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The problem I have with this announcement is how limiting this technology path is to the future generation of power. If you look at the details, they imploded a

by jboy55 4y ago

The problem I have with this announcement is how limiting this technology path is to the future generation of power. If you look at the details, they imploded a sphere containing hydrogen with X-rays created by the interaction of the lasers with an outer casing. As a reminder, the second stage of an hbomb is the implosion of a cylinder of hydrogen, encased by uranium, by x-rays ablating the outer case. X-Rays produced by the explosion of a A-Bomb. The lasers are thus serving as a proxy for the first stage of a H-bomb. The critical question, how much of this design is to figure out how to produce energy from fusion with the aim of powerplant design, and how much of the design is to better replicate the second stage of a h-bomb? Edit: I'll have to research, but I would have to expect that the announcement of the h-bomb had language that also heralded this as the beginning of a 'fusion age' of power generation.

Gibbon1 4y ago
Sketch thing is that perhaps they're try to design an hydrogen bomb that doesn't require a fission primary. Use a laser to ignite the first stage, which ignites the next and so on. What if you can get 100X boost per stage, three stages gives you a gain of 1 million.
- jboy55 4y ago
  There is just basic h-bomb efficiency gains here. By lowering the energy requirement for the fission primary by finding more efficient ways to control/generate the X-Rays you can use a smaller and smaller primary. It also occurs to me how analogous this research is to the early x-ray laser tech, that Teller claimed could shoot down warheads for the Star Wars program in the 80s. Those designs had rods that would amplify and focus the x-rays from a nuclear bomb on incoming warheads. If you could initiate the x-ray chain reaction from a laser, you would be able to launch these without breaking the 'no nuclear weapons in space' treaty.

by jboy55 4y ago

Gibbon1 4y ago

Sketch thing is that perhaps they're try to design an hydrogen bomb that doesn't require a fission primary. Use a laser to ignite the first stage, which ignites the next and so on. What if you can get 100X boost per stage, three stages gives you a gain of 1 million.

jboy55 4y ago
There is just basic h-bomb efficiency gains here. By lowering the energy requirement for the fission primary by finding more efficient ways to control/generate the X-Rays you can use a smaller and smaller primary. It also occurs to me how analogous this research is to the early x-ray laser tech, that Teller claimed could shoot down warheads for the Star Wars program in the 80s. Those designs had rods that would amplify and focus the x-rays from a nuclear bomb on incoming warheads. If you could initiate the x-ray chain reaction from a laser, you would be able to launch these without breaking the 'no nuclear weapons in space' treaty.