Gigaton nuclear weapons

Originally posted by nathraq

Tritium isn't used in any part of the detonation. Tritium is for 'enhanced radiation', aka neutron bomb.

en.wikipedia.org...

"More advanced nuclear weapons take advantage of nuclear fusion to derive more energy. In such a weapon, the X-ray thermal radiation from a nuclear fission explosion is used to heat and compress a capsule of tritium, deuterium, or lithium, in which fusion occurs, releasing even more energy. These weapons, colloquially known as hydrogen bombs, can be many hundreds of times more powerful than fission weapons."

wat was it u saying again?

Originally posted by deltaboy

"More advanced nuclear weapons take advantage of nuclear fusion to derive more energy. In such a weapon, the X-ray thermal radiation from a nuclear fission explosion is used to heat and compress a capsule of tritium, deuterium, or lithium, in which fusion occurs, releasing even more energy. These weapons, colloquially known as hydrogen bombs, can be many hundreds of times more powerful than fission weapons."

wat was it u saying again?

Says deut, Tritium or Lithium. Not one of each.

Neutron generators are what cause the fission process, not tritium. Tritium is an option (like A/C on your car).

"In such a weapon, the X-ray thermal radiation from a nuclear fission explosion is used to heat and compress a capsule of tritium, deuterium, or lithium, in which fusion occurs, releasing even more energy."

im talking about making a nuke boom bigger.

The fission weapon is known as the "primary", the thermonuke part is the secondary.

Take an H bomb apart and you will see a central cylindrical core usually with styofoam filled spaces beteen it and the casing, the primary (spherical) sat at the top and a deuterium reservoir (like an oxygen bottle) at the base.

There is no theoretical limit on size of boom, ir just gets real big in a physical way.

Would size a rocket even be able to carry this weapon into space? Also what would the dangers be if it exploded on launch or fell back to earth?

The gigaton nukes were never intended as weapons, they were being looked at (as posted earlier) as a means to divert incoming asteroids and comets. They'd be too big and bulky to be much use as a weapon - they also wouldn't qualify as "planet killers", maybe "nation killers" though. To actually cause planetary-scale destruction, even a gigaton class nuke wouldn't be enough. The Earth, fortunately, is an extremely large object, and would require a tremendous amount of energy to destroy.

It turned out it would be a lot easier and cheaper to build a massive solar sail to drag a planet-killing asteroid into a new orbit, so the idea has been mostly abandoned. I'm sure some guys at LANL were bummed about it though

[edit on 6/16/05 by xmotex]

This may have use as an astriod killer, but one would need a saturn 5 rocket to get it off the ground i WOULD THINK.

Originally posted by bios
It seems like the Russians made a 300 megaton device that they exploded at a lower yeild, whatever that means. That was the largest nuke ever known to exist.
The gigaton weapons are not for earthly use since even a 300 megaton device would have wreaked insanely widespread destruction, not to mention fallout, nuclear winter and all that.

300 megaton? NOT EVEN CLOSE!! The most powerful nuclear weapon ever build the the Russian Tsar bomb with a yeld of only 57 megatons. The Soviets detonated the Evan bomb at the then secret Novaya Zemlya, arctic nuclear test range. Origionally Kruscheve had tried to clame that it was a 100 megaton bomb, but later the Russians admitted that they had tried to bluff, and the bomb was only in the 50 to 60 megaton range.

Here check it out for yourself: Tsar Bomb

Next time, Please check your facts!

Originally posted by deltaboy
"In such a weapon, the X-ray thermal radiation from a nuclear fission explosion is used to heat and compress a capsule of tritium, deuterium, or lithium, in which fusion occurs, releasing even more energy."

im talking about making a nuke boom bigger.

Tritium in a nuke is not in capsule form, it is in a tube ( looks like a type of baby "booger-sucker"). Still has absolutely nothing to do with size of blast or energy released. All tritium does is enhance the radiation that is already going to be released after detontaion.

