Pokhran II not fully successful: Scientist

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 02 Sep 2009 09:04

ramana wrote: Second quibble is he is charitable and accepting the 45 kt design when he knows the shaft can take much larger.

Is it your understanding that the shaft was 300 meters or deeper?

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 02 Sep 2009 09:20

ramana wrote:ShauryaT, The reason why I say its 200kt is as follows:
1) RC said he could scale to 200kt.

Why that limit? If it was a TN design and that too a three stage, then we could go higher. Every time that specific number is mentioned as the limit, the first thing that comes to my mind is, he really means a boosted fission weapon design not a TN one. What am i missing?

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 02 Sep 2009 09:23

Wasn't RC's thermonuke design demonstrated to be flawed at the plasma research center at Ahmedabad right after the tests?
Hadn't BARC and RC been overconfident in their designs without feeling the need to proof it in the lab with a LIF?

India does have some basic LIF facility at Amedabad / Indore.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Sep 2009 09:24

We should be able to summarize the statements that have arisen on BRF

1) The yield of S1 is disputed, with fizzle and sizzle sides
2) The sizzle side find the claims of a 43 kT test credible
3) The fizzle side has the following conclusions

The test was that of a 200 kT device
The yield of the test was 27 kT

Arun_S · Post by **Arun_S** » 02 Sep 2009 09:25

shiv wrote:In fact this makes me feel that there is an elaborate charade being played by both the fizzle side and the sizzle side. PKI is no moron - and there has to be a reason for him to fudge deliberately and still not be telling lies (that is a beautiful piece of fudging actually)

PKI is shielding the credibility of our designers (just enough) by cleverly not stating that it was fully loaded with tertiary (I.e. a conventional 3 stage TN weapon) , and transferred the tertiary yield into second stage yield.

Ramana's breakdown of the yield (few pages ago) is correct. I would only add to that the yield from secondary fuel (I.e. LiD) was ~ 3 kT. One must note that compared to the 3 kT from LiD fusion, the yield from plug (which was not simply fission only) was more substantial. And bulk of the yield from non-Primary sources came from tertiary.

negi · Post by **negi** » 02 Sep 2009 09:27

Gagan wrote:Wasn't RC's thermonuke design demonstrated to be flawed at the plasma research center at Ahmedabad right after the tests?

When was this ?...you mean in PRL Ahmedabad ?

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 02 Sep 2009 09:31

Arun_S wrote:
shiv wrote:In fact this makes me feel that there is an elaborate charade being played by both the fizzle side and the sizzle side. PKI is no moron - and there has to be a reason for him to fudge deliberately and still not be telling lies (that is a beautiful piece of fudging actually)
PKI is shielding the credibility of our designers (just enough) by cleverly not stating that it was fully loaded with tertiary (I.e. a conventional 3 stage TN weapon) , and transferred the tertiary yield into second stage yield.

Ramana's breakdown of the yield (few pages ago) is correct. I would only add to that the yield from secondary fuel (I.e. LiD) was ~ 3 kT. One must note that compared to the 3 kT from LiD fusion, the yield from plug (which was not simply fission only) was more substantial. And bulk of the yield from non-Primary sources came from tertiary.

Sorry 10?

PS: I need to go to bed now, cannot think straight.

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 02 Sep 2009 09:31

That is old news - was on BRF eons ago. Vishwakarma knows...

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Sep 2009 09:32

Arun_S wrote: PKI is shielding the credibility of our designers.

I presume that you will be able to admit that this is a conclusion that you have reached and that this is not something you can verify by any other means.

Arun_S · Post by **Arun_S** » 02 Sep 2009 09:32

ShauryaT wrote:
ramana wrote:ShauryaT, The reason why I say its 200kt is as follows:
1) RC said he could scale to 200kt.
Why that limit? If it was a TN design and that too a three stage, then we could go higher. Every time that specific number is mentioned as the limit, the first thing that comes to my mind is, he really means a boosted fission weapon design not a TN one. What am i missing?

