[war] detecting nukes from space...

[alchemike]

would like to get some opinions on the following story...

i myself tend to believe that the technology to detect high spin electrons from space must be available...

but that doesn't mean this guy's legit...

anyone out there with any expertise who might lend some credibility to any of this, or debunk it???

o)<

mike

http://www.rense.com/general16/nucla.htm

US Satellite Detection Of Portable Nuclear Weapons

"If an internal nuclear attack ever occurs in this country without a major failure of our satellite assets...perhaps we should rethink just who the
enemy really is..."
From Robert (name protected)
11-7-1

As you have probably heard from the major news networks, there is some concern about the so-called portable nuclear devices developed by the old USSR. Their former head of the KGB has confirmed the existence of 150 portable devices: 100 of which are presently unaccounted for.

First of all, portable refers to a low yield device with casing that would require an 18 wheeler to transport! "Suitcase device" is a misnomer. Second, none of these devices are missing; We know exactly where these devices are
located at any given point in time.

This is how we know: During the 1980's I worked as a Senior Systems Engineer for several DOD companies in San Diego (Advanced Digital Systems and SAIC). While in this position I was tasked with developing a "Fleet Satellite Catastrophic Restoral Plan" for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. My
group was to develop a method for satellite intelligence restoral in the event of a space born nuclear strike by the Soviet Union. In the course of this study, we had to review all satellite capabilities and characteristics: both current
and projected through the early ninety's.

A series of satellites planned to begin deployment in 1989 (temporarily delayed by the Shuttle explosion) are now aloft (2nd phase of the MILSTAR
Program) They carry special sensor devices (Developed by SAIC) that can detect high-velocity spin-off particles from enriched uranium (necessary for nuclear devices). Due to the small size and velocity of these particles, no amount of shielding can block them: not lead, not earth (sub-terrainian). Radiation hazards from these particles are minimal due to limited quantity.

Our satellites are fool-proof in detecting and pin-pointing the locations of enriched uranium throughout the world.

The nuclear verification process employed in monitoring Iraq and other nations via NATO and the United Nations uses these satellite joint detection systems (the NSA controls and tracks the data). Many articles concerning these satellites have already been written in specialty magazines (Defense Science and Electronics-for one). Any attempt to bring a nuclear device into our country would be instantly detected (not to mention the track of its mobile transport).

Once again, the major US media resorts to half-truths for the benefit of ratings: "Stay tuned for more on our impending annihilation!" their unspoken headlines read,

If an internal nuclear attack ever occurs in this country without a major failure our satellite assets...perhaps we should rethink just who the enemy really is...

While at SAIC, I worked special projects for Dick Egger (heir-apparent to Bob Beyster). As SAIC is now the top think tank for DOD, Admiral Poindexter (I worked for him as an NSO officer) has replaced Egger. The "Black Ops" for SAIC are under Poindexter's control and include PSYOPS developed in the San Diego area. Former pres. Bush Senior is STILL IN CHARGE of the old CIA ops group Poindexter represents. Just as in IRAN/CONTRA, the funding is private! I believe our capabilities to detect nukes is "With Intent" being hushed by the special interest group from the Bush Presidency (there really is a World Order crowd!) - now operating through Bush Jr.

I am known to these people (I worked within their organization for almost 10 years...til' I woke up). You can verify with Oliver North. He will not admit, but say to him: "The meeting at Pacer Systems in 1982 was taped and remains with the other documents bearing Bush Senior's signature - you only retrieved what I set aside for retrieval"...you can gauge his reaction for yourself...

 

[Wildweasel]

I have two cases of experience which will verify that assertion.

One was watching the circus when a mobile x-ray van was being moved without someone calling the magic phone number to inform them of said move. Lotsa state police cars with heavily armed troopers and many men in black with their standout unmarked cars. After the van driver and tech recovered from shock their paperwork was verified to be in order, the proper channels were notified of a movement of an ionizing radiation source and they completed their move to the next hospital they were to support.

The second is very straight foreward: I've seen documentation concerning it as part of my military duties. I've read the NEST (Nuclear Emergency Search Team) plan and it explicitly mentioned satellite monitoring of ionizing radiation sources. That would have been the trigger for our unit to become involved in transporting NEST teams to a target area or even to fly search patterns with a team and their equipment onboard to narrow down a satellite "hit" on an ionizing radiation source to a smaller area so a helicopter borne team could take over.

