HELGA II: Autonomous Passive Detection of Nuclear Weapons Materials
Abstract
During the televised debates of the recent presidential election, both candidates listed nuclear nonproliferation as their number one priority. Attempts by rogue nations and terrorist organizations to obtain weapons-grade nuclear materials make the headline news with alarming frequency. Unfortunately, nuclear materials emit little detectable radiation, making it very hard to prevent their being smuggled into this country or to find them once they are here. Most currently available radiation detection systems cannot sort out a nuclear weapon signature from naturally occurring radiation backgrounds with enough certainty and rapidity to interdict it in a realistic smuggling scenario. Consequently, the specter of a nuclear detonation in an American city looms large. Also, the possibility of a nuclear "USNS Cole incident" perpetrated on an American fleet far from home should not be ignored. In fact, Albert Einstein spoke of just such an incident in his first letter to President Franklin Roosevelt:"...a single bomb of this type, carried by a boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory." The Office of Naval Research and the Coast Guard has tasked the Naval Research Laboratory to produce the HELGA II prototype as a step toward addressing this problem. HELGA II is the modernization of HELGA (High Efficiency Large Germanium Array), a national asset developed by NRL in teh 1980s to detect faint gamma-ray sources in a natural environment, the same problem faced today when looking for smuggled nuclear materials. NRL, where the detection of nuclear weapons signatures in a natural environment has been studied for more than half a century, is uniquely qualified to produce such a device and to guide its effective use.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA521600
Entities
People
- R. August
- R. Whitlock
Organizations
- United States Naval Research Laboratory