Fusion Bomb Possibility

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We have nukes made out of fission bombs, but is it possible, once we master cold fusion, or if we do, that we could use its power, which would be hundreds upon hundreds times more powerful thasn our strongest nuke today, ever be harnessed into a "Fusion Bomb"?
 
We have nukes made out of fission bombs, but is it possible, once we master cold fusion, or if we do, that we could use its power, which would be hundreds upon hundreds times more powerful thasn our strongest nuke today, ever be harnessed into a "Fusion Bomb"?

It is quite possible that pure-fusion bombs may someday be possible, but it wouldn't be any more powerful than a conventional nuclear weapon. Modern nuclear weapons already use fusion for a large portion of their yield. The advantages of a pure-fusion bomb are that it wouldn't require fissile materials to make and it would produce very little fallout.

That said, this should really be in future history.
 
We have nukes made out of fission bombs, but is it possible, once we master cold fusion, or if we do, that we could use its power, which would be hundreds upon hundreds times more powerful thasn our strongest nuke today, ever be harnessed into a "Fusion Bomb"?

Hydrogen bombs, the most powerful nuclear weapons in current arsenels, already possess a fusion component, which is responsible for most of their yield. The fission device merely acting as a trigger to initiate the fusion reaction.

'hundreds upon hundreds of times more powerful' is however an exaggeration of their capability.

Cold Fusion is also probably impossible.
 
Modern nukes are fusion bombs, the fission part is only there to start a fusion reaction. So the only advantage of a pure fusion bomb is the greatly diminished fallout, which would probably lower the threshold to use them, at least for smaller designs in the -10KT range.
 
By some definitions we have "Fusion Bombs" already, they use a fission bomb to trigger a fusion bomb

We could theoretically make a pure fusion bomb today

It would be far less effective than standard fission-fusion bombs we use now and less powerful even than conventional weapons

Theoretically the limits of a pure fusion weapon are simply size, though there are still limits, you would get better power/weight than current weapons but not an extreme amount, one hundreds of times more powerful than anything in current arsenals would be too large to be a practical weapon
 
What do you mean by cold fusion?

Cold fusion as I understand it, is something like muon-catalyzed or laser-hydrogen triggered fusion without the fission reaction to kick-start current thermonuclear reactions.

For now the key issue of cold fusion is being able to do it without a titanic amount of energy input to overcome the strong nuclear forces to allow fusion to take place. Without fissionables, the assembly would be much more difficult to track and depending on the process, much cheaper to build etc.

As to what's next in nuclear high-explosives- you gotta ask- to do what?

Vaporize Apophis when it swings by in 2026 threatening K-T/Chicxulub part II?

Give folks a mini-nuke grenade-size that could vaporize a city block as RAH described in Starship Troopers?


If it's the former, that's something that I imagine would only happen with lots of international involvement for the direst threats only.

If it's the latter, the key factors are cost, worry about the consequences,
and whether it's just as dangerous to the user as the target.

There's been tactical-level thermonukes since the 1950's, mines, missiles, and artillery shells. The big problem is, sure you get a big bang, but it leaves a scorched, radioactive mess. Even airbursts and "clean" fusion or EHR (neutron) weapons have some fallout. Also, let's see, you have this "special" artillery shell which is 50X as effective as a convetional 155mm howitzer shell but costs 1500X as much even with economies of scale and every cost reduction. Plus, if you have a decent enough yield, (25kt+) your effective effective range and radius of effect are a pretty close run or cause as many problems to friendlies as hostiles.
 
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