Reply #199: Not really -- they'd developed two types of Bombs -- both were available, [View All]

[Vitruvius]

and both were used. And the production facilities for both were up & running (isotope separation plants for the uranium bomb, breeders plus chemical separation facilities for the plutonium bomb). And the full output of both types of bomb would have been used until the war was won.

We kept those facilities running from then until now -- and ended up with over 50,000 bombs -- and no rational use for them -- even by the insane standards of the arms race. We ended up decommissioning the majority -- and have about 25,000 today. The material for the decommissioned 25,000 is what the primitives in the Bu$h administration intend to use for their "mini nukes".

B/T/W, the best argument I can think of FOR nuclear power (which is otherwise a dangerous and uneconomic technology given the present state of the art) is that it uses up fissile materials that could otherwise be processed to make bombs. What I'd really like to see is a class of nuclear reactors that burned bomb-grade material -- it's the one irreversible way to dispose of it.

It's not impossible -- as we run out of oil and other conventional energy sources --that we may yet end up fissioning the bombstuff to keep the energy-wasteful American standard of living going a little while longer...