Fo make a nuclear fission bomb, you need some money, as it would really help if you were the prince, sultan or other royalty of a small, but rich state. If not, you need to know on a first name basis some evil leader with lots of cash, oil, diamonds and so on, of a small but ambitious country, with a need for revenge on the world.

Step 1 - What is a nuclear fission bomb?

Fission bombs derive their power from nuclear fission, where heavy nuclei (uranium or plutonium) are bombarded by neutrons and split into lighter elements, more neutrons and energy. These newly liberated neutrons then bombard other nuclei, which then split and bombard other nuclei, and so on, creating a nuclear chain reaction which releases large amounts of energy. These are historically called atomic bombs, atom bombs, or A-bombs, though this name is not precise due to the fact that chemical reactions release energy from atomic bonds (excluding bonds between nuclei) and fusion is no less atomic than fission. Despite this possible confusion, the term atom bomb has still been generally accepted to refer specifically to nuclear weapons and most commonly to pure fission devices.

Step 2 - What do you need?

a. The fissionable material

Plutonium239 isotope. Around 25 pounds (10 kg) would be enough. If you could find some Uranium235, that would be good, but not great. You would need to refine it using a gas centrifuge. The uranium hexafluoride gas is piped in a cylinder, which is then spun at high speed. The rotation causes a centrifugal force that leaves the heavier U-238 isotopes at the outside of the cylinder, while the lighter U-235 isotopes are left at the center. The process is repeated many times over through a cascade of centrifuges to create uranium of the desired level of enrichment. To be used as the fissile core of a nuclear weapon, the uranium has to be enriched to more than 90 per cent and be produced in large quantities.

You could try buying it from a former Soviet Republic, or from Iran, since they’re trying so hard to produce it. North Korea is not ready yet, and unfortunately, Iraqi dealers retired from the business.

b. The explosive to start the nuclear chain reaction

100 pounds (44 kg) of trinitrotoluene (TNT). Gelignite (an explosive material consisting of collodion-cotton (a type of nitrocellulose or gun cotton) dissolved in nitroglycerine and mixed with wood pulp and sodium or potassium nitrate) would be better. Semtex would be good too, but it’s a bit hard to get, these days.

c. The detonator

To fabricate a detonator for the device, get a radio controlled (RC) servo mechanism, as found in RC model airplanes and cars. With a modicum of effort, a remote plunger can be made that will strike a detonator cap to effect a small explosion. These detonation caps can be found in the electrical supply section of your local supermarket. If you’re an electronics wiz, you should be able to make it using a cellphone.

d. The pusher

The explosion shock wave might be of such short duration that only a fraction of the pit is compressed at any instant as it passes through it. A pusher shell made out of low density metal such as aluminium, beryllium, or an alloy of the two metals (aluminium being easier and safer to shape but beryllium reflecting neutrons back into the core) may be needed and is located between the explosive lens and the tamper. It works by reflecting some of the shock wave backwards which has the effect of lengthening it. The tamper or reflector might be designed to work as the pusher too, although a low density material is best for the pusher but a high density one for the tamper. To maximize efficiency of energy transfer, the density difference between layers should be minimized.

Step 3 - How to build the nuke?

You will need to get the fissile material to the critical mass in order to start the chain reaction, which depends upon the size, shape and purity of the material as well as what surrounds the material. Your weapons-grade uranium will have to be in subcritical configuration.

First, you must arrange the uranium into two hemispherical shapes, separated by about 4 cm. Since it’s highly radioactive, the best way do it is to ask the friend owning the small country to let you use one his facilities. You could use a nuclear plant, a steel factory or even a well equipped pharmaceutical installation as a disguise for your plans.

It is not sufficient to pack explosive into a spherical shell around the tamper and detonate it simultaneously at several places because the tamper and plutonium pit will simply squeeze out between the gaps in the detonation front. Instead, the shock wave must be carefully shaped into a perfect sphere centered on the pit and traveling inwards. This is achieved by using a spherical shell of closely fitting and accurately shaped bodies of explosives of different propagation speeds to form explosive lenses.

After a few careful calculations, all you need now is to carefully pack and transport your nuclear bomb to the targeted location. If you happen to be an Al-Qaeda fan, you should try to infiltrate a military facility, for the psychological effect. Watch it, though, they are usually well guarded!

