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
