Tomorrow's Soldier David Alexander ISBN 0-380-79502-7 Chpt. 8 "War Beyond Tomorrow" On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Trei, Peter wrote: > It may not be that easy. My understanding (based on various TV programs > broadcast back in the early 90's) is that there is a program called 'NEST', > which stands for something like Nuclear Emergency (mumble) Team, > tasked with dealing with this type of problem. > > One protection hinted is that strategically chosen points of transit > (bridges, > ports, tunnels, major highways, mail, baggage and freight facilities, etc) > have > detectors for nuclear materials. > > The thing is, while you can sheild a source to the point where it is not > a hazard, sheilding it to the point of *undetectability* is far harder task. > > If you detect even a single gamma ray of a certain frequency, or > betas or even alphas of certain energies, you *know* that a certain > isotope produced them. If the detectors note the presence of a > certain isotopes, they generate the appropriate alarms. > > There are also other detection systems - I've seen X-rays of entire > container trucks which were passing through the Chunnel - illegal > immigrants were quite visible inside the container. > > An attacker's best chance would be to place his weapon in a > container, heavily sheilded, and then to bury that in the middle of > a stack of other containers of heavy shielding in the hold of a > container ship, and plan to detonate it while still on board in a > target harbor. > > UPS probably would not work (besides, I think they have a > limit of around 90 lbs). -- ____________________________________________________________________ Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, "Let Tesla be", and all was light. B.A. Behrend The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------