The United States will say farewell to the country’s most powerful nuclear bomb on Tuesday, as a massive B53 bomb’s final parts are taken apart at a plant in Texas, the Associated Press reports.
The 10,000 pound, minivan-sized weapon is considered 600 times more powerful than the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, the AP says, and was put together during the Cold War. Thomas D’Agostino, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, hailed the dismantlement of the bomb a “significant milestone.”
Pantex Plant, where the bomb will be taken apart, is located 17 miles northeast of Amarillo, Tex., and maintains the safety of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile for the Energy Department and the NNSA.
According to the NNSA, the dismantlement of the B53 presents a challenge because of its size and the materials that are used.
President Barack Obama has vowed to reduce the number of nuclear weapons – as the NNSA points out, speaking in Prague in April 2009, the president said the U.S. will “reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, and urge others to do the same.”
“The dismantlement of the last remaining B53 ensures that the system will never again be part of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile,” the NNSA said.
(Source: Politico)
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5 Responses
Too bad they didn’t drop it on Iran (and Hamas too)! I’m sure Iran is not dismantling their bombs.
and it is hopelessly obsolete, and probably not very useful even if it ever worked and was needed — modern nuclear strategy involve many smaller devices rather than one easy to intercept large one
another stupid thing the obama administration is doing
Why don’t they set it off in space so that we can all watch?
Akuperma, you can’t make an atom more compact. If you do it would be a bomb right then.
#4- transporting a nuclear device is risky – especially a large one – that is why they prefer many small devices to a few giant ones
and if you set it off in space you might be able to mess up all the computers — if NASA or USAF messed up with people’s internet access, not to mention ATMs, they’ld never get another dime