Yep, https://web.mit.edu/22.812j/www/enrichment.pdf is a good starting point if anybody wants to learn more about the economics/logistics of enrichment. Though, it's a notoriously confusing topic so it could take some reading.

Tl;dr is that the amount of energy required to separate a mixture of gasses (U238 waste and U235 product) is roughly proportional to the logarithm of the ratio of the U238 percentage and the U235 percentage. So as your feed stream becomes more enriched in U235, it becomes much easier to do subsequent separations. This log relationship is an approximation, but arises out of the statistical mechanics of separating two mixed gasses and the resulting decrease in entropy.

Edit: a key point most people I'm guessing aren't aware of: centrifuges don't really care what you feed them, whether the feed is natural or 20% or 89% enriched, they just get increasingly more efficient so that a single "pass" through them produces a greater amount of separation as the feed stock becomes more enriched. They do a fixed amount of "separative work" each pass. The same machines can be used to enrich from natural to 20% as 20%-90% (with some relatively minor caveats), and in fact it takes far fewer machines to do the 20-90 step at the same rate as natural-20.

They absolutely do talk about it. Maybe you should ask yourself why you never heard about it though.

> Israel doesn't talk about destroying Gaza, it just does it.

That's clever. Virtue signaling 101. And when things turn worse you can pat yourself on the back claiming that your virtue was intact and you were on the "right side of history". You can pretend that none of the violence is related to the side you chose.

The fact is that western ignorance is deeply at fault for the violence in Gaza. Probably more so than many others. Why?

There are three sides to this conflict:

* Moderate people - these are moderate Israelis and Palestinians. These are by far the majority. They might not agree on all the details or even on a Palestinian state, but they don't want violence and will try to avoid it when possible.

* Zero sum players - e.g. Hamas and Israelis who commit crimes e.g. deep settlements, war crimes etc. Some of them are sadly even in the Israeli government now. They've gained strength in Israel thanks to Hamas violence and vice versa. They feed each other. For every Hamas terrorist plot, the Israeli extremists build their base further and commit their own atrocities which result in Hamas gaining traction.

* Chaos actors - This is where Iran is. Some chaos actors don't care who wins and in some cases they choose a side. This is also where you reside. It is not a good place to be in.

Now you might have the knee jerk reaction. You think you're one of the "good guys", but you're not. You picked a side and you throw the blame on Israel while ignoring the legitimate facts Israel has in waging war against a zero-sum player (Hamas).

By blaming Israel for the destruction in Gaza you essentially tell Hamas: no harm no foul. Hamas hears you loud and clear. They can sacrifice all the Palestinian lives, starve them, use children and civilians as cannon fodder. As far as many in the west are concerned, Israel is the only one to blame. That removes their incentive to surrender and encourages them to escalate the violence.

The way they see it is that this encourages hostility which will keep the war going forever. They think that it will create a situation in which Israel will lose western support and will collapse as a result. The problem with this logic is that if Israel loses western support it will likely shift to the extreme right-wing and in that situation the Palestinians would be in serious trouble.

Want proof?

Go to a pro-Palestine rally carrying both a Palestinian flag and an Israeli flag to support co-existence which is supposed to be their goal. It isn't. Try wearing a yellow ribbon in such a rally to encourage the return of innocent civilians from Gaza. Same thing. These are not pro-Palestine rallies, they are anti-Israel rallies. Is it any surprise that Israel is becoming more extreme?

So based on your logic we should just let them gain that ability and see what happens?

> It is similar to swearing at someone "Fuck you". It doesn't mean you're actually able and willing to.

Since they conducted decades of terrorism against Israel the USA and our allies a more apt example would be a person who repeatedly stabbed our friends is trying to get a bomb that could kill us all.

It's amazing to me how people are willing to give the benefit of the doubt to people who literally led terrorist attacks against their country. To people who would stone gay people and punish women for the crime of rape. But won't give a similar benefit of doubt to the people opposing them. Who won't consider that, maybe, just maybe, the stuff you read on the internet isn't the whole truth.

> Also, each B2 can carry 2 MOPs

Wow. That is amazing. 60,000 lbs. combined.

From 40,000 feet, the bomb would take ~ 50 seconds to fall and would impact at mach 1.5.

The MOP isn't particularly 'advanced', it's basically refined version of the Korean-vintage Tarzon guided earthquake bombs. It's just too heavy for most military aircraft to carry.

The IDF has the F-15I which has a centerline hard point rated for 5,000lb load. That's immense for a fighter but a magnitude too low for the MOP.

There are a variety of smaller US penetrating bombs that the F-15 can handle, but they don't have the mass and structure to penetrate as deeply.

They do not.

Why do you say this? Israel only lost 1 drone.

According to Israel they fly freely in West/central Iran and use all the plains including F15/16. Initially they relied on the F-35's stealth but as of last week they claim air superiority.

video shows how confused and disoriented are whatever SAM that survived

https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1lb8mkc/iran...

Ok, I see the logic, but nuclear weapon use is the brightest red line in the world. If there's anything a government wouldn't be forgiven for, it's that. I can't imagine how the calculus for the US would work out in favor given the risk. (Of course that assumes rationality, which one could certainly argue is lacking, but even still.)

Also 1000ft is an upper estimate, right? It's certainly possible the MOPs were sufficient.