The United States is holding on to a stockpile of enriched
uranium for use in nuclear warheads to destroy asteroids in 'planetary
defense,' the Wall Street Journal reports.
Auditors were examining how the National Nuclear Security
Administration was progressing in removing excess capacity, when the agency
gave them a unique reason for extra material.
A stockpile of components called canned subassemblies, the
steel capsule within a nuclear bomb that contains the highly enriched
uranium were slated to be decommissioned in 2015.
The NNSA told investigators that they'd be holding onto them
indefinitely.
'CSAs associated with a certain warhead indicated as excess
in the 2012 Production and Planning Directive are being retained in an
indeterminate state,' read a report by investigators, 'pending a senior-level
government evaluation of their use in planetary defense against earthbound
asteroids.'
- Quartz writes that the 'pending' evaluation means there is contingency planning for an asteroid striking Earth happening in the highest levels of government.
Jay Melos, a geophysicist at Purdue University who studies
impact cratering, theorized that the plan may be 'an excuse for keeping the
nuclear arsenal together.'
Melos and other researchers believe more effective tools can be developed that redirect asteroids.In 2005, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft launched an impactor that successfully collided with the Tempel I comet and knocked it slightly off course.
As for earthbound asteroids, nuclear scientists may be
looking to use nuclear weapons to destroy small-sized asteroids like the one
that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013, before they enter Earth's
atmosphere.
The 65-foot-diameter asteroid became a meteor once it
entered Earth's atmosphere and crashed through the frozen surface of Lake
Chebarkul.
More than 1,000 people were injured by the blast, mostly due
to glass shattering in the explosion.
Source: Daily Mail
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