Nuclear Weapons Material

[Lucky Green]

This thread is just too interesting...

Mikolaj wrote:

>
>        This also depends on the type of bomb. In a two-stage fusion
>bomb, you are quite correct - the tritium-deuterium/tritium fusion
>reaction gives the boom. However, in a three-stage bomb, there is an
>additional fission reaction, this due to the fact that the neutrons
>produced by the fusion reaction have the precise energy required to
>fission U-238. Since U-238 is vastly easier to obtain than enriched
>U-235, there is no great problem with sticking in half a tonne of it.
>Around that you can add cobalt jackets, etc, for more interesting
>effects.
>

What does the cobalt jacket do?


-- Lucky Green <shamrock at netcom.com>  PGP public key by finger