17 Oct
2001
17 Oct
'01
4:27 a.m.
(does the
trick involve Tritium, or is that just a yield enhancer for
implosion types?)
The tricks usually involve things like surrounding the implosion core
with a neutron reflector which can reduce the critical mass by a factor
of two (from 11 kg to 5 kg or so for Pu).
For some reason I don't understand and haven't looked into, it's possible
to get a critical mass as low as 1 kg using plutonium nitrate solution
in a stainless steel implosion sphere. Yield would probably be a few
Tritium is a yeild enhancer. Turns your A bomb into an H bomb.
I assume the tritium component is a modular part of the device, as
it has a rather short half-life (and IIRC, the last production facility
was closed down).
-dq