Nuclear Defence

[All Seeing Eye]

Why can't you people be serious just for once?

I'm telling you, a long building built within the grand canyon makes perfect sense. It's protected from attack, protected from the weather, it's perfect for building in because of the high elevations on either side.
It's easier and cheaper than digging into a mountain or digging out a hole in the ground for a bunker.

You could have a massive strip of building.

 

[chardman]

Why can't you people be serious just for once?

I'm telling you, a long building built within the grand canyon makes perfect sense.

No it doesn't.

It's protected from attack

It's a huge target that would be difficult to miss, from either the ground or air, and a real easy target for a nuclear missile.

protected from the weather

No more so than any other enclosed structure.

it's perfect for building in because of the high elevations on either side.

And problematic due to the really low elevation in the middle.

It's easier and cheaper than digging into a mountain or digging out a hole in the ground for a bunker.

I'm gonna say that making a controlled excavation habitable is probably going to be a lot cheaper than stabilizing a huge erosion pit.

You could have a massive strip of building.

You'd have a leaky erosion pit with a roof over it.

 

[Australis]

Plus I don't think the Americans would be keen on the destruction of a natural national monument.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

*cough* earthquake resistance *cough*

 

[Alpha_Geek]

That would make a very effective llama launcher.

Fool! It could only launch on a very small vector!

It's obvious that once the building is complete that the grand canyon should be dug away from it to form a circular hole! The builders should have left a lazy susan at the bottom, allowing the entire building to be turned in the direction of the oncoming nuclear attack. Taccy is right, mag-lev on top.

Llamas away!!

PS, if you could spin the building at an incredible velocity, and the Llamas were trained to load quickly, you could produce a veritable WALL of anti-nuclear llamas in an impenetrable 360 degree barrrier of safety!

 

[chardman]

A serious consideration

The Grand Canyon is almost a mile deep in certain areas. It's 277 miles long, and in places as much as 18 miles wide. Putting a roof over it would pretty much be impossible, particularly a roof so hearty in nature that it could withstand nuclear attack. (That is our thread topic after all: Nuclear defense.)

First off, were talking about a roof that would cover roughly 3,000 sq miles. That's a lot of area to cover.

Even a light-weight non-nuclear-resistant roof wouldn't be able to bear its own weight over clear spans of up to 18 miles wide, and the problem of support becomes significantly more complicated with a much heartier/heavier "nuke proof" roof. To bear such a roof would require massive columns, and lots of them.

We're talking columns that in some case would be nearly twice the size of the tallest structure man has yet to construct (the Burj Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, at 2684 ft). The columns would also have to be substantially stronger than any existing skyscraper, as most buildings aren't engineered to bear loads substantially more than their own weight, let alone the additional weight of a few square miles of gigantic bunker-like roof.

Assuming that each of these super-columns could bear the weight of 10 sq miles of roof (an estimate that is hideously optimistic) you'd need to build about 300 of them.

The Burj Dubai cost over $4 Billion to build. I figure the minimum each of these taller, beefier columns would easily be in the neighborhood of $10 Billion to $20 Billion each, and we'd need 300 or so of them. So, the cost for just the roof support column for this little renovation project starts somewhere in the vicinity of $3 Trillion+. And that doesn't include the cost of the roof itself; just the support columns alone.

The roof itself would need to be awesomely substantial, and shielded from radiation to boot. I wonder: How many feet thick should our steel reinforced concrete slab be to withstand a nuclear blast, and how much would it cost to lay such a slab covering roughly 3,000 square miles or so in area? How thick would the lead plating have to be to effectively block the radiation for a nuclear attack, and again, how much would it cost to buy enough to cover 3,000 sq miles of roof?

Heck, I figure it's gonna cost well over $100 Billion a pop just to weather-seal it with a fresh coat of tar every 10 years or so.

The idea is not only ridiculous, it most likely isn't even possible from an engineering standpoint, and even if it were, it seems unfathomable that it could possibly be done in a manner that is economically feasible to even consider.

 

[paudemge]

"Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man."
If you want to build a fortification against nuclear attack, I think it would be better to start with caves then canyons.

But as far as intercepting incoming missiles (nuclear or otherwise) using other missiles is probably our best bet, we have some success at intercepting them now and we should just continue refining that technology. This will be a good defense against rogue nations with limited number of missiles. Beam technology (lasers) are probably nearing usability as well and they might be useful.
Nets or acid are completely idiotic.

 

[chardman]

With over 350 miles of mapped, geologically stable passages, and some of the largest chambers of any network of caverns in the world, the Mammoth Cave System would be far better suited to being used as a massive fallout shelter than a refurbished Grand Canyon.

Cheaper too, as it already has a roof of geologically stable rock, which is thick enough in most areas to safely absorb the radiation of even a fairly massive nuclear attack. In that regard alone, it would give us a savings of several gazillion dollars over Tacheon Shield's suggested plan to put a roof over the Grand Canyon, and wouldn't require committing to a construction project that might well take the better part of a century to complete.

Which is probably why Mammoth Cave is already designated a Hardened Nuclear Fallout Shelter by the D.O.D. and Homeland security.