Step 4 - Disguising the bomb and placing it for detonation

The smallest nuclear warhead deployed by the United States was the W54, which was used in the Davy Crockett recoilless rifle; warheads in this weapon weighed about 23 kg and had yields of 0.01 to 0.25 kilotons. This is small in comparison to thermonuclear weapons, but remains a very large explosion with lethal acute radiation effects and potential for substantial fallout. It is generally believed that the W54 may be nearly the smallest possible nuclear weapon, though this may be only smallest by weight or volume, not simply smallest diameter.

The best way to disguise it would be in the form of an ordinary appliance, like a copier, a widescreen TV set, or any other inconspicuous electronic device.

Now, all you have to do is transport it to the selected location and get to a safe distance of a few tens of miles, but not far enough to get out of the range of the remote detonator. That is why a cellphone is strongly recommended for its wide range capabilities.

Or of course, you could go the extra step and make a Hydrogen Bomb (H-Bomb).

Making and owning an H-bomb is the kind of challenge real maniacs seek. Who wants to be a passive victim of nuclear war when, with a little effort, you can be an active participant? Bomb shelters are for losers. Who wants to huddle together underground eating canned Spam? Winners want to push the button themselves.

Making your own H-bomb is a big step in nuclear assertiveness training — it’s called Taking Charge. We’re sure you’ll enjoy the risks and the heady thrill of playing nuclear chicken.

Part 1: Making Your H-Bomb

The heart of the successful H-bomb is the successful A-bomb. Once you’ve got your A-bombs made the rest is frosting on the cake. All you have to do is set them up so that when they detonate they’ll start off a hydrogen-fusion reaction.

Step 1: Getting the Ingredients
Uranium is the basic ingredient of the A-bomb. When a uranium atom’s nucleus splits apart, it releases a tremendous amount of energy (for its size), and it emits neutrons which go on to split other nearby uranium nuclei, releasing more energy, in what is called a “chain reaction.” (When atoms split, matter is converted into energy according to Einstein’s equation E=MC2. What better way to mark his birthday than with your own atomic fireworks?)

There are two kinds (isotopes) of uranium: the rare U-235, used in bombs, and the more common, heavier, but useless U-238. Natural uranium contains less than 1 percent U-235 and in order to be usable in bombs it has to be “enriched” to 90 percent U-235 and only 10 percent U-238. Plutonium-239 can also be used in bombs as a substitute for U-235. Ten pounds of U-235 (or slightly less plutonium) is all that is necessary for a bomb. Less than ten pounds won’t give you a critical mass. So purifying or enriching naturally occurring uranium is likely to be your first big hurdle. It is infinitely easy to steal ready-to-use enriched uranium or plutonium than to enrich some yourself. And stealing uranium is not as hard as it sounds.

There are at least three sources of enriched uranium or plutonium.

Enriched uranium is manufactured at a gaseous diffusion plant in Portsmouth, Ohio. From there it is shipped in 10 liter bottles by airplane and trucks to conversion plants that turn it into uranium oxide or uranium metal. Each 10 liter bottle contains 7 kilograms of U-235, and there are 20 bottles to a typical shipment. Conversion facilities exist at Hematite, Missouri; Apollo, Pennsylvania; and Erwin, Tennessee.

The Kerr-McGee plant at Crescent Oklahoma — where Karen Silkwood worked — was a conversion plant that “lost” 40 lbs of plutonium. Enriched uranium can be stolen from these plants or from fuel-fabricating plants like those in New Haven, San Diego; or Lynchburg, Virginia. (A former Kerr-McGee supervisor, James V. Smith, when asked at the Silkwood trial if there were any security precautions at the plant to prevent theft, testified that “There were none of any kind, no guards, no fences, no nothing.”)

Plutonium can be obtained from places like United Nuclear in Pawling, New York; Nuclear Fuel Services in Erwin, Tennessee; General Electric in Pleasanton, California; Westinghouse in Cheswick, Pennsylvania; Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) in Leechburg, Pennsylvania; and plants in Hanfford, Washington and Morris, Illinois. According to Rolling Stone magazine the Israelis were involved in the theft of plutonium from NUMEC.

