Thin Man (nuclear bomb) Thin Man (nuclear bomb) "Thin Man" was the code name for a proposed plutonium gun-type nuclear bomb using plutonium-239 which the United States was developing during the Manhattan Project. They aborted its development when they discovered that the spontaneous fission rate of their nuclear reactor-bred plutonium was too high for use in a gun-type design, due to the high concentration of the isotope plutonium-240. In 1942, prior to the Army taking over wartime atomic research, Robert Oppenheimer held conferences in Chicago in June and Berkeley, California, in July at which various engineers and physicists discussed nuclear bomb design issues. A
B83 nuclear bomb Advanced Cruise Missile (now being retired). The B83 is one of the weapons considered for use in the "Nuclear Bunker Buster" project, which for a time was known as the "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator", or "RNEP". While most efforts have focused on the smaller B61-11 nuclear bomb, Los Alamos National Laboratory was also analyzing the use of the B83 in this role. The physics package contained within the B83 has been studied for use in asteroid impact avoidance strategies against any seriously threatening near earth asteroids. Six such warheads, configured for the maximum 1.2 Mt yield, would be deployed by