Global Security Newswire

Over the past five years, the United States has worked to revive expertise in nuclear fallout analysis, which would be used following an act of nuclear or radiological terrorism to determine the origin of the material used in the weapon and who might have conducted the attack, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Jan. 13).

The efforts have included a drill this year in which fallout analysis experts met at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and were given radiological data from two past U.S. nuclear tests to attempt to identify them, according to Reid Worlton, a retired scientist from the Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico. Some experts succeeded in identifying the tests, he said.

In addition, Sandia is developing a robot that could travel up to 10 miles to sample radioactive fallout and return it for human analysis, said Charles Richardson, project leader for the nuclear identification research at the facility. The robots, which are expected to be ready within a few years, could also radio back some sample results if they became stuck, according to Richardson. The United States is also working to develop new aircraft for use in atmospheric sampling of radioactive fallout, experts said.

“Certainly, there’s a frightening aspect in all of this,” Richardson said. “But we’re putting all these things together with the hope that they’ll never have to be used,” he added (William Broad, New York Times, March 19).