Finally you can steal enriched uranium or plutonium while it’s en-route from conversion plants to fuel fabricating plants. It is usually transported (by air or truck) in the form of uranium oxide, a brownish powder resembling instant coffee, or as a metal, coming in small chunks called “broken buttons.” Both forms are shipped in small cans stacked in 5-inch cylinders braced with welded struts in the center of ordinary 55 gallon steel drums. The drums weigh about 100 pounds and are clearly marked “Fissible Material” or “Danger, Plutonium.” A typical shipment might go from the enrichment plant at Portsmouth, Ohio to the conversion plant in Hematite Missouri then to Kansas City by truck where it would be flown to Los Angeles and then trucked down to the General Atomic plant in San Diego. The plans for the General Atomic plant are on file at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s reading room at 1717 H Street NW Washington. A Xerox machine is provided for the convenience of the public.

If you can’t get hold of any enriched uranium you’ll have to settle for commercial grade (20 percent U-235). This can be stolen from university reactors of a type called TRIGA Mark II, where security is even more casual than at commercial plants.

If stealing uranium seems too tacky, you can buy it. Unenriched uranium is available at any chemical supply house for $23 a pound. Commercial grade (3 to 20 percent enriched) is available for $40 a pound from Gulf Atomic. You’ll have to enrich it further yourself. Quite frankly this can be something of a pain in the ass. You’ll need to start with a little more than 50 pounds of commercial-grade uranium. (It’s only 20 percent U-235 at best, and you need 10 pounds of U-235 so… ) But with a little kitchen-table chemistry you’ll be able to convert the solid uranium oxide you’ve purchased into a liquid form. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to separate the U-235 that you’ll need from the U-238.

First pour a few gallons of concentrated hydrofluoric acid into your uranium oxide, converting it to uranium tetrafluoride. (Safety note: Concentrated hydrofluoric acid is so corrosive that it will eat its way through glass, so store it only in plastic. Used 1-gallon plastic milk containers will do.) Now you have to convert your uranium tetrafluoride to uranium hexafluoride, the gaseous form of uranium, which is convenient for separating out the isotope U-235 from U-238.

To get the hexafluoride form, bubble fluorine gas into your container of uranium tetrafluoride. Fluorine is available in pressurized tanks from chemical-supply firms. Be careful how you use it though because fluorine is several times more deadly than chlorine, the classic World War I poison gas. Chemists recommend that you carry out this step under a stove hood (the kind used to remove unpleasant cooking odors).

If you’ve done your chemistry right you should now have a generous supply of uranium hexafluoride ready for enriching. In the old horse-and-buggy days of A-bomb manufacture the enrichment was carried out by passing the uranium hexafluoride through hundreds of miles of pipes, tubes, and membranes, until the U-235 was eventually separated from the U-238. This gaseous-diffusion process, as it was called is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. Gaseous-diffusion plants cover hundreds of acres and cost in the neighborhood of $2-billion each. So forget it. There are easier, and cheaper, ways to enrich your uranium.

First transform the gas into a liquid by subjecting it to pressure. You can use a bicycle pump for this. Then make a simple home centrifuge. Fill a standard-size bucket one-quarter full of liquid uranium hexafluoride. Attach a six-foot rope to the bucket handle. Now swing the rope (and attached bucket) around your head as fast as possible. Keep this up for about 45 minutes. Slow down gradually, and very gently put the bucket on the floor. The U-235, which is lighter, will have risen to the top, where it can be skimmed off like cream. Repeat this step until you have the required 10 pounds of uranium. (Safety note: Don’t put all your enriched uranium hexafluoride in one bucket. Use at least two or three buckets and keep them in separate corners of the room. This will prevent the premature build-up of a critical mass.)

Now it’s time to convert your enriched uranium back to metal form. This is easily enough accomplished by spooning several ladlefuls of calcium (available in tablet form from your drugstore) into each bucket of uranium. The calcium will react with the uranium hexafluoride to produce calcium fluoride, a colorless salt which can be easily be separated from your pure enriched uranium metal. (Safety note: Even though it is a salt, keep it away from your kitchen’s spice rack.)

A few precautions:

