On 2 May 2014 at 22:34, Kurt Feltenberger wrote:

> On 5/2/2014 8:34 PM, Tim wrote:
>
>     They would still use uranium or plutonium as the core?
>
>
>     Not with TL12-13 Traveller equivalent, unless that happened to be
>     cheaper and easier or something.  On the whole, probably not.
>
>     In case they do, see my other post where I estimate 10^15
>     fission-triggered warheads based on the uranium content of Earth's
>     upper crust.
>
>
> What would they use if not uranium or plutonium? I'll admit that I'm
> not a chemist and never played one on TV (or for that matter now that
> I think of it, I've never played on in a game). :-)

Well, nobody's ever tried to my knowledge, but thorium is
fissionable. I've heard of reactor designs for it. Not sure if it's
suitable for a bomb though.

But more likely they are talking about fusion bombs *without* a
fission trigger. With Traveller tech, there are several likely
methods.

We don't know enough to determine which would be feasible or
cheapest/easiest.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com