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One Trident submarine can stay at sea for up to two years without refueling. It can produce it's own recycled water, and produces little to no waste. It is only limited by food, since it is powered by a nuclear reactor.

Each submarine is armed with 24 (nuclear) Trident II long-range ballistic missiles, each one able to hit almost anywhere in the world. Each one of these missiles can be launched from underwater at a moments notice. In mid-flight, each missile can split up into 12 individual bomblets, each of which is capable of wiping out a city.

One submarine, which is manned by less than 200 men, could destroy 288 major cities in half an hour from anywhere in the world. That's a frightening thought.

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It is a frightening thought.

We have technology that can keep 200 men alive for over two years, including all of their needs for food, air, water, electricity and such, and yet we're still getting around by burning old plants from millions of years ago.

He didn't mention how much it costs to have 200 folks in a sub for 2 years. but yeah, it is embarrassing our transport tech is in the dark ages.

That would be because nuclear power generation is still a bogeyman in some people's minds.

Just imagine the true "green revolution" that could be brought about with a few hundred more nuclear plants in the US alone.

To make it cost effective, the U.S. has to stop making enemies. Do you know how much it will cost to secure a few hundred nuclear power plants from people willing to blow themselves up?

As much as 200 more low security prisons? 20'000 federal employees (to be generous) is peanuts to a project of that scale. How many attacks have there been on power plants anyway? You cant make modern designs go boom, just melt.

I certainly hope your right that modern nuke plants are safer. But the general public responds more to security theater than real security.

As to "how many attacks have there been"? Well, it only takes one successful one. How many successful (reached their ultimate goal) airline highjackings have their been?

The Trident missile is truly an amazing piece of kit. The most remarkable thing for me is that would be able to operate with zero external systems (such as GPS), so that in the event of a complete electromagnetic blackout it could still hit its target. It does this by fixing off the stars (http://www.nytimes.com/1982/07/13/science/trident-s-technolo...).

The Royal Navy subs only carry upto 48 warheads, even though they are capable of carrying 192, so I guess that's only 48 major cities from the Uk contingent :o (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/uk/slbm/vanguard.htm)

One fascinating limitation (read engineering opportunity) of these boats is they way they dispose of waste gas (such as that produced in oxygen generation). It's ejected from the sub, but tends to form into largish bubbles, which when they hit the surface are sometimes detectable by spy satellites - so their location is sometimes compromised. (sorry, can't find a link to back this up - I wonder why..)

I believe the Vanguard class subs (the Royal Navy's Trident bearing subs) can carry ~4 months food supply, so that's how often they have to resupply.

"One fascinating limitation [...]" Sounds highly unlikely. The sub has a huge area across which to dispose of the waste gas, the volume can't be that high that they need to release big bubbles at once. The chances of a satellite pointing at the right area of sea being able to detect even a metre-cross bubble against wave background ... I really can't see it.

Perhaps they should blow bubble rings and disguise as a dolphin?

Or maybe dissolve the gas in some ocean water before expelling it?

I was going to correct you about MIRV's being not being able to attack a geographically distributed area, but then I read this: "The bus's on-board propellant limits the distances between targets of individual warheads to perhaps a few hundred km," with the accuracy of each warhead being about "90-100m". That's simply terrifying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIRV

It's also frightening because all codes required to arm the warheads are kept onboard and can be accessed by three cooperating individuals (in contrast with stationary installations). I doubt that missiles can be launched on the "moment notice". De-conservation and targeting are bound to take hours.

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