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A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs , a more compact size, a lower mass, or a combination of these benefits.
The nuclear shaped charge concept was also studied extensively in the 1980s as part of Project Prometheus, along with bomb-pumped lasers. Using a combination of explosive wave-shaping and "gun-barrel" design, up to 5% of a small nuclear bomb could reportedly be converted into kinetic energy driving a beam of particles with a beam angle of 0.001 ...
The simplest way of building a fusion rocket is to use hydrogen bombs as proposed in Project Orion, but such a spacecraft would be massive and the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty prohibits the use of such bombs. For that reason bomb-based rockets would likely be limited to operating only in space.
This crash project was developed partially with information obtained via the atomic spies at the United States' Manhattan Project during and after World War II. The Soviet Union was the second nation to have developed and tested a nuclear weapon. It tested its first megaton-range hydrogen bomb ("RDS-37") in 1955.
Radiation implosion was first developed by Klaus Fuchs and John von Neumann in the United States, as part of their work on the original "Classical Super" hydrogen-bomb design. Their work resulted in a secret patent filed in 1946, and later given to the USSR by Fuchs as part of his nuclear espionage .
Physicist Edward Teller was for many years the chief force lobbying for research into developing fusion weapons.. The idea of using the energy from a fission device to begin a fusion reaction was first proposed by the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi to his colleague Edward Teller in the fall of 1941 during what would soon become the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort by the United ...
The 30-minute film, which opens with a 'Top secret' title, features all the test stages - from transportation of a 26-ton weapon in an aviation bomb casing by railway, to post-explosion ...
The visual effects of a high-altitude or space-based explosion may last longer than atmospheric tests, sometimes in excess of 30 minutes. Heat from the Bluegill Triple Prime shot, at an altitude of 50 kilometers (31 miles), was felt by personnel on the ground at Johnston Atoll , and this test caused retina burns to two personnel at ground zero ...