Re: 100 megaton bombs atop Saturn V rockets

From: Paul F. Dietz (dietz_at_dls.net)
Date: 07/21/04 

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 19:44:39 -0500

Derek Lyons wrote:
> "Paul F. Dietz" <dietz@dls.net> wrote:
>
>>Allen Thomson wrote:
>>
>>
>>>FWIW, a while back there was discussion of such matters on
>>>alt.war.nuclear, and the conclusion generally agreed with yours:
>>>a touch more than 10 kt/kg seems to be within the state of the art,
>>>but not more. At least for more or less conventional large two/
>>>multi-stage weapons.
>>
>>A 'sufficiently large' device should be able to do better, I think,
>>since it could be made to work without compression.
>
>
> Without compression? Huh?

DT at normal liquid density will fuse just fine, if you make it hot
and confine it long enough. The larger the bomb, the longer
the confinement time. The compression would allow the temperature
to be made even higher (by reducing the energy lost to the
thermal photon bath inside the capsule), but DT has a high fusion
cross section even at relatively 'low' temperature.

If the fuel is thick enough the fusion neutrons will also deposit
most of their energy locally, even in uncompressed fuel. You'd want
to exploit those neutrons to breed tritium in situ.

>>In the limit of extreme size the device mass would be dominated by
>>the mass of fusion fuel.
>
> Probably not, a) because fusion fuel is pretty light, and b) because
> the real yield multiplier is the final fission step of the
> fission-fusion-fission cycle.

So skip that final step.

        Paul

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: 100 megaton bombs atop Saturn V rockets
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    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: 100 megaton bombs atop Saturn V rockets
    ... >since it could be made to work without compression. ... Probably not, a) because fusion fuel is pretty light, and b) because ... the real yield multiplier is the final fission step of the ... fission-fusion-fission cycle. ...
    (sci.space.history)
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