Winterbergs micro-chemical fusion bomblets

From NextBigFuture.com

Winterberg’s work in nuclear rocket propulsion earned him the 1979 Hermann Oberth Gold Medal of the Wernher von Braun International Space Flight Foundation. Winterberg is well respected for his work in the fields of nuclear fusion and plasma physics, and Edward Teller has been quoted as saying that he had “perhaps not received the attention he deserves” for his work on fusion.

Nextbigfuture has recently written briefly about a recent Winterberg paper – Hybrid Chemical-Nuclear Convergent Shock Wave High Gain Magnetized Target Fusion

Winterberg describes how to use a chemical explosive to boost the a nuclear fusion reaction that generates 1000 times the energy of the chemical explosive.

Winterberg describes a 30 cm sphere (1 foot sphere) of high explosive that would generate a 25 ton hybrid chemical – nuclear fusion pulse.

The 14 MeV DT fusion reaction neutrons are slowed down in its dense combustion products, raising the temperature in it to 100000 K. At this temperature the kinetic energy of the expanding fire ball can be converted at a high (almost 100%) efficiency directly into electric energy by an MHD Faraday generator. In this way most of the 80% neutron energy can be converted into electric energy, about three times more than in magnetic (ITER) or inertial (ICF) DT fusion concepts.

Currently we use high explosive, nuclear fission- nuclear fusion system for nuclear fusion bombs (Teller-Ulam bombs). The Winterberg system would remove the nuclear fission component which produces all of the fallout. The micro-chemical fusion system would have almost no fallout. It would enable nuclear pulse propulsion systems with almost clean pulses.

It would also be a way to make nuclear devices that were 1000 times the power of chemical bombs that scaled down to smaller weapons.

HMX, also called octogen, is a powerful and relatively insensitive nitroamine high explosive, chemically related to RDX. Like RDX, the compound’s name is the subject of much speculation, having been variously listed as High Melting eXplosive, Her Majesty’s eXplosive, High-velocity Military eXplosive, or High-Molecular-weight rdX. HMX is used almost exclusively in military applications, including as the detonator in nuclear weapons, in the form of polymer-bonded explosive, and as a solid rocket propellant.

Read more »

See more and subscribe to NextBigFuture at NextBigFuture.com