Submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world [bot] to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2023/10/27/us-to-build-new-nuclear-gravity-bomb/
US to build new nuclear gravity bomb::Experts say this new higher-yield nuclear bomb appears intended to pave the way for retiring the older B83 megaton bomb.
I got real excited to learn the physics of a nuclear gravity bomb.
It’s the opposite of a smart bomb. We have gotten to the point in modernity where a bomb is guided so we must define bombs which fall, and are guided by, the force of gravity.
Yeah I also wondered if “nuclear gravity” was some fascinating new branch of physics.
Got real disappointed when I realised that it meant dropping 'em.
Yeah it’s just a fancy way of saying “dumb bomb.”
You don’t need guided accuracy with a megaton nuke pooped out by a plane.
Oh… thats why i couldnt find any cool youtube video describing it… cool name though
Had something more along these lines in mind?
It should’ve been “nuclear, gravity bomb”.
Wouldn’t even technically be nuclear powered, it just has a nuclear payload. I feel like the use of “gravity” in this article was an unnecessary addition.
When most people think “bomb”, they don’t think immediately think of “guided missile”, they thing something that is either planted or dropped from above, and in this case the latter describes exactly what kind of bomb this is.
『geekout about the cold war』
Nope. We have planes that fly really high and are shielded enough to withstand the effects at distance. Our air-dropped nukes are the most potant used by the US at 2.1 megatons (which is a sweet spot involving physics I don’t understand.)
Soviet bombs were bigger and more plentiful to compensate for their inaccuracy (so they’d shotgun strategic targets to assure a likely hit). This turned into justification for the arms rwce in the 1960s to get ridiculous with General Electric pushing the missile gap. It’s how we ended up with so many nukes we could wipe out humanity many times over, not just by carpeting all the continents but with nuclear winter and lingering radioactive fallout.
At that point, the doomsday device in Doctor Strangelove, a really huge cobalt bomb or salted bomb became the more cost-efficient deterrant. While there were actual designs, I don’t think anyone actually built it. 『/geekout』
The explosion would kill the pilot if they were that close.
No - if you’re indoors you can generally survive a massive nuclear bomb form as close as 2 miles and they’re probably close to 4 miles up in the air when they drop the bomb, and travelling at very high speed so they’ll be a lot further than 4 miles from the explosion when it goes off.
The Russians dropped a 50 megaton bomb from a manned plane without killing the pilots, unless the us is going for the record of largest bomb ever it’s not much of a concern beyond ensuring a high enough drop altitude fast enough plane or slowing the bomb with a parachute.
Is it a drone at that point or a guided missle? The lines seem thin
I thought to myself “well. We did it again. This time with gravity” I was both disappointed and relieved.
Time bombs have always been a disappointment also.
Zarya: Огонь по готовности!
Maybe do a nuclear gravity power plant first? Provide the tax players cheap clean energy instead of more threats of war.
But how are we going to protect the power plant without the bomb? /s
💀
Honestly… this is kind of how that might happen? Defense spending and research has always been the vanguard of technological development and then it’s waylaid to private sector development and R&D.
Once it’s proven effective they can then reverse engineer it to do something constructive.
Because the US can’t be bothered to find non blow-uppy projects until later.
A nuclear gravity bomb is a standard nuclear bomb that is dropped from a plane, instead of launched on a rocket.
nuclear gravity power plant
Lmao
Just in time for the latest conflict in the Middle East.
And sending some to Ukraine for aid
How about a third proxy war?
Yet as the article says: directly linked with the new arms race with Russia and China.
While glassing Gaza would streamline the conflict a bunch, I doubt these weapons are because of them
Holy crap! We have been here before and it leads to the brink of extinction due to fecking ego’s.
Yeah, but this time we can all talk about it in realtime with the rest of the world.
I do agree, but it’s confounded by the story that’s told. We have sequentially followed the same arguments for the people that we are asked to fear right now. MAGA are a classic example of “live updates” and very poor thinking
Did we ever leave?
In a follow-up statement, a Pentagon spokesperson said that will include the B-21 Raider stealth bomber the Air Force now has in development with Northrop Grumman. But the U.S. now does not plan to deploy it on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon said.
This feels so out of date to me. We have guided ballistic missiles, drones, etc. Why are we still thinking about dropping an united bomb like this from an aircraft with a human in it? It’s >1 megaton ffs - close should be “good enough”?
Because they can glide a long way and are stealthier without propellant. It’s still a standoff weapon. The B21 is a stone cold killer. It can get in fairly close undetected and drop from high altitude in still relatively safe airspace. The bombs are away without anyone ever knowing it was there. Then you’ve got a stealthy bomb gliding in silently. It probably shows up on radar like a raindrop.
Randrops are falling on my head Soon we will all be dead
What happens when someone takes control of the guidance? A bomb dropped from the sky is going to obey the laws of physics and that’s it.
Laws of physics? What are you, a narc?
You dont just “take over” an inertial guidance system.
Dispersal of liability if something goes wrong?
It’s not the ground-based targeting system so that company can’t be sued. It’s not the onboard nav so that company can’t be sued. It’s not the software so that company can’t be sued. It’s not communication latency or interference so we can’t blame it on a bad command decision to push forward without more reliable data points.
The only thing that will ultimately result in a nuclear weapon being dropped is if the guy with human eyes is looking at the target, makes a judgement call, and pushes the button.
All that being said, we should not be building more nukes regardless. This is dumb.
You can probably fit more bomb in the same package if you odnt have to worry about propellant
I would lean to reliability and speed. Ballistic missiles don’t get a lot of testing while the bombers are flown regularly and takeoff/land pretty much anywhere .
Of course, just what the world needs, more weapons.
The US is so fucking stupid:
this weapon was made to reflect the changing security environment in line with the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review. That study said the military needed to modernize its nuclear forces to properly deter its two main nuclear-armed competitors, China and Russia.
There’s really no reason to have “better” bombs. It’s MAD either way. This is just the industrial military complex going full steam in 2023. And only the US can, or else that would of course mean war…
Nuclear weapons are expensive and complicated to maintain. The military has been bitching for many years that the price to maintain old nuclear munitions is rapidly increasing.
Instead of seeing this as working as intended, and trying to get everyone to agree not to develop new nuclear weapons… The military strategists decided that since China was making 500 new nuclear weapons we needed to make new ones too and pulled out of the agreement with Russia not to.
I would have thought that if it was hard for us to maintain the nuclear weapons with a massive budget that Russia might fail at that task. Which would be good for everyone.
But there’s always been more money in star wars and missile defense then diplomacy.
Will they come up with a better name than aeromorph?
Colorcodedresistor@lemm.ee 1 year ago
“The physics package contained within the B83 has been studied for use in asteroid impact avoidance strategies against any seriously threatening near earth asteroids. Six such warheads, configured for the maximum 1.2 megatonnes of TNT (5.0 PJ), would be deployed by maneuvering space vehicles to “knock” an asteroid off course, should it pose a risk to the Earth.[10]”
…If you have even half the comprehension to understand that amount of force. fuck…that’s a lot of damage.
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
The crazy bit is that the energies involved in a meteorite large enough to cause serious problems striking earth are like an order of magnitude larger than that. No radiation, sure, but that doesn’t help you much when you’re getting broiled by a ball of plasma.