By scale he does not mean a new design that is build to geometrically (or otherwise) scale up to 200 kt. Just that after the "original" design is fixed so that the secondary gives its desired yield (from LiD) the tertiary will on its own (per original design) work correctly (its an integral part of the second stage tamper), and the total yield will climb up (scale) to 200kT.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 02 Sep 2009 09:33

ShauryaT wrote:
ramana wrote:ShauryaT, The reason why I say its 200kt is as follows:
1) RC said he could scale to 200kt.
Why that limit? If it was a TN design and that too a three stage, then we could go higher. Every time that specific number is mentioned as the limit, the first thing that comes to my mind is, he really means a boosted fission weapon design not a TN one. What am i missing?

Every Kt of fusion produces so many fast neutrons. And those can fission only so much material. At the 45kt design it will produce that many requisite neutrons for the total. However if they used enriched maal which is why there are restrictions on that place in K'taka, it can be more.

In WOP, they give the area of the steel plate to line the shaft. And then say two people can fit in it. The height calc is trivial from that. Pi*D*H = Area of steel liner. Gives fairly good enough precision.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Sep 2009 09:34

May I ask how ramana or anyone else knows the exact design of the device that was tested? There are no public references that talk of this deign that I know of.

Is it possible to back up claims of the design with any published statements - or would it be common sense guesswork of knowledgeable (non nuclear scientist) people?

Arun_S · Post by **Arun_S** » 02 Sep 2009 09:36

ShauryaT wrote:
Arun_S wrote:PKI is shielding the credibility of our designers (just enough) by cleverly not stating that it was fully loaded with tertiary (I.e. a conventional 3 stage TN weapon) , and transferred the tertiary yield into second stage yield.

Ramana's breakdown of the yield (few pages ago) is correct. I would only add to that the yield from secondary fuel (I.e. LiD) was ~ 3 kT. One must note that compared to the 3 kT from LiD fusion, the yield from plug (which was not simply fission only) was more substantial. And bulk of the yield from non-Primary sources came from tertiary.
Sorry 10? .

Yes.

Gagan wrote:That is old news - was on BRF eons ago. Vishwakarma knows...

John Snow · Post by **John Snow** » 02 Sep 2009 09:39

India May Test Again Because H-Bomb Failed, U.S. Believes
By Mark Hibbs, Nucleonics Week, November 26, 1998 (reprinted with permission)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of India's May nuclear blasts, which was described by the New Delhi government as a successful thermonuclear weapons test, was in fact a failure, senior U.S. nuclear intelligence analysts have concluded after months of study.

Discrepancies between claims made by India after the tests and actual seismic data recorded by several international organizations have prompted speculation that at least one of three tests at the Pokaran test site India said were successful on May 11 did not go off. Last week, however, Washington officials told Nucleonics Week that analysts at the Z Division of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, responsible for making estimates of progress in foreign nuclear weapons programs based on classified data, have now concluded that the second stage of a two-stage Indian hydrogen bomb device failed to ignite as planned.
As a result of the apparent failure, U.S. official sources said, the Indian government is under pressure by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), responsible for India's nuclear weapons design and production effort, to test the H-bomb again, in the face of ongoing bilateral talks in which the U.S. seeks to persuade India to agree to a global nuclear test ban.

Measured in terms of verified capabilities, apparent progress in delivery systems, and military control of the bomb program, one U.S. official said, ''Pakistan may have pulled even or gone ahead'' of India in the South Asian nuclear arms race, by virtue of tit-for-tat tests Islamabad carried out two weeks after India's detonations.

Only days after the blast, DAE announced to the world that the test was a complete success, and that India now had demonstrated a thermonuclear weapons capability.

When India announced it had tested an H-bomb, U.S. officials and some ex-DAE officials suggested that, because Indian officials in the past had used the term ''thermonuclear'' loosely, the biggest Indian shot on May 11 was a boosted fission weapon, not a true hydrogen bomb (NW, 14 May, 12). After several months of analysis of seismic, human, and signals intelligence data, however, U.S. officials directly responsible for interpreting the information have concluded that they are satisfied that DAE tried to test an H-bomb.
A boosted fission weapon is a nuclear weapon in which neutrons produced by thermonuclear reactions serve to enhance the fission process, which itself is set off in the type of weapons designed by India by the implosion of a core of metallic plutonium. In a boosted fission bomb, the contribution of the thermonuclear reaction to the total yield is relatively small.

