THE LUCIFER PROJECT ::: T-minus 6 days and counting.., page 2
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reply posted on 3-11-2007 @ 05:03 AM by diablomonic
reply to post by Essan


yeah but earths atmosphere is oxygen, which is way way harder to fuse than hydrogen and its also under a lot less pressure.

I get the feeling from trying to find answers that this is an area where "all bets are off" so to speak, ie we just dont know enough about it to say for certain that the triggered ignition of jupiter is not possible, all we know is that the spontaneous ignition of planets that size is not possible, according to our models.

also I found this re D-T vs normal H-H (proton proton) fusion:

hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...

apparently less than 15 million degrees is sufficient, which could be achieved by a fairly large fission blast
I'm still in the same boat as some of the original proponents of this CT: its unlikely but not impossible (Especially if it is a deliberate test/attempt therefore other slight improvements could have been made to ensure higher yields, further sinking before phase change etc)


reply posted on 3-11-2007 @ 12:05 PM by Tom Bedlam
Originally posted by diablomonic


ie the phase change is ENTIRELY relevant to the critical mass as it affects the density...


Only in that anything that affects the density affects the density. In this case, it's the external pressure that's the prime cause. The phase changes cause non-linearities in the density/pressure curve, but they are not the root cause of the density changes.


as far as I remember reading the pellets themselves, in there separate extremely tough containers, had enough mass to got super critical after the phase change. having more of the pellets round just increased the likely hood that one would collapse due the phase change quick enough to actually have a half decent yield (which is related to how over critical it can get before exploding, which is related to how quick it collapses, as Im sure you already know)


They're not that large. An individual GPHS-RTG (as used in Cassini) pellet is something like 150g and cylindrical. Were they using a different RTG for Galileo?

Not to mention that they're not metallic - they're 238PuO2, which is going to increase the required mass due to the absorption cross-section of the oxygen.


here it is "http://www.rinf.com/news/nov05/lucifer-project.html"


There's your first problem - RINF is as trustworthy as India Times or Weekly World News. Maybe not as much so as Pravda Online.



well the temperature is provided by the fission blast, which can reach millions of degrees, and then kept up by the subsequent fusion reactions. As to pressure, I dont know whats required, but jupiters pressure reaches ~4000 GPa and this would obviously be raised considerably locally by the explosion.


In a standard Teller-Ulam secondary, you have to have a fission primary putting out a ton of x-ray and gamma rays, which drive a compression wave that compresses the 6LiD fuel around a plutonium bar. The plutonium is eventually compressed sufficiently to cause a fission explosion in the center. So it basically takes the neutron flux (for the Li conversion to T), heat and pressure created by a fission explosion in the center of the fuel, combined with the ongoing physical and radiation pressure exerted by an external primary trigger. It's really rough to get this to work any other way.

You also only get that pressure you quote at the core of the planet, which you would not have been anywhere near.

As for calculations, go dig up the Lawson criterion, it will at least give you a clue about how to calculate initial ignition temperatures and pressures. It gets to be a bit more difficult to work out the sustainability once it ignites, since you're going to be losing heat in several ways, primarily through radiation, and the explosion will cause a pressure wave through the atmosphere. That usually takes a long numerical solution, there's several models for it, and you have to figure out why they diverge which they almost always do. But you can get a nice rule of thumb by just assuming a constant pressure and no heat loss. If it can't meet that, it won't ignite anyway.

As far as H-H being more difficult than D-T, there's a couple of reasons. First and worst is the fact that H-H -> He is not a single stage reaction. It requires several steps and time. First, you have to fuse two protons (about 10E7 degrees to get that one to go), and that has to have time to decay to deuterium by emitting a positron and a neutrino. This is admittedly not long, but it does take time during which your density is dropping as the reaction begins to expand. Then you have to corral two of those deuterium atoms and fuse them, with a critical ignition temp of about 4E8 degrees. That's not so straightforward. There's an even worse chain where you fuse the deuterium with another proton to make He3, then fuse the two He3's in yet a third reaction. That's the more likely one in terms of energy requirements, but it takes three separate fusion events, all of which are of low orders of probability.

It's why we use hydrogen isotopes with neutrons already in there like tritium and deuterium. You don't have to wait to make two neutrons by positron emission. Having to manage fusions twice per reaction (or three, even worse) also craps all over your requirements for density and time, because you have multiplied two (or three) small probabilities together. That's why H-H generally only happens in the cores of stars where you have hellish densities and very long confinement times.




"The question you should ask yourself is - how many Hiroshimas was the impact of Shoemaker-Levy? It hit with an amazing amount of energy."

irrelevant. whats relevant is whether the impact energy was concentrated enough at any place to achieve the required temperatures and pressures... which it obviously wasn't and that doesn't surprise me. Also that impact was to the outside of the planet, therefore the energy was mainly released in the upper atmosphere, where the pressure is not so high. These pellets sink quite deep to a point where the pressure may indeed be high enough to help sustain ignition (at least, its a lot more likely than at the surface)


Incorrect. The impact energy was concentrated in the leading edge of the impacting objects, an area where a huge amount of compression is also ongoing, as I'm sure you'd agree. There were several impactors that were quite large. The total impact energy, by the way, was estimated at 50,000,000 Hiroshimas - not insubstantial.