• While uranium is not dangerously radioactive in the amounts you’ll be handling, if you plan to make more than one bomb it might be wise to wear gloves and a lead apron, the kind you can buy in dental supply stores.
• Plutonium is one of the most toxic substances known. If inhaled, a thousandth of a gram can cause massive fibrosis of the lungs, a painful way to go. Even a millionth of a gram in the lungs will cause cancer. If eaten, plutonium is metabolized like calcium. It goes straight to the bones where it gives out alpha particles preventing bone marrow from manufacturing red blood cells. The best way to avoid inhaling plutonium is to hold your breath while handling it. If this is too difficult, wear a mask. To avoid ingesting plutonium orally follow this simple rule: never make an A-bomb on an empty stomach.
• If you find yourself dozing off while you’re working, or if you begin to glow in the dark, it might be wise to take a blood count. Prick your finger with a sterile pin, place a drop of blood on a microscope slide, cover it with a cover slip, and examine under a microscope. (Best results are obtained in the early morning.) When you get leukaemia, immature cells are released into the bloodstream, and usually the number of white cells increases (though this increase might take almost 2 weeks). Red blood cells look kind of like donuts (without the hole), and are slightly smaller than the white cells, each of which has a nucleus. Immature red cells look similar to white cells (i.e.. slightly larger and have a nucleus). If you have more than about 1 white cell (including immature ones) to 400 red cells then start to worry. But, depending upon your plans for the eventual use of the bomb, a short life expectancy might not be a problem.

Step 2: Assembling the A-Bomb

Now that you’ve acquired the enriched uranium, all that’s left is to assemble your A-bomb. Go find a couple of stainless steel salad bowls. You also want to separate your 10 pounds of U-235 into two hunks. (Keep them apart!) The idea is to push each half your uranium into the inside of a bowl.

Take one hunk of your uranium and beat it into the inside of the first bowl. Uranium is malleable, like gold, so you should have no trouble hammering it into the bowl to get a good fit. Take another five-pound hunk of uranium and fit it into a second stainless steel bowl. These two bowls of U-235 are the “subcritical masses” which, when brought together forcefully, will provide the critical mass that makes your A-bomb go. Keep them a respectful distance apart while working because you don’t want them to “go critical” on you… At least not yet.

Now hollow out the body of an old canister-type vacuum cleaner and place your two hemispherical bowls inside, open ends facing each other, no less than seven inches apart, using masking tape to set them up in position. The reason for the steel bowls and the vacuum cleaner, in case you’re wondering, is that these help reflect the neutrons back into the uranium for a more efficient explosion. “A loose neutron is a useless neutron” as the A-bomb pioneers used to say.

As far as the A-bomb goes, you’re almost done. The final problem is to figure out how to get the two U-235 hemispheres to smash into each other with sufficient force to set off a truly effective fission reaction. Almost any type of explosive can be used to drive them together. Gunpowder, for example, is easily made at home from potassium nitrate, sulfur, and carbon. Or, you can get some blasting caps or TNT. (Buy them or steal them from a construction site.) Best of all is C4 plastic explosive. You can mold it around your bowls, and it’s fairly safe to work with. (But, it might be wise to shape it around an extra salad bowl in another room, and THEN fit it to your uranium-packed bowls. This is particularly true in winter, when a stray static electrical charge might induce ignition in the C4. A responsible bomb maker considers it impolite to accidentally destroy more of the neighborhood than absolutely necessary.)

Once the explosives are in place all you need to do is hook up a simple detonation device with a few batteries, a switch, and some wire. Remember though that it is essential that the two charges — one on each side of the casing — go off simultaneously.

Now put the whole thing in the casing of an old Hoover vacuum cleaner and you’re finished with this part of the process.

The rest is easy.

Step 3: Make More A-Bombs Following the Directions Above

You’ll need a total of at least four. A Word to the Wise About Waste

After your A-bomb is completed you’ll have a pile of moderately fatal radioactive wastes like U-238. These are not dangerous, but you do have to get rid of them. You can flush leftovers down the toilet. (Don’t worry about polluting the ocean, there is already so much radioactive waste there, a few more bucketfuls won’t make any waves whatsoever.) If you’re the fastidious type — the kind who never leaves gum under their seat at the movies — you can seal the nasty stuff in coffee cans and bury it in the backyard, just like Uncle Sam does. If the neighbor kids have a habit of trampling the lawn, tell them to play over by the waste. You’ll soon find that they’re spending most of their time in bed.

Going First Class

If you’re like us, you’re feeling the economic pinch, and you’ll want to make your bomb as inexpensively as possible, consonant of course with reasonable yield. The recipe we’ve given is for a budget-pleasing H-bomb, no frills, no flourishes; it’s just a simple 5-megaton bomb, capable of wiping out the New York metropolitan area, the San Francisco Bay area, or Boston. But don’t forget, your H-bomb will only be as good as the A-bombs in it.

