European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 27, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                With right material and know How it s terrifyingly easy by Stephen Strauss Toronto Globe and mail Ore than 40 years ago americans Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were sent to the electric chair for allegedly passing the secrets of the atomic bomb to soviet agents. Today with nuclear material being smuggled out of the former soviet Union to reach a wider Market bomb building instructions for amateurs Are out in the open. The times of London for example published a Little primer called How to build bomb without being a Boffin and estimated that it would take 24 hours for an atomic bomb to be made in a Well stocked garage or shed. Time Ragazine gave pointers to budding physicists with a graphic lit. Destruction. / " v not to be left out the National resources defense Council a Washington based environmental group suggested that a powerful atomic bomb could be made with As Little As 1 kilogram 2.2 pounds of weapons Grade plutonium and 3 kilograms of highly enriched uranium these numbers Are one eighth the amount of previous estimates ".  /-.-. 1 he environmental group also noted that for countries that Are technologically unsophisticated the Basic principles for making a bomb Are readily available in the average Public Library. I would first go to the world Book encyclopedia,." said Ted Taylor a former bomb designer in the United states who believes it s become too easy for terrorists to make atomic weapons. What does it take to make a bomb if Price provides one Marker of the sophistication required atomic bombs Are in the real estate agents Plush but not palatial category. When mass produced they Are thought to Cost about $700,000 each. For comparison s Sake the Tomahawk missiles used to pummel Iraq in operation desert storm Cost $1,7 million each. The human resources needed to make a bomb Are another measure of its increasing accessibility. While it took More than 100,000 workers and scientists to produce the first atomic bombs nuclear physicist Frank Barnaby told the times that two people an explosives chemist and an electronics Engineer a could build a bomb if they had weapons Grade material. Carson Mark who led the theoretical physics division of the los Alamos National Laboratory believes that estimate to be Low. But not by much. He thinks it would take Only 10 or 12 skilled workers including a welder and a machinist to build a successful weapon. But even a badly made a bomb can do its share of damage. Consider the bomb that levelled Nagasaki which produced an explosive Force of 20,000 tons of int. If this bomb had failed to cause a runaway Chain reaction in its plutonium Core a fizzle in the argot of the weapons builders it still would have made quite a bang. Physicist Robert Oppenheimer estimated that a Nagasaki fizzle would still have produced an explosion equal to 1,000 tons of int. When terrorists made a conventional bomb that killed six people and destroyed three Levels of a parking garage at the world Trade Center in new York two years ago All it took was 500 kilograms of fuel Oil and fertilizer. An a bomb weighing twice As much would produce 1,000 tons of explosive Force said Taylor. It would have killed everyone in both towers of the world Trade Center. That s 100,000  even if a homemade a bomb turned out to be a True Dud that is a bomb that did not result in any nuclear Chain reaction there still could be considerable damage to a Large City. If the regular explosives that Are required to trigger the Chain reactions did nothing More than shoot radioactive Core material into the air thousands of people would Likely die from radiation poisoning. Since the first a bomb was set off 50 years ago those who fear nuclear proliferation have taken Comfort in the belief that it has always been harder to get the radioactive bomb material than to make a weapon. But part of that analysis depends on what kind of bomb you Are going to build. The general idea is to produce a runaway Chain reaction in which atoms split this is known As fission and the particles they give off cause other atoms around them to split. If the bomb is correctly engineered some of the radioactive material splits and gives off a tremendous burst of Energy its explosive Power and radioactivity. Two general atomic bomb designs Are generally discussed in the scientific primers. The simpler a gun Type bomb shots a Pellet of fissionable material Down a gun barrel. The Pellet collides with a Neutron Initiator located in a sphere of enriched uranium. The Initiator May be no More than a few grains of the element polonium which is available from chemical Supply houses. When the Pellet strikes the polonium it starts a Chain reaction that almost instantly devastates the surrounding area. Anyone setting out to produce this Type of bomb must make sure that the gun barrel is made of very Strong material Tungsten perhaps. The mass of uranium at the Core must be carefully machined into a sphere or Cylinder. The Chain reaction would occur most efficiently if the fissionable material were encased in a Shell that reflects neutrons. You also have to Monitor the radioactive material in the Core of the bomb and make sure that a Chain reaction does t Start while you Are putting the bomb together. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed for passing what is no longer a secret. File with the second Type of bomb an implosion device a Ball of plutonium or highly enriched uranium is put inside a reflecting Shell and surrounded by conventional explosive. Remote controlled detonators then set off the explosive 350 kilograms or so of semtex would probably do and a Shock wave would compress the radioactive material into a critical mass the Point at which a runaway Chain reaction occurs. A Neutron Initiator might be used to kick Start the Chain reaction. When the fissionable uranium or plutonium is suitably compressed a runaway reaction ensues. There Are several technical difficulties that must be overcome in making this Type of bomb. The detonators for example must go off at almost the same time so that the implosion pressures Are the same on All sides of the sphere. The same physical principles require that the sphere itself be lathe into a very uniform shape. The Shell should also be designed to behave in a uniform manner. The True professional would want to test the possible variations before trying to explode the weapon. Taylor suggests that once you have fissionable material the rest of the required equipment would Cost no More than $10,000. But How to get that fissionable material a russian was arrested last month in Kaliningrad while trying to sell nuclear material for $1 million. Two spaniards and a colombian on a flight from Moscow were arrested in Munich with More than 300 Grams of plutonium. While the russians insist that no weapons Grade material has left the country experts say that with salaries of Plant workers hovering at about $100 a month and the country dismantling 2,000 warheads a year there is a great temptation to steal nuclear material. Obtaining uranium and plutonium is the Tricky part. The Purchase of lathes explosives protective clothing and Neutron counters could probably be explained away As an underwater test at Bikini in 1946 shows the Power of an atomic blast. Part of a More legitimate activity such As mining. That is appropriate because making an a bomb is not much More technologically involved than mining. Media guides oversimplify but bomb making is still easy enough to frighten those who worry about new York or Tel Aviv vaporizing into a mushroom Cloud. . Physicist Spurgeon Keeny likens it to building a car irom scratch in your basement. Taylor thinks Keeny has exaggerated the difficulty. It is he says More like building a Battery. Scripps Howard news service. If a homemade atomic bomb had been used in the world Trade Center blast it would have destroyed both towers and killed some 100,000 people a bomb designer says. 20 the stars and stripes tuesday september 27,1994 the stars and stripes 21