A full-fledged thermonuclear weapon is a two-stage weapon in which the main contribution to the explosive energy results from the fusion of light nuclei, such as deuterium and tritium. The high temperatures required for the fusion reaction, produced in the secondary stage of the device, are initially produced by means of an initial fission explosion, generated by the primary stage.

According to well-placed sources, U.S. analysts now strongly believe that, on May 11, the primary stage of an Indian H-bomb detonated, but its heat failed to ignite the secondary stage. ''If India really wants a thermonuclear capability, they will have to test again and hope they get it right,'' one U.S. official said.

After the May blasts, India declared that a ''thermonuclear device'' code-named Shakti-1 had produced a nuclear yield of 43 kilotons. At the same time, India asserted that a ''fission device'' was exploded yielding 12 kilotons, and that a ''low-yield device'' had produced a yield of about 0.2 kilotons. But seismic and intelligence data analysed by U.S. experts have prompted the conclusion that ''the secondary didn't work,'' one source explained. According to data compiled by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the expected mid-point of a range of probable yields for all blasts on May 11, given the seismic recordings of between 4.7 and 5.0 on the Richter scale, would be only about 12 kilotons.

Sources said that, while the U.S. has not made any public comment about what it knows about the Indian H-bomb test, the Clinton administration has raised the subject with the Indian government in secretive, high-level talks with New Delhi over terms under which India would agree to comply with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The Indian side has asserted that the discrepancy between measured yield and the DAE claim of 43 kilotons is accounted for by a precautionary reduction by DAE of the amount of fuel used in the secondary, in order to prevent damaging the village of Khetolai, located only a few miles from the test site. U.S. analysts have concluded that was not the case. ''The Indians are hopping mad that we don't believe their H-bomb worked,'' one source said.

But the matter has now severely complicated the U.S.-Indian talks on the test ban, diplomatic sources observed last week. Because the H-bomb test failed, DAE ''is under intense pressure to test again,'' one U.S. official said. According to an official at the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, ''The U.S. has been preparing to let India climb down'' from heavy sanctions which were applied nearly immediately after the May test series, provided India agrees to the CTBT. But if DAE didn't deliver on the H-bomb test, he said, the U.S. ''will have to give India a lot more in return'' for a firm agreement to agree to the CTBT. Diplomatic sources said that, in 1997, India had asked the U.S. for test simulation data, such as that the U.S. agreed to supply France a few years ago, in order to permit India to accept the CTBT, but that the U.S. had refused. One analyst said that ''it would now be logical'' for India to renew that request. But sources said a U.S. transfer of such data to I

In the heady hours following what appeared to be a series of successful nuclear weapons tests in May, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had declared that India would not carry out further tests and would negotiate accession to the CTBT (NW, 14 May, Extra). But since then, U.S. officials said, DAE has bid to test the H-bomb again. At the same time, one Indian analyst said last week, Vajpayee is ''terribly worried'' about the prospect that the Indian military might get control of the nuclear weapon program. ''The military is looking at what was apparently a DAE failure and it sees what's happening over in Pakistan where the military is directly in control of its weapons program,'' one U.S. official said. -- Mark Hibbs, Washington
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Hibbs is European Editor of Nucleonics Week and Nuclear Fuel, leading specialist newsletters on international nuclear affairs, published by McGraw-Hill, Inc. Hibbs, based in Bonn, Germany, covers nuclear energy and proliferation problems in Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Asia.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Sep 2009 09:39

ramana wrote:
In WOP, they give the area of the steel plate to line the shaft. And then say two people can fit in it. The height calc is trivial from that. Pi*D*H = Area of steel liner. Gives fairly good enough precision.