Originally posted by horten229v3
Would size a rocket even be able to carry this weapon into space? Also what would the dangers be if it exploded on launch or fell back to earth?

Our latest rockets could carry a huge "Super" into high orbit, and even beyond.

As for the risks of detonation should it fall back to Earth, the advent of fire resistant pits and isolated fusing components makes modern fusion weapons very difficult to detonate, i.e. very safe.

Ultimately however, Plutonium will burn, and that would give you a scaled down Chernobyl type problem - still a lot less fallout though.

Let's not forget that high atmospheric nuclear blasts were conducted in the late 1950s - they say that the effects were truly spectacular, seeing as you would a blast that was perfectly spherical and not confined by the surface of the Earth.

To the comment earlier about a gigaton nuclear weapon NOT being a planet killer. Ok it doesnt have to destroy the entire planet, but an explosion like that would create the entire earth as a nucelar fallout zone, nuclear winter would happen, the earth's rotation and postition would be changed bc of the massive explosion. And if the explosion was underground the earth might lose some of its mass and ultimately spin slowly out of orbit. Also if it was detonated in the air about 1/5 of our atmostphere would be gone.

It shouln't be to hard to build... I think with the modern teqniques at least... And it's main purpouse would be to SCARE... you wouldn't want to attack a country with a nuke arsenal like that... right...?

Is it possible to create a Nuclear weapon without any radiation?

A neutron bomb has limited nuclear radiation. Upon detonation it emmits massive amounts of neutrons which destroy electronics and organic materials. Most everyone dies in the next week-- but the radiation only lasts about a year rather than 100's

Originally posted by horten229v3
A neutron bomb has limited nuclear radiation. Upon detonation it emmits massive amounts of neutrons which destroy electronics and organic materials. Most everyone dies in the next week-- but the radiation only lasts about a year rather than 100's

Neutron bombs have massive amounts of radiation, and again I point out that tritium is the enhancer. Every nuke has neutron generators, as that is what causes the reaction.

yes but the massive amounts of immediate radiation are not long-lingering like the conventional nuclear weapons.

True.

The whole purpose of a 'neutron' bomb is to destroy enemy troops (and civilians), while leaving valuable property basically untouched, for the seizing of course.

Originally posted by ghost
Origionally Kruscheve had tried to clame that it was a 100 megaton bomb, but later the Russians admitted that they had tried to bluff, and the bomb was only in the 50 to 60 megaton range. (...) Next time, Please check your facts!

If you had checked your facts, you would have found out that the Tsar Bomba design is indeed one for 100 megaton and that in order to limit fall out they replaced the uranium tamper in the third stage of the bomb with a lead tamper. This made the Tsar bomb one of the "cleanest" bombs in terms of amount of yield that came from fusion. If they had used the originally intended 100 Mton design it would have increased the world's total fission fallout since the invention of the atomic bomb by 25%.

nuclearweaponarchive.org...

Originally posted by horten229v3Ok it doesnt have to destroy the entire planet, but an explosion like that would create the entire earth as a nucelar fallout zone, nuclear winter would happen, the earth's rotation and postition would be changed bc of the massive explosion. And if the explosion was underground the earth might lose some of its mass and ultimately spin slowly out of orbit.

The earth has been hit by asteroids with equivalent explosive power in the gigaton and beyond range and that didn't change the earth's rotation and position. The earth is simply too massive.

[edit on 17-6-2005 by Simon666]

The whole though of using a nuclear bomb to set off an even bigger nuclear bomb is a bit unnerving... and vastly unneccesary for the planet.

I was reading somewhere that the shoemaker/levy main fragments caused a 1 gig blast on the surface, which made a flash seen by hubble that if you put the earth next to it, it would fit in the flash.

Scary stuff, but then again, you need a lot of nuclear material to make a giga nuke, and before you would even purchase parts such as, everyone would be on =p