the full text of his working paper on a notional uranium reliable replacement warhead (URRW). Three comments, by way of introdcution: Peurifoy’s first…
Yang Yegong (杨业功)—a commander in the Second Artillery—has died of bowel cancer. CCTV has a massive retrospective. I have no idea why Yang is a big deal, but it is fun to speculate. This article suggests (I think, it is…
John Fleck, writing in the Albuquerque Journal, reports some folks think the reliable replacement warhead program should emphasize uranium designs: A veteran of the U.S. nuclear weapons program thinks the weaponeers should consider giving up on plutonium. In a paper…