So the depth of the shaft has been calculated from the area of steel plates in the shaft as quoted in the book "Weapons of Peace" by Raj Chengappa with an assumption about the diameter of a shaft that allows two people to fit in. The precision is the same as the precision of Raj Chengappa's source and the assumed size for two people to fit in.

Could I ask what the depth was calculated to be and what was the assumed diameter?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 02 Sep 2009 09:41

Why don't you check with the right people? Even that will come out one of these days.

BTW, Satymeva Jayate comes from Mundaka Upanishad and was wisely chosen by the freedom struggle leaders.

Its not a slogan. Its the truth. And it represents core idea of India.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Sep 2009 09:42

John Snow wrote:India May Test Again Because H-Bomb Failed, U.S. Believes
By Mark Hibbs, Nucleonics Week, November 26, 1998 (reprinted with permission)

------have now concluded that the second stage of a two-stage Indian hydrogen bomb device failed to ignite as planned. .

Arun_S wrote: PKI is shielding the credibility of our designers (just enough) by cleverly not stating that it was fully loaded with tertiary (I.e. a conventional 3 stage TN weapon) , and transferred the tertiary yield into second stage yield. .

Two stage or Three stage

Who is correct?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 02 Sep 2009 09:44

For you obviously Mark Hibbs.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Sep 2009 09:46

ramana wrote:Why don't you check with the right people?

Are you stating that you are not one of the "right people".

No disrespect - but the issue is serious enough in my mind for us to have clarity over personal opinions and anecdotes. You have attributed certain actions to P Chidambaram - whom you say initially saw the crater and sated that it was 43 kT. Is this an opinion, or do you have some source from which you got this information.

You have also said that the device tested was for 200 kilotons.

Your reply to question seems to be "ask the right people".

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Sep 2009 09:47

ramana wrote:For you obviously Mark Hibbs.

You are trying to read my mind here.

Thank you for admitting that you think you can read other people's minds.

That is the point i wanted to confirm when I asked how you know about what Chidambaram felt immediately after the test.

Arun_S · Post by **Arun_S** » 02 Sep 2009 09:48

shiv wrote:Two stage or Three stage

Who is correct?

You choose, based on cross verification and analysis of data and noise from various sources.

Reminds me of fable of "Bird is Alive or Dead".
Here are two versions of essentially teh same fable:

A wicked man had gone to visit Apollo in Delphi, wanting to test the god. He took a sparrow in one hand, concealing it with his cloak, and then stood by the oracle and inquired of the god, 'Apollo, the thing that I am carrying in my hand: is it living, or is it dead?' The man planned to show the sparrow alive if the god said 'dead,' and if the god said 'living,' he would strangle the sparrow immediately and present the dead bird. But the god recognized the man's evil purpose, and said, 'Listen, do whatever you want: it is entirely up to you whether you will show me something living or dead!'

A long time ago in a small village lived a very wise old man. A boy in the town didn't like the wise man and decided to trick him. So he caught a small bird and, cupping it in his hands, took it to the wise man.

"Is this bird alive or dead?" he asked.

If the wise man answered that the bird was alive, the young boy planned to give it a quick squeeze and open his hands to show the bird was dead. If the wise man said that the bird was dead, he would open his hands and let the bird fly away.

"Is this bird alive or dead?" he asked.

The old man looked deep into the young man's eyes and replied, "It is whatever you want it to be. Its destiny, my son, is in your hands."

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 02 Sep 2009 09:50

The diameter of the shaft was such that only two people could fit in.

Now that is very very claustrophobic. Former president R. Venkataraman is supposed to have gone down one of the shafts when he was defence minister between 1982-84. Wasn't there a two story high cavern where the device was placed on a mound? There was sambar colored water on the floor all around.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Sep 2009 09:51

Gagan wrote:T Wasn't there a two story high cavern where the device was placed on a mound? .

Gagan - if you can quote a source for this I have some intriguing thoughts related to it

Hari Seldon · Post by **Hari Seldon** » 02 Sep 2009 09:52

Dumb question I know, but might as well ask - would not the design yield of a fully loaded 2 stage TN device be so overwhelmingly high that khetolai, the surrounding villages and whatever logistics base was there would all be swamped had the test been 100% successful?

