EXCERPT FROM A 2002 NPR INTERVIEW OF FREEMAN DYSON AND SON DISCUSSING PROJECT ORION

Apollo 12 passes the moon and begins orbiting Earth on June 21st, 2002. This is the same day that Dyson gives his interview discussing the Orion.  

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. Did this take technology that is still classified information?

Dr. DYSON: Yes, to some extent. A lot of it could be declassified, but most of it still remains secret, either just for bureaucratic reasons or for two reasons. We certainly don't want to give away the detailed design of small bombs. That's something that can be very useful to terrorists, so that should be kept secret. On the other hand, the general dimensions and performance of the ship would not be of any use to terrorists, and there's no reason why that shouldn't be declassified.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. In fact, George, you write in the book on page 57 about Ted Taylor, one of the fathers of this project, that Ted--well, I'll read it from the book. 'Ted was the first to raise the alarm. The use of small numbers of covertly delivered nuclear explosives by groups of people who are not clearly identified with national government is more probable in the near future than the use of nuclear weapons by a nation for military purposes.' I mean, you say he warned us in 1966.

Dr. DYSON: Right.

Mr. DYSON: Yeah. He wrote an extremely prophetic paper actually warning that the real danger might not be foreign groups but might be groups within the United States who somehow felt they were trying to save us from something worse.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. Freeman.

Dr. DYSON: Yes.

FLATOW: You write also that if you have a bunch--I'm going to read from the book--'If you have a bunch of people wanting to blow up the World Trade Center or something, they might have no difficulty getting large amounts of high explosives, so it's important not to declassify all that stuff.'Did you write this before the attack or after the attack on the World Trade Center?

The weight of this bomb is probably off by an order of magnitude. Which would make the weight of the bomb 31 pounds. Ted Taylor revealed that he had designed bombs weighing 20 pounds in the late 1960's - early 1970's (McPhee 109).   A shaped 1 kiloton nuclear charge will create a 10ft diameter hole 1000 feet long in solid rock (McPhee 159). The Twin Towers were 1,368 feet tall and they are not solid. A single shaped nuclear charge would have been more than enough to take down a tower. Three bombs with a total weight of 60 to 90 pounds have the power to level the whole WTC complex.     

Dr. DYSON: I don't remember when I wrote that, but I've certainly been saying that for a long time. It was obvious that the World Trade Center was a prime target, and we certainly--for many, many years we were worrying about a smuggled nuclear weapon destroying the World Trade Center. That's still, of course, a very real problem for all the other skyscrapers.

FLATOW: 1 (800) 989-8255. You know, you have a--there was a phrase that was coined about you--I'm sure--I know you're familiar with, about innovative, interesting ideas called 'Dysonian.' If there's something really interesting, an unusual idea, they call it a Dysonian idea. Would you consider this a Dysonian idea, or something a little more conventional?

Dr. DYSON: No. I don't claim credit for that. I think Ted Taylor was worrying about this even before I was.

COMMENTARY:

This dog whistle interview coincides with the return of Apollo 12 to earth orbit. Freeman Dyson talks about miniature nuclear charges used to propel ORION and the worries that he and Ted Taylor had that the WTC could be leveled by miniature nuclear weapon going back to the 1960's. It is a tacit admission that the WTC was nuked. A couple of relatively small 1 kiloton shaped charge nuclear weapon took down the WTC Twin Towers. 

Bibliography: 
McPhee, John A. The Curve Of Binding Energy. Farrar, Straus And Giroux, 1973.