Items tagged with nuclear
While the construction of new nuclear powerplants in the United States (and in other countries) seems to be falling out of favor, the same can’t be said for their use by the U.S. Military. The US Navy still relies on nuclear power for the bulk of its large warships. But while those ships are powered by nuclear fission reactors, the Navy is talking up the possibility of using much more promising fusion reactors. The problem is that [safely] harnessing nuclear fusion is incredibly more difficult than nuclear fission, and the currentspace requirements are immense. Nuclear fission occurs when isotopes of uranium or plutonium are bombarded with subatomic particles, splitting them apart...
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Many of the nuclear deterrence strategies that the U.S. has today were developed during the Cold War era when military officials had significant time to detect an incoming nuclear attack and decide a course of action for a response. This mutually assured destruction worked, in that any enemy with nuclear weapons knew the U.S. would have time to fire its own nuclear response at them and neither would survive the outcome. However, technology marches on and times have changed, with potential enemy forces around the globe making significant upgrades to nuclear arsenals -- upgrades such as hypersonic cruise missiles and other types of missiles that are difficult to detect. One type of hypersonic cruise...
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