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 02 Sep 2009 09:53

shiv wrote:
Gagan wrote:T Wasn't there a two story high cavern where the device was placed on a mound? .

Gagan - if you can quote a source for this I have some intriguing thoughts related to it

About how the yield could be damped by the open space around the weapon?

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Sep 2009 09:56

Hari Seldon wrote:Dumb question I know, but might as well ask - would not the design yield of a fully loaded 2 stage TN device be so overwhelmingly high that khetolai, the surrounding villages and whatever logistics base was there would all be swamped had the test been 100% successful?

2 stage or 3 stage?

China has tested a low yield Thermonuclear device of 15 kT with a boosted fission primary
http://www.fas.org/irp/dia/product/prc_72/app_d.htm

Arun_S · Post by **Arun_S** » 02 Sep 2009 09:57

Hari Seldon wrote:Dumb question I know, but might as well ask - would not the design yield of a fully loaded 2 stage TN device be so overwhelmingly high that khetolai, the surrounding villages and whatever logistics base was there would all be swamped had the test been 100% successful?

Just see the current radius of the retrac due to S1 and if teh bum was powerful enough teh Crater formed will be of same size. So the obvious answer is NO.

I think Shiv gave a reference to that paper on crater morphology many page earlier.

John Snow · Post by **John Snow** » 02 Sep 2009 09:57

Kalam grew because Missile can go up,
Bomb brings down things ( except the Mushroom cloud in case of atmospheric test).
So BARC scientists stayed where they were Kalam vent higher.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 02 Sep 2009 09:58

Gagan wrote:
About how the yield could be damped by the open space around the weapon?

Related to that. It appears that small caverns cannot hide large devices - so I need to do some re reading.

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 02 Sep 2009 10:05

Didn't BARC also record the whole thing with multiple rapid cameras and other instruments?

Question: What would have been the instrumentation like immediately around the bomb/experiment, apart from seismic monitoring devices?

John Snow · Post by **John Snow** » 02 Sep 2009 10:05

two stage

Three stage

from here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teller%E2%80%93Ulam_design

these books are a must in anybodys collection
The Making of the Atomic Bomb, a book written by Richard Rhodes,
The Dark Sun, a book written by Richard Rhodes, H Bomb making

Arun_S · Post by **Arun_S** » 02 Sep 2009 10:11

Gagan wrote:Didn't BARC also record the whole thing with multiple rapid cameras and other instruments?

Question: What would have been the instrumentation like immediately around the bomb/experiment, apart from seismic monitoring devices?

Yes, with sacrificial sensors, that are connected via cables to the instrumentation hut, but that takes some time to analyze; but preliminary results to determine of success or failure is quick.

dinesha · Post by **dinesha** » 02 Sep 2009 10:15

Nakedness of deterrence
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/stor ... wcg==&SEO=

This column had earlier pointed out that the DRDO did submit a report to the government towards November that year after a proper analysis was done for the various parameters that was unavailable when Chidambaram & Co claimed an instant and miraculous hundred and ten per cent success soon after the Pokhran blasts. This report clearly stated that the measurements did not match the claims made by the weapon designers. If the then government chose to ignore the report then how can Santhanam be blamed for keeping quiet for ten years? That report, which also suggested a course of action for the government given the analysis and the conclusion, was not prepared by a single individual. There were about a dozen individuals involved in that exercise. Perhaps this should also be peer reviewed? “I think we need to now have a full-fledged discussion on the CTBT” the NSA absurdly claims. Absurdly because his interview has given away the direction the government plans to steer such a debate, if at all it occurs

Raja Ram · Post by **Raja Ram** » 02 Sep 2009 10:27

"Fizzle" ya "Sizzle" is what we want it to be or what we believe it to be.

That is why my post in page 12 of this thread still holds. Despite such a detailed discussion by some of the best and brightest of BR, the situation is the same. Only thing that has happened is what I said will happen - decent people fighting it out. Hopefully that has receded a bit.

