<p>Well, I haven’t seen 24 (my dad just loaned me Seasons 1-5), but the answer to your question is essentially no unless, of course, the missile itself is nuclear.</p>
<p>If you want to get a quick and fairly decent understanding of what it takes to create a nuclear weapon, read Tom Clancy’s “The Sum of All Fears”. It gives you an inkling into just how precise a nuclear weapon’s construction is, even if the theoretical physics behind it all is fairly simple. An explosion caused by a missile or bomb is to disorganized to cause a mass of uranium to reach critical mass. Additionally (and here my knowledge really becomes spotty), the kind of uranium used in reactors is fundamentally different than that used in weapons. It’s not enriched enough to really go BOOM.</p>