Re: Surviving a Dirty Bomb

["Franz Schoenhofer" <franz.schoenhofer@CHELLO.AT>]

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----

Von: Susan L Gawarecki <loc@icx.net>

An: RADSAFE <radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu>

Datum: Freitag, 14. Juni 2002 22:45

Betreff: Re: Surviving a Dirty Bomb





>Thanks to Roger Macklin for pointing out this article to me.  Finally,

>the media is trying to subtract some of the terror from terrorism.

>

>--Susan Gawarecki

>



>

> Another day, another "credible" terrorist threat. The disaster scenario

>du jour is now the so-called dirty bomb, so called because this is a

>conventional bomb that plays dirty. Experts say a dirty bomb could range

>in size from a small "suitcase" device to a truck bomb, and maybe

>larger. Its explosive may be as ordinary as dynamite, but it's packaged

>with radioactive material that, detonated, is scattered in fragments and

>airborne dust -- or "dirt." Hence the name.

>

-------------------------------------------------------------



No. The description "dirty" derives from nuclear bomb technology. There were

designs of nuclear weapons to be surrounded by easily activated or fissioned

material like cobalt and U-238 in order to add to the nuclear weapons

destructive force very wide-spread contamination by activation and/or

fission products. It seems that such devices were not tested in the

atmosphere.



Franz









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