The issue is not all this. Gentle Readers, the issue is one of maintaining sovereign options. Every successive administration of India has ensured that it is preserved. Cutting across party lines. The scientific community and the strategic community have ensured over the years with minimum outflow and maximum effect that those options and capabilities are preserved.

The willingness to trade our sovereign options away for tangible benefits is something that was attempted for the first time by the present administration. That is why there is a concern. Ironically a far weaker India had maintained the strategic options in a far more demanding context. India of today is far stronger. In every way. There is no need to give away any sovereign options easily.

Sometimes it pays to listen and understand rambles. Will bring a lot of clarity to thinking.

Arun_S · Post by **Arun_S** » 02 Sep 2009 10:30

Thanks dinesha. This pulls the rug under the people who were accusing KS of being quite for 11 years.

Nakedness of deterrence

V Sudarshan
First Published : 02 Sep 2009 12:38:00 AM IST

Ever since K Santhanam formerly of the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) remarked at a closed door seminar in New Delhi that the thermonuclear device tested in Pokhran underperformed significantly and suggested that India should not sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty without making sure that we had a proven thermonuclear bomb design, various personalities linked with Pokhran II as well as those who are not remotely linked to it have come out to bash Santhanam for voicing this opinion and some have even called him names.

First off, R Chidambaram, the then chief of atomic energy and therefore the de facto chief weapons designer called Santhanam’s claim absurd in a section of the media he is known to patently favour. Then the former DRDO head and President of this country came out and rubbished his former colleague’s claim as well. The Prime Minister himself found it necessary in a calming move to take to the podium to say that the debate over the yield of the thermonuclear device was unnecessary. Really?

Then came the turn of the star performer, our National Security Advisor, M K Narayanan, a former spook and current self-styled expert on everything under the sun from Balochistan to thermonuclear devices to CTBT, who has taken the trouble to air his views in the same section of the media widely regarded as cosying up to the government. He declared Santhanam was a “bit of a maverick in these matters” and that the former head of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses had no locus standi to comment on the nuclear test yields. “First and foremost”, he taunted, “the DRDO had nothing to do with (this aspect of the tests), frankly, whatever plumage they may like to give themselves. The measurements are not done by the DRDO.” DRDO which provided the trigger devices for the tests will no doubt be properly shocked at this assertion.

Sources in the scientific community who were closely involved in the test say that the National Security Adviser needs to brush up on what really happened in Pokhran and suggest that he stick to defending words like Balochistan which have appeared mysteriously in the Sharm-el-Sheikh joint statement and which will have an accelerated tendency to appear in future joint statements as well. In an aside they suggest that the NSA remove his foot from his mouth at least when he grants interviews to friendly media. In this interview he claims that nobody has really questioned the “authorised and proven measurements” of the yields done by Anil Kakodkar and S K Sikka, who along with Chidambaram form the government’s core think tank on nuclear matters. The NSA is wrong as usual on this claim too. Chidambaram’s former boss, P K Iyengar has long and consistently questioned the result of the alleged thermonuclear blast at Pokhran. If we have an NSA who didn’t know this much he is an even bigger ignoramus than is feared.

Think of what it means with regard to our strategic security. On the other hand if he indeed knew of the widespread reservations that exist in the scientific community and Dr Iyengar’s view in particular and still persisted in maintaining the fiction that nobody has questioned the authorised version, well, in our book it makes our NSA look economical with the truth as well. For the benefit of our esteemed NSA and for the purposes of wider public dissemination we print alongside on our Oped page today an article written by Dr Iyengar that takes us lucidly through the argument he has long made. But of course, for the government no opinion matters outside this charmed circle of nuclear scientists, the PC Sorcars of the nuclear world, scientists who can do the impossible including getting a thermonuclear bomb design right even after conducting what seems to be a dud test. From the NSA’s contention he comes across as though he is a bigger expert on the Pokhran 2 than K Santhanam. The fact is Narayanan is no expert on nuclear matters. Going by what he has said in that interview it is alarmingly obvious no one briefed him accurately on what went on in the Pokhran blasts. The fact is K Santhanam was the programme co-ordinator for the Pokhran II test and his duties included instrumentation for the tests. This included instruments that measured the seismic waves emanating from the test. Significantly so far there has been no claim saying that the calibration of the instruments by the DRDO was in any way faulty. The only claims so far that have emerged contest the yield of the thermonuclear device, which was Chidambaram’s dubious baby.