 

[Zachary Smith]

^^

What's wrong with Tora Bora?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Why can't you people be serious just for once?

I'm telling you, a long building built within the grand canyon makes perfect sense. It's protected from attack, protected from the weather, it's perfect for building in because of the high elevations on either side.
It's easier and cheaper than digging into a mountain or digging out a hole in the ground for a bunker.

You could have a massive strip of building.

^ Yeah, I get all that. What I don't get is why it would be "easier and cheaper" than digging a hole in the ground for a bunker. Unless you want to build a protected maglev rail for a llama accelerator...

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^^

What's wrong with Tora Bora?

We don't own it.

 

[Zachary Smith]

^^

What's wrong with Tora Bora?

We don't own it.

I bet we COULD . . . and cheap, too.

 

[paudemge]

We really need to work on radiation detectors, because as has been stated already we are a lot more likely to get a suitcase bomb than a missile. I'm pretty sure if we had enough radiation detectors we could pick up a dirty bomb, but I'm not sure we can pick up a normal nuclear device if it was shielded.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^^

What's wrong with Tora Bora?

We don't own it.

I bet we COULD . . . and cheap, too.

Contrary to what the average American would believe, the ability to buy it and the ability to OWN it are mutually exclusive.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

We really need to work on radiation detectors, because as has been stated already we are a lot more likely to get a suitcase bomb than a missile. I'm pretty sure if we had enough radiation detectors we could pick up a dirty bomb, but I'm not sure we can pick up a normal nuclear device if it was shielded.

Any nuclear device small enough to fit in a suitcase is either 1) not shielded or 2) not of Earth origin and probably catalyzed by antimatter or something.

The closest thing anyone has come to a "suitcase bomb" was a relatively small half kiloton tactical nuke the size of a garbage can; it weighed about 150 lbs. You wouldn't need a radiation detector to notice someone hauling one of those fat boys through the streets of New York.

 

[paudemge]

Any nuclear device small enough to fit in a suitcase is either 1) not shielded or 2) not of Earth origin and probably catalyzed by antimatter or something.

The closest thing anyone has come to a "suitcase bomb" was a relatively small half kiloton tactical nuke the size of a garbage can; it weighed about 150 lbs. You wouldn't need a radiation detector to notice someone hauling one of those fat boys through the streets of New York.

Well suitcase may be pushing it, but a 150lb garbage can might not really be that hard to sneak into the country. I would like to be able to detect these devices while still on the boat so to speak.
I really don't know the state of radiation detection. But it is probably a more urgent need than missile defense.

 

[USS KG5]

We really need to work on radiation detectors, because as has been stated already we are a lot more likely to get a suitcase bomb than a missile. I'm pretty sure if we had enough radiation detectors we could pick up a dirty bomb, but I'm not sure we can pick up a normal nuclear device if it was shielded.

Any nuclear device small enough to fit in a suitcase is either 1) not shielded or 2) not of Earth origin and probably catalyzed by antimatter or something.

The closest thing anyone has come to a "suitcase bomb" was a relatively small half kiloton tactical nuke the size of a garbage can; it weighed about 150 lbs. You wouldn't need a radiation detector to notice someone hauling one of those fat boys through the streets of New York.

I saw a documentary about Russian suitcase nukes once, it may have been bunk but it was perfectly plausible. As you say it probably was not terribly well shielded and the yield was low, but it would be one of the ultimate terrorist weapons.

Logic also applies, if it was simple to acquire a portable nuclear weapon and get it armed and smuggled into a major western city the somebody would have done it by now. As it is it seems even the former Soviet Union is keeping a reasonably close eye on it's operable nukes.

Probably there have been a few terrorist plots to acquire fissionable material, but building a nuclear weapon which actually works from that would be damn hard. You would probably be better off opening you lead box in Time Square and irradiating everyone, or using it for a dirty bomb.

That said, making conventional explosives is relatively straightforward and so far there has only been 9/11 in the US and two attacks in the UK directly attributable to Islamic fundamentalists. They may have been busy as well in Spain and other countries but ultimately the incidence has been small.

It really is a big mystery, either the threat has been effectively contained by the security services and law enforcement, or the threat was exagerrated, or both.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Could one of these suitcase nukes be placed under a llama? It could be a nuclear powered anti-nuclear defense weapon!

 

[Silvercrest]

They should build inside disused quarries...........................and the grand canyon. The entire stretch of the grand canyon should become one long building with a maglev rail track running along the top.

That would make a very effective llama launcher.

I don't think there are any llamas in the Grand Canyon. Can we launch burros instead?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

The closest thing anyone has come to a "suitcase bomb" was a relatively small half kiloton tactical nuke the size of a garbage can; it weighed about 150 lbs. You wouldn't need a radiation detector to notice someone hauling one of those fat boys through the streets of New York.

The Mk54 warhead (as deployed in the "Davy Crockett" battlefield nuclear projectile) supposedly weighed about 51lb and had a selectable yield from 10t to 1kt (and 6kt during development). The warhead might well fit inside a largish suitcase -- picture here:

http://www.brookings.edu/projects/archive/nucweapons/davyc.aspx