Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane.
Lots of nitrogen. Nobel, Haber and Birkeland would figure out how valuable this stuff is within minutes.
From CDR Salamander, March 30:
If you don’t wake up every morning cursing those responsible for defense and China policy in the 1990s … the gobsmackingly short sighted arrogance of it all – then what use are you, actually?
With a few exceptions, from partially completed CV rusting in Ukraine, to teaching the Communist Chinese how to MIRV ICBM warheads, to opening up our best research institutions to spies an assets, the USA was beset internally by unserious people with the attention span of a hamster and the historical perspective of a newborn in serious jobs requiring long-term thinking and decision making.
The harvest of this decade of frivolity continue to ripen, and via Jeremy Bogaisky, at Forbes – get ready to rage – we have just one more example; one that if we actually come to blows with the People’s Republic of China or those who buy their weapons – will result in more dead American men and women – more mutilated wounded.
People and perspective matter. It appears the PRC has known this for decades;
In 1987, U.S. Navy researchers invented a new explosive with fearsome capabilities. Named China Lake Compound No. 20 after the Southern California base where it was developed, it boasted up to 40% greater penetrating power and propellant range than the U.S. military’s mainstay explosives, which were first produced during World War II.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, the Pentagon’s urgency evaporated. So did the expensive task of perfecting CL-20 and designing weapons to use it.
…and how did they get CL-10? Where was the CIA, the FBI? Oh, that’s right – playing around in domestic politics.
Meanwhile, the PRC was sending grad students; inserting citizens in the right companies. Doing just plain good old fashioned espionage.
China, however, saw the potential. The country has invested heavily in developing long-range missiles with the aim of forcing U.S. warships and non-stealthy aircraft like refueling tankers to operate at a distance if Chinese forces invade Taiwan. Some of those weapons are believed to be propelled by a version of CL-20, which China first fielded in 2011 and now produces at scale.
“This is a case where we could potentially be beaten over the head with our own technology,” Bob Kavetsky, head of the Energetic Technology Center, a nonprofit research group that does work for the government, told Forbes.
Kavetsky and other experts in energetics, the niche field of developing things that go boom, have been warning for years that the U.S., long the world leader, has fallen dangerously behind China. The Pentagon last year outlined a plan to spend $16 billion over 15 years to upgrade and expand its aging network of munition plants, but Kavetsky warns that doesn’t include developing the advanced manufacturing capabilities needed to mass produce new explosives like CL-20.
Criminal malpractice....
....MUCH MORE