A nuclear test behaves somewhat like an earthquake and once the device explodes these waves radiate outwards from the shaft and measuring the ground acceleration gives an indication of the way the device behaved when triggered. When the initial reports came in of the explosion some scientists from Mumbai who were part of the experiment, say sources, privately expressed doubts if the device had performed according to expectations. In addition they noticed that the crater left behind by the thermonuclear device was in fact smaller than the one left behind by the much more modest fission explosion. In any case the government, incidentally, put out a press release which had been prepared well in advance of the test and filled it with suitable numbers to give it currency.

The National Security Advisor has challenged K Santhanam to come forward with an independent set of measurements of the yield if he had them. This taunt is a bit rich. Here is a better suggestion: let the NSA come out with the authorised and proven measurements and have them peer reviewed by our scientific community to find out whether the troika of sarkari nuclear scientists consisting of Kakodkar, Sikka and Chidambaram got it right in the first place! This column had earlier pointed out that the DRDO did submit a report to the government towards November that year after a proper analysis was done for the various parameters that was unavailable when Chidambaram & Co claimed an instant and miraculous hundred and ten per cent success soon after the Pokhran blasts. This report clearly stated that the measurements did not match the claims made by the weapon designers. If the then government chose to ignore the report then how can Santhanam be blamed for keeping quiet for ten years? That report, which also suggested a course of action for the government given the analysis and the conclusion, was not prepared by a single individual. There were about a dozen individuals involved in that exercise. Perhaps this should also be peer reviewed? “I think we need to now have a full-fledged discussion on the CTBT” the NSA absurdly claims. Absurdly because his interview has given away the direction the government plans to steer such a debate, if at all it occurs.

sudarshan@epmltd.com

About the author:

V Sudarshan is the Executive Editor of The New Indian Express

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 02 Sep 2009 10:30

The India of today is definitely stronger, but the men who make its decisions are so much weaker than those who took us through the tests and beyond in '74 and '98.

Neshant · Post by **Neshant** » 02 Sep 2009 10:30

We got to thank the scientist who risked being fired for revealing what most already suspected (H-bomb test was a dud). He put national security ahead of his own job security and for that all patriotic Indians cannot thank him enough.

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 02 Sep 2009 10:34

Is india ready to test?
Does India have a corrected design even a weaponized one to test?
Does India have only ONE H-bomb design to test? A chotu H-bomb with only 300Kiloton yield?
Does India have a bomb with a Megaton yield today to test?

All this can't happen if BARC doesn't develop one, if GoI doesn't authorize one. And then where is the point to do anything at all, if GoI won't let BARC test it?
No wonder the Kaveri team developed an engine, hoping that the LCA would never fly. So our weapon designers are happy to develop something they know the government does not have the cajons to test.

The problem is when GoI tests.

Raja Ram · Post by **Raja Ram** » 02 Sep 2009 10:37

That is why I keep saying that the most difficult shackle to break is the one in the mind of some who are in positions of determining India's destiny. Freedom of thinking as an independent Indian is still work in progress after 62 years.

Lesser shackles of building better TN bombs or testing the same can be handled once the shackle on the mind is broken.

Sorry for being a broken record. But I am not alone in that am I? Only that this broken record is singing a different and lonely tune and not in harmony with the cacophony here

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 02 Sep 2009 10:41

The truly advanced nuclear weapon powers have several generations of H-bombs.
India had a First generation weapon onlee, and that too under performed.

Unless there was some interaction with videshis that India leapfrogged to a higher sophistication of thermonuclear weaponry, I would say we still have a long way and many tests to go.

India and indian science seems to be stuck at the basic rung of not being test even.

I am bringing in the argument of several generations of H-bombs because I don't want to see a situation where one successful test of a H-bomb will result in a shitty bitty.