Evaluating Testing, Costs, and Benefits of Advanced Spectroscopic Portals for Screening Cargo at Ports of Entry. Interim Report (Abbreviated Version)

摘要

The threat of a nuclear attack on the United States has haunted the U.S. public consciousness and been a central motivation in U.S. national defense since the 1950s. This was vividly demonstrated by the image of American schoolchildren doing duck and cover drills at the early heights of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. With the end of the Cold War, the prospect of a full-scale nuclear exchange between superpowers diminished, but the specter of new and different threats emerged: nuclear terrorism and clandestine nuclear attacks. Countering these new threats is a different kind of challenge and a goal that all reasonable people support. The question however, is where to devote limited funds to achieve the greatest impact against these risks. This report is an interim report of a study on the testing of next generation radiation detectors for screening cargo at ports of entry to the United States, one layer of the defense against such attacks. These new detectors are called advanced spectroscopic portals (ASPs).