In 1999, information came out implying that in some U. Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) S. designs, the primary (top) is prolate, while the secondary (bottom) is spherical.

The W88 is a United States thermonuclear warhead, with an estimated yield of 475 kiloton (kt), and is small enough to fit on MIRVed missiles. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from Nuclear reactions either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Units of mass There are three similar units of Mass called the ton: Long ton (simply ton in countries such as the United A multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle ( MIRV) is a collection of Nuclear weapons carried on a single Intercontinental ballistic missile The W88 was designed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the 1970s. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL (previously known at various times as Site Y, Los Alamos Laboratory, and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) is a In 1999 the director of Los Alamos who had presided over its design described it as "the most advanced U. S. nuclear warhead. "^[1]

The Trident II SLBM can be armed with up to 8 W88 (475 kt) warheads (Mark 5) or 8 W76 (100 kt) warheads (Mark 4), but it is limited to 4 warheads under SORT. This article contains technical information about the Trident ballistic missile Submarine-launched ballistic missiles or SLBM s are Ballistic missiles delivering Nuclear weapons that are launched from Submarines Modern variants The W76 is a United States thermonuclear warhead. It was manufactured from 1978 - 1987, and is still in service as of early 2008 The Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Strategic Offensive Reductions ( SORT) better known as the Moscow Treaty "represents

Design revelations

Information about the W88 has implied that it is a variation of the standard Teller-Ulam design for thermonuclear weapons. The Teller–Ulam design is a Nuclear weapon design which is used in Megaton -range Thermonuclear weapons and is more colloquially referred to as "the

In 1999, a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News reported that the U. The San Jose Mercury News is the major daily Newspaper in San Jose California and Silicon Valley. S. W88 nuclear warhead, a small MIRVed warhead used on the Trident II SLBM, had a prolate (egg- or watermelon-shaped) primary (code-named Komodo) and a spherical secondary (code-named Cursa) inside a specially-shaped radiation case (known as the "peanut" for its shape). A multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle ( MIRV) is a collection of Nuclear weapons carried on a single Intercontinental ballistic missile This article contains technical information about the Trident ballistic missile Submarine-launched ballistic missiles or SLBM s are Ballistic missiles delivering Nuclear weapons that are launched from Submarines Modern variants Equation A spheroid centered at the origin and rotated about the z axis is defined by the implicit equation \left(\frac{x}{a}\right^2+\left(\frac{y}{a}\right^2+\left(\frac{z}{b}\right^2 In geometry an oval or ovoid (from Latin ovum, 'egg' is any Curve resembling an egg or an Ellipse. Watermelon ( Citrullus lanatus ( Thunb) Matsum & Nakai family Cucurbitaceae) refers to both Fruit and Plant of a vine-like (climber A story four months later in The New York Times by William Broad reported that in 1995, a supposed double agent from the People's Republic of China delivered information indicating that China knew these details about the W88 warhead as well, supposedly through espionage (this line of investigation eventually resulted in the abortive trial of Wen Ho Lee). A split album featuring performances by bands The KGB and Alien Spy that was produced in 1997 Talk People's Republic of China) PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ARTICLE GUIDELINES Wen Ho Lee ( born December 21, 1939) is a Taiwanese -born American scientist who worked for the University of California at the If these stories are true, it would indicate a variation of the Teller-Ulam design which would allow for the miniaturization required for small MIRVed warheads. ^[2][3][4]

The value of a prolate primary lies apparently in the fact that a MIRV warhead is limited by the diameter of the primary — if a prolate primary can be made to work properly, then the MIRV warhead can be made considerably smaller yet still deliver a high-yield explosion — a W88 warhead manages to yield up 475 kt with a physics package 68. Nuclear weapon designs are physical chemical and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package of a nuclear weapon to detonate 9 in (1. 75 m) long, with a maximum diameter of 21. 8 in (0. 55 m), and weighing probably less than 800 lb (360 kg). ^[5] Smaller warheads can allow a nation to fit more of them onto a single missile, as well as improve in more basic flight properties such as speed, mileage, and range.

The calculations for a nonspherical primary are apparently orders of magnitude harder than for a spherical primary (a spherically symmetric simulation is one dimensional, while an axially symmetric simulation is two dimensional; simulations typically divide up each dimension into discrete segments, so a one dimensional simulation might involve only 100 points, while a similarly accurate two dimensional simulation would require 10,000), which would likely be the reason they would be desirable for a country like the People's Republic of China (which already developed its own nuclear and thermonuclear weapons), especially since they were no longer conducting nuclear testing which would provide valuable design information. Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the effectiveness yield and explosive capability of Nuclear weapons Throughout the twentieth century most nations ^[6]

See also

• List of nuclear weapons

References

1. ^ Harold M. This is a list of Nuclear weapons ordered by state and then type within the states Agnew, "Letter: Looking for Spies in Nuclear Kitchen", Wall Street Journal (17 May 1999), p. A27. [1]
2. ^ Dan Stober and Ian Hoffman, A convenient spy: Wen Ho Lee and the politics of nuclear espionage (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001). ISBN 0-7432-2378-0
3. ^ Howard Morland, "The holocaust bomb: A question of time" (February 2003) [2]
4. ^ William J. Broad, "Spies versus sweat, the debate over China's nuclear advance," New York Times (7 September 1999), p. 1.
5. ^ Nuclear Weapon Archive
6. ^ Christopher Cox, chairman, Report of the United States House of Representatives Select Committee on U. S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China (1999), esp. Ch. 2, "PRC Theft of U. S. Thermonuclear Warhead Design Information". [3]

External links

• Nuclear weapons archive on the W88
• Globalsecurity.org on the W88
• "Department of Energy, FBI, and Department of Justice Handling of the Espionage Investigation into the Compromise of Design Information on the W-88 Warhead" statement by U. S. Senate Governmental Affairs Committee heads.