If you want to spend a little more money you can punch-up your A-bomb considerably. Instead of centrifuging your uranium by hand, you can buy a commercial centrifuge. (Fisher Scientific sells one for about $1000.) You also might want to be fussier about your design. The Hiroshima bomb, a relatively crude one, only fissioned 1 percent of it’s uranium and yielded only 13 kilotons. In order to fission more of the uranium, the force of your explosive “trigger” needs to be evenly diffused around the sphere; the same pressure has to be exerted on every point of the sphere simultaneously. (It was a technique for producing this sort of simultaneous detonation by fashioning the explosives into lenses that the government accused Julius and Ethel Rosenberg of trying to steal).

Part 2: Putting Your H-Bomb Together

The heart of the H-bomb is the fusion process. Several A-bombs are detonated in such a way as to create the extremely high temperature (100 million degrees C) necessary to fuse lithium deuteride (LiD) into helium. When the lithium nucleus slams into the deuterium nucleus, two helium nuclei are created, and if this happens to enough deuterium nuclei rapidly enough, the result is an enormous amount of energy: the energy of the H-bomb. You don’t have to worry about stealing lithium deuteride, it can be purchased from any chemical-supply house. It costs $1000 a pound. If your budget won’t allow it you can substitute lithium hydride at $40 a pound. You will need at least 100 pounds. It’s a corrosive and toxic powder so be careful.

Place the lithium deuteride or hydride in glass jars and surround it with four A-bombs in their casings. Attach them to the same detonator so that they will go off simultaneously. The container for the whole thing is no problem. They can be placed anywhere: Inside an old stereo console, a discarded refrigerator, etc…

When the detonator sets off the four A-bombs all eight hemispheres of fissionable material will slam into each other at the same time creating four critical masses and four detonations. This will raise the temperature of the lithium deuteride to 100 million degrees C fast enough (a few billionths of a second) so that the lithium will not be blown all over the neighborhood before the nuclei have time to fuse. The result, at least 1000 times the punch of the puny A-bomb that leveled Hiroshima (20 million tons of TNT vs. 20 thousand tons.)

Part 3: What to do With Your Bomb

Now that you have a fully assembled H-bomb housed in an attractive console of your choice you may be wondering, “What should I do with it?” Every family will have to answer this question according to its own tastes and preferences, but you may want to explore some possibilities which have been successfully pioneered by the American government.

1. Sell Your Bomb and Make a Pile of Money

In these days of rising inflation, increasing unemployment, and an uncertain economic outlook, few businesses make as much sense as weapons production. If your career forecast is cloudy, bomb sales may be the only sure way to avoid the humiliation of receiving welfare, or unemployment. Regardless of your present income level, a home H-bomb business can be an invaluable income supplement, and certainly a profitable alternative to selling Tupperware or pirated Girl Scout cookies.

Unfortunately for the family bomb business, big government has already cornered a large part of the world market. But this does not mean that there is a shortage of potential customers. The raid on Entebee was the Waterloo of hijacking, and many nationalist groups are now on the alert for new means to get their message across. They’d jump at the chance to get hold of an H-bomb. Emerging nations which can’t ante up enough rice or sugar to buy themselves a reactor from G.E. or Westinghouse are also shopping around.

You may wonder about the ethics of selling to nations, or groups, whose goals you may disapprove of. But here again, take a tip from our government: forget ideology — it’s cash that counts. And remember, H-bomb sales have a way of escalating, almost like a chain reaction. Suppose you make a sale to South Yemen which you believe to be a Soviet puppet. Well within a few days some discrete inquiries from North Yemen and possibly the Saudis, the Egyptians and the Ethiopians as well can be expected. Similarly, a sale to the IRA will generate a sale to the Ulster government; and a sale to the Tanzanians will bring the Ugandans running, and so forth.

It doesn’t matter WHICH side you’re on, only how many sides there are. Don’t forget about the possibility of repeat sales to the same customer. As the experience of both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. has shown, each individual nation has a potentially infinite need for H-bombs. No customer — no matter how small — can ever have too many.

2. Use Your Bomb at Home

Many families are attracted to the H-bomb simply as a “deterrent.” A discrete sticker on the door or on the living room window saying “This Home Protected by H-bomb” will discourage IRS investigators, census takers, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. You’ll be surprised how fast the crime rate will go down and property values will go up. And once the news gets out that you are a home H-bomb owner you’ll find that you have unexpected leverage in neighborhood disputes over everything from parking places and stereo noise levels to school tax rates. So relax and enjoy the pride and excitement of home H-bomb ownership!