Same problems as with metallic hydrogen. Takes giganormous pressure to make the stuff and then the question remains how stable is metastable at SATP? A physicist might rejoice something as metastable if it stays together for a millisecond but that has little practical value as rocket fuel or h-bomb fuse. Couldn't find half-life or something similar quoted for this matter.
Yes - just for clarification, "metastable" here does not refer to something that lives long enough for you to touch it or gather it up. In this case, the "metastable" molecule survives for only a brief fraction of a second, but that's long enough for it to convert the chemical explosive kinetic energy into X-ray energy that can perform inertial confinement fusion triggering.So this thing provides a mechanism to convert the chemical explosion into nuclear fusion triggering, without having to go through any fission intermediary step along the way to get to the fusion. That means no fallout. Since fallout was a concern for Orion, then maybe this mechanism could provide the means to do Orion mini-nuke explosions without the fallout problem. What if you could have an Orion without fallout? Would that make the idea legitimately feasible - or would the idea still be non-workable due to other reasons?Furthermore, would the Orion approach be the best way to make use of this chemonuclear physics for rocket propulsion purposes? Or would there be some other design that could work better?
Even without any fission chain reaction going on to trigger the fusion, you still have fusion producing a large number of very energetic neutrons. They're going to cause secondary fusion and fission in whatever they end up hitting, right? So I'd think you'd still get various radioactive elements being created. I don't know how to quantify it, though, compared to the fallout from a conventional thermonuclear explosion.Also, if you're doing something like Orion, those neutrons will be flying out over the surface of the Earth, hitting people directly. In addition to fallout, there's the direct effect of the primary radiation on those people.Again, I don't know what the dose would be, so someone would need to do the calculations.
However, now that I think about it, a fallout-free chemo-nuclear bomb might be useful for terraforming or even doing tunneling or mining on Mars or the Moon. Maybe you could melt the Martian icecaps with it.
Yeah, I thought you'd say that - but what about icecaps? That's not soil, that's all light elements.
My understanding from that (could not find "Fig. A4") is that the chemical "superexplosive" is the momentary result of a conventional explosive shockwave. It would then instantly decomposes with a localised x-ray burst to trigger first DT and then DD fusion.So no manufacture, storage, or handling required...
Quote from: sanman on 02/27/2015 12:41 amYeah, I thought you'd say that - but what about icecaps? That's not soil, that's all light elements.I thought the point of your suggestion was to dig big holes in the dirt. I'm not sure what the point of vaporizing icecaps would be.Actually, I think there's something to your original suggestion of using a nuke to move large amounts of dirt and rock. As Jim pointed out, you'd get a lot of radioactive byproducts even if the bomb itself didn't have a fission trigger, but maybe that's OK. Creating a very large underground space might be very useful for setting up a colony. The worst of the radioactive elements decay quickly (which is what makes them the most deadly to begin with), so if you wait a while, the artificial cave will be safe to live in. Living deep underground you get shielding from energetic nuclei from the sun and extra-solar sources, which is probably more dangerous than the residual radiation from the blast. And you don't have to do much work to keep an atmosphere sealed inside.