Re: Future baby nukes (boffin-sized?)

From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Wed Oct 11 2000 - 11:25:15 MDT


 Ken Clements writes:

> > So far we have kept the lid on things because the isotopes of heavy atoms
> > needed for fission are hard to collect together

I doubt it would be worthwhile making a bomb with an element heavier than
plutonium, pre-detonation would be a real problem so you couldn't make a
very powerful bomb, and it would be as expensive as hell.

    Eugene Leitl <eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de> wrote:

> But tritium is much, much easier to get than U-235, or Pu-239,

Actually, atom for atom tritium is 3 or 4 times as expensive as U-235
or Pu -239, pound for pound figure 2 to 3 hundred times as expensive.
And the half life of tritium is about only 11 years so you must keep making it.
Most of the tritium in a H bomb is made in a fraction of a second from a
blanket of lithium when the fission trigger goes off.

    John K Clark jonkc@att.net



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