Documents / Report
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/ /P9Pl 8Pfl&I.t.k WE'lii Si'IU Y release intense bursts of keV X-rays capable of igniting a DT thermonuclear reaction, which in turn could ignite a larger deuterium detonation. To realize the first possibility, one might consider pumping a solid argon rod with a convergent cylindrical shock wave driven by a high explosive (Reference 9). If the argon rod is placed in the center of convergence and reaches a temperature of 90,000 °K, the upper ultraviolet laser level of the argon will be populated. Following this heating, the argon cylinder radially expands and cools, with the upper laser level frozen into the argon. The energy thus stored in the upper laser level can then be removed from the rod by a small Q-switched laser, the resulting powerful laser pulse optically focused onto a thermonuclear target. To realize the second possibility, one would have to subject suitable materials to very high pressure (Reference 10, 11). These energetic states can be reached only if during their compression the materials are not appreciably heated, because such heating would prevent the electrons from forming the bridges between the inner electron shells. Details of the second possibility are provided in the appendix. Magnetic Insulation and Inductive Charging Two concepts are of great importance for the envisioned realization of a deuterium fusion-driven starship: • The concept of magnetic insulation, which permits the attainment of ultrahigh voltages in high vacuum (Reference 1). • The concept of inductive charging, by which a magnetically insulated conductor can be charged up to very high electric potentials (Reference 12). MAGNETIC INSULATION In a greatly simplified way, magnetic insulation can be understood as follows: if the electric field on the surface of a negatively charged conductor reaches a critical field on the order of Ee~ 107 V/cm, the conductor becomes the source of electrons emitted by field emission. The critical electric field for the emission of ions from a positively charged conductor is~ 108 V/cm. Therefore, if in a high-voltage diode the electric field reaches~ 10 7 V/cm, breakdown will occur by electric field emission from the cathode to the anode. But if a magnetic field of strength 8 measured in gauss is applied in a direction parallel to the negatively charged surface, and if B > E, where E (like B) is measured in electrostatic cgs units, the field-emitted electrons make a drift motion parallel to the surface of the conductor with the velocity. w w ExB E v =c--=c- 11 B2 B ( 1) To keep vd/C < 1 then requires that E < H. Let us assume that H;:.::; 2x 104 G, which can be reached with ordinary electromagnets, means that E:::; 2x 104 esu = 6x 106 V/cm. 3 UNCLASSIFIED//r;Oll oi;i;1,;;1•k llili O•lk¥
Not linked to a story yet.
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.