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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document from the Defense Intelligence Agency, dated 11 March 2010, was produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) Program. It argues that spaceships powered by deuterium thermonuclear reactions could be built with current science and technology. The paper covers ignition by GeV proton beams, magnetic insulation, the Super Marx generator and conjectured chemical superexplosives, and it concludes that such craft could make manned exploration of the entire solar system possible.
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFHiI.«1k '1181!!! 8HLY l > le (15) where le = Su. In Table 2, the values for a and le for all the charged fusion products of the DD reaction are compiled. For all of them, the critical current is below le= 3.84 x 10 6 A. Therefore, with the choice l ~ 10 7 A, all the charged fusion products are entrapped inside the deuterium cylinder. Table 2. Critical Ignition Currents for Thermonuclear Reactions Reaction Fusion Product Energy [Me V] a [G cm] I, [A] OT He' 3.6 2.7x IO' 1.35 x IO" DD He-' 0.8 1.12x IO' 5.6x 10' DD T 1.0 2.5 X IQ) 1.25 X ]0° DD H 3.0 2.Sx IO' 1.25x!0" DHe-' H 14.65 5.56 x IO' 3.84x IO" DHc· He" 3.66 2.78x IO· 1.39 X ]0° For the argon ion laser configuration proposed for the launch into Earth orbit, where a small amount of DT serves as a trigger for the ignition of a larger amount of deuterium, the ignition of a magnetic field supported detonation wave in deuterium is possible there with an auxiliary high-explosive-driven megampere current generator, setting up an axial magnetic field, by an azimuthal current around the rod. The charged fusion products there are spiraling down the rod. The current needed to entrap the charged fusion products are there on the same order of magnitude; that is, ~ 107 A. For the deuterium-tritium thermonuclear reaction, the condition for a propagating burn in a sphere of radius rand density p, heated to a temperature of 108 K, is given by pr 2 I g/cm 2 . This requires energy of about 1 megajoule (MJ). For the deuterium reaction, this condition is pr 2 IO g/cm 2, with an ignition temperature about 10 times larger. That a thermonuclear detonation in deuterium is possible at all is due to the secondary combustion of the T and He3 DD fusion reaction products (Reference 8). The energy required would be about 10 4 times larger, or about 104 MJ-for all practical purposes out of reach for nonfission ignition. However, if the ignition and burn are along a deuterium cylinder, where the charged fusion products are entrapped by a magnetic field within the cylinder, the condition pr 210 g/cm 2 is replaced by ;x 210 g/cm 2 ( 16) where z is the length of the cylinder. 8 UNCLASSIFIED//FQII. QFFUiiliR.k WIiii &•II!¥
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 37 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.