WW

 

[itznate]

I saw this once before and brought it up to ione of my coworkers husband, he was a nuclear engineer in the navy, he says nothing in space would pick up anything from the groung unless it was actually blown up. but he did say there are fixed detecters esp around DC. and there are moble teams called nest teams, here they are way active in new york and dc, bvut the rest of the country in not being watched as closely because there is not enough of them. I believe em becuase i know about the NEST teams already, if they could be detected they wouldnt need the nest teams and hwy moniters like they do. also we would know anystate where there nuclear materials are and i dont believe we know that either. maybe some day we will have the technology to do it , but i dont believe we have it today.

 

[Curious]

Yes & No

The system probably exists, but it also probably doesn't work very well.

If such a system actually worked well in real time there would be no need for Russia to use mobile ICBM's as part of it's deterent strategy (those big ICBM's on road capable carriers that the Ruskie's deploy), in fact their nuclear arsenal would be more vulnerable by being mobile and being non silo protected.

There are portable radiation detectors, BUT with all the sources of radiation floating around out there a satellite system would only pick up the big sources. A geostationary satelite being out 24,000 miles would have even a worse time than a moving satelite out only a couple of hundred miles.....but the moving satelite would only be seeing a small swath of land on each pass. (how many sources of radiation?....well every medical clinic with an X-ray machine.....virtually every dentist.....every hospital.....the list goes on and on....there are tens of thousands of sources of radiation anymore.......hide the darn bomb shielded in part of the basement of a hospital and voila the source of the radiation that escapes appears legit)

Aircraft of course can fly much lower, carry much much bigger payloads than satelites (think bigger size, heavier, higher power consumption......voila, more sensitive equipment), but again the problem is aircraft can only cover a small swath of land per pass. I remember my old CAP days of searching for downed aircraft, and believe me there is a lot of land out there to cover, ten's of thousands of legs of searching to cover the US if doing it by airplane.

For PR purposes the military always wants people to think it's stuff can do more than it really can, and I doubt satellites would pick up a well shielded "bomb" while that bomb was in storage. Aircraft carried equipment have a better chance, but again deep storage may well defeat that aspect.

As I understand the NEST system (even their airborn system) it is designed to try to catch the weapon while it is in transit and relatively unshielded. That may be a very small time window....one needs the sensors in the right place at the right time to catch it in transit.

Finally size.......18 wheeler?.....GIVE ME A BREAK.

Don't try to tell me that a Trident missile is pushing ten 18 wheelers into space.....that would make it more powerful than the Saturn V Moon Rocket!!

Ever see pictures of the new Trident H-bomb re-entry warheads? About 2 to 3 feet long and about 10-14 inches across. Yes they probably weigh about 400 to 600 pounds each....but it doesn't take any 18 wheeler to move them around. The Ruskie MIRV's were probably about the same size and weight. Suitcase nukes are reported to weigh in under 100 kg pounds (220 pounds).

The one detection device that would pick up moving nuclear material are the detectors that sit by the side of the roads. Truck goes past, alarm goes off. For a long time they were just at the exits of the nuclear materials plants to keep people from smuggling nuclear material out, but in this day and age I would make an informed hunch that they have also been deployed along certain highways and thorofares.

Lastly....the guy says "our satelites are foolproof".....duh, when was the last thing the government (or military) did that was foolproof? Maybe that phrase means the satelites are there to fool the fools who believe in them

Curious

 

[Redeye]

Let's say that I have reason to know enough about those various ways of detecting emitters to guess at their high-side capabilities.

I then have two choices: make no mistakes on shielding an actual small weapon, or use materials which are much weaker emitters than bomb-grade materials but which are still quite dangerous nonetheless.
And, if I am going to move around, or assemble, one of this fissile weapons, I'd better make no mistake about allowing sufficient emissions so as to trigger all sorts of curiosity. That requires intel. Most likely nation-state level intel.

That the non weapons-grade stuff <i>is</i> being moved around is strongly indicated by two things: first, the mules caught out already suffering from radiation poisoning (including at least one here, in October), and second, reports such as that <a href="http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15985">Time.com: The Nuke Materials Pipeline From Russia</a> article I posted on Friday.

We never found Sadam's nuclear weapons. We've never found South Africa's, the last I knew. We suspected where Pakistan's were stored, and ditto India's.

FAS.org (The Federation of American Scientists) has a useful place called <a href="http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/index.html">The High Energy Weapons Archive -- A Guide to Nuclear Weapons</a>. The updated <a href="http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/News/Lebedbomb.html">suitcase weapon section</a> has a lot of info I don't recall seeing here as yet. Example:
<blockquote>A second chapter in the Soviet suitcase bomb affair began with a Congressional hearing on Russian espionage held by Rep. Dan Burton (R-Indiana) on 24 January 2000 in Washington, DC. Soviet ex-colonel and GRU operative Stanislav Lunev was the star witness at the sparsely attended Military Research and Development Subcommittee hearing, chaired by Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Penn.).

Featured at the hearing was a mock-up of a notional briefcase bomb. In his opening comments Weldon described this exhibit:

The model is based on unclassified data on the components in an atomic artillery shell, to see if such a system could be reassembled in a suitcase. Indeed, as it turns out, the physics package, neutron generators, batteries, arming mechanism and other essentials of a small atomic weapon can fit, just barely, in an <b>attache case</b>. The result is a plutonium-fueled gun-type atomic weapon having a yield of one-to-ten kilotons, the same yield range attributed by General Lebed to the Russian "nuclear suitcase" weapon.</blockquote>

None of which goes to the detectability question, of course.
Chapter IV of the <u>Lawyers Alliance For World Security White Paper on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Fall 2000</u> is by Robert Garwin. It's titled <a href="http://www.lawscns.org/speeches/ctbt_whitepaper.pdf">"Clandestine Testing Under a CTBT"</a>. It appears to say that weapons -- especially fission weapons -- of the size we're talking about here could indeed be built and transported without detection.
As to who Garwin is, see <a href="http://www.fas.org/rlg/index.html">The Garwin Archive</a> at FAS.org.

R

 

[Roger Thornhill]

You need to find someone who is current with the technology used by this outfit:
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/aftac/intro.htm

I used to be, but that was almost thirty years ago, when no one would even acknowledge they existed. Now the stuff I was familiar with, VELA satellites for instance,(http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/missions/vela5a.html) has literally become displays in museums.

 

[SmartAZ]

They carry special sensor devices (Developed by SAIC) that can detect high-velocity spin-off particles from enriched uranium (necessary for nuclear devices). Due to the small size and velocity of these particles, no amount of shielding can block them: not lead, not earth (sub-terrainian).

Did you ever think about an invisible man? He's blind! If there is no dye in the eye to absorb light, he can't see. If there is a dye, so he can see, then another person can see him.

We have lots of different particle detectors, but every one of them detects a particle by absorbing it. Anything that absorbs a particle is a shield. So if nothing can shield a particle then nothing can detect it.

The only known particle that meets this description is the neutrino. There are only two neutrino detectors in the world. Each consists of several hundred thousand gallons of dry cleaning fluid, and detects about 3 or 4 particles a year out of the gazillion that pass through them.

 

[night driver]

I slept on this one and have some problems with it.

Admittedly, atmospheric sampling can give us the exact composition of a nuke test (down to the color of the box it was stored and set off in), but I have some problems with the ability to "pinpoint" emitters of this type.

First, we're not talking about a huge number of emitted particles, as these things go.

Second, we ARE talking about a LOT of emitters generating a HUGE background noise level.

Third, when we talk about "suitcase" nukes we are talking about a unit that would comfortably fit into a 3-six-pack cooler, NOT a full 18-wheeler.

Fourth, I defy ANY sensing satelite to "pinpoint" an emitter in the manner described (err not described, alluded to is more accurate). [But ... but ... but ... what about satelite EPIRB and ELT technology?? huh huh huh!?? Well that technology utilizes more than one satelite to triangulate on a signal, using specific coded, specific frequency transmissions so that the satelite receiver analysis can be sure that it is receiving ONLY that EPIRB unit. This is a HUGE difference from identifying an emitter buried in the background noise.]

Oh and I really don't get turned on by quoting companies, and stuff. As far as who someone purports to have worked for, sheesh, either your info stands on its own, or it doesn't. If it doesn't stand on its own, no amount of quoting helps. Remember, on the internet nobody knows you are a dog....


C

 

[Redeye]

Most interesting -- and obviously more than a little pertinent -- discussion.
Roger and Chuck, thanks to both of you for your thoughts.

All of us no doubt would prefer the prognosis to be more favorable than it appears to be. Better we know what of the unclassified truth that we can.

R

 

[SmartAZ]

Remember, on the internet nobody knows you are a dog....

Yes, you always need to remember that! (You might have seen me in a movie: I used to be Lassie!)

 

[night driver]

Yep and I used to HATE it when that little brat would yell "YO!! RINTY!!!!" cause it meant I had to get up off my Cedar Bed and actually go DO something to save the World again.....