For fun - Lawson's original paper. Warning - pdf. Here's lots of info and I don't have to get off my lazy arse and fire up mathcad to do the equations. You can't do much of a job on one of these boards with math, so I end up having to fire up mathcad to make equation jpg's you can post. It's a pain, and no-one much understands it anyway, I quit doing it long ago.


on the page I linked, it is mentioned that:

2003 (July) Geographer, J.C. Goliathan publishes a report stating that a nuclear reaction is slightly possible if Galileo goes into Jupiter.

25 2003 (early Sept) Physicist, Jacco van der Worp publishes a report warning of what could happen if Galileo plunges into Jupiter citing Goliathan's report and actually crunching the numbers to prove it. Jacco sites the low probability, but believes the risk is high enough to warrant a warning.


I can't find that Goliathan has ever published. That doesn't necessarily mean anything, but in one of these cases it generally makes me want to verify he has the academic credentials he claims.

Looking at van der Worp, he's sort of tied up into this Planet X/Nibiru/free energy/YOWUSA bullcrap, and sells CT books. He's also a MSc, which I will be too sometime next year, but I won't call myself a physicist with a masters'.

You might look around, you said you'd had some physics classes? van der Worp says that a magnet stuck to the underside of a metal plate is doing work. What would you say? Do you think it is? (note to other ATS'ers, "work" in physics is not the same as "effort" in English)

At any rate, Galileo hit in September of 2003, no new sun.

[edit on 3-11-2007 by Tom Bedlam]


reply posted on 4-11-2007 @ 10:42 AM by diablomonic
Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
Only in that anything that affects the density affects the density. In this case, it's the external pressure that's the prime cause.


not going to argue on the semantics of it, you are correct that the external pressure causes the density changes, but the fact that there is a phase change to a higher density state and that this "collapse" could occur quite quickly (though I doubt anything like as quick as a shaped charge crushing a spherical shell) means to me that there is at least a slight possibility of a decent yield explosion


They're not that large. An individual GPHS-RTG (as used in Cassini) pellet is something like 150g and cylindrical.

as far as I know this is correct. (just noticed cylyndrical so even more unlikely to be super critical) According one of document I read (with no in depth verifying calculations...) this may be sufficient for this particular isotope mix in the higher density phase. Feel free to show how this is incorrect, I'm not convinced either way. another option was for some of them to be forced together during descent (even more unlikely, UNLESS deliberately designed to occur...)



There's your first problem - RINF is as trustworthy as ...


never heard of it (rinf) previously myself, please read it anyway and address the argument not the source.


In a standard Teller-Ulam secondary
.... It's really rough to get this to work any other way.

fair enough, not gonna argue, but this is not really applicable (Li transmutation/product fusion vs H-H fusion.. see later sun comment)


You also only get that pressure you quote at the core of the planet...


you are correct. I should look up what pressure the phase change actually happens at. This number was more to do with IF (and yes its a big if) the fusion was triggered and managed to "find its way" to the center of jupiter, could it sustain itself there?


As for calculations, go dig up the Lawson criterion, ...

you sound like you may be able to actually DO these calculations.. love to see them done for this particular situation (that was a complement not sarcasm). I'm having a look through the document you linked.

As far as H-H being more difficult than D-T, there's a couple of reasons. First and worst is the fact that H-H -> He is not a single stage reaction. It requires several steps ...

yeah I was looking at that while checking up for my last post.

It all came down to this though: the sun manages to achieve this process at sub 15 million degrees.

Obviously the greater pressure helps, as probably does the fact that it has already reached some degree of, erm, "pressure equilibrium" between inward and outward forces, Im just curious if this is a NECESSARY part of it, or if jupiters pressure suffices (even for a short non stable reaction)

as to your work question: no, I would not say that, work requires a force to be applied over a distance ( and results in a change in kinetic energy of the object to which the work is done, so the direction of the force also matters to whether work is done or not: ie object in orbit: force, distance but no work, object falling out of orbit: work). if the magnet is not moving in relation to the plate, it cannot do any work on it.

to answer your real question: basic physics and physics concepts were never a problem to me, I did extremely well, HOWEVER This is beyond my knowledge base (and what I do know is from long ago so hazy) therefore I can only comment in general terms (unless I bother to get right back into it and work out the maths, which is probably not gonna happen).
what Im really trying to do is show that in general terms, its not quite as nuts as to be immediately dismissed without even looking at it, only very unlikely, and hoping someone WILL do the required calcs to prove it either way.
(and yes, if he said that, it disturbs me a little)


reply posted on 4-11-2007 @ 11:06 AM by diablomonic
reply to post by Tom Bedlam



Incorrect. The impact energy was concentrated in the leading edge of the impacting objects, an area where a huge amount of compression is also ongoing, as I'm sure you'd agree. There were several impactors that were quite large. The total impact energy, by the way, was estimated at 50,000,000 Hiroshimas - not insubstantial.



yes but what was the maximum temperature involved, and how deep (ie at what surrounding pressure) was this achieved? my intuition (which obviously could be wrong) tells me it didnt reach 15+ million degrees and especially not at a considerable depth/pressure (relative to the sinking rtg pellets) this ties into another of your comments:


At any rate, Galileo hit in September of 2003, no new sun.


about the ONLY reason I give this theory any time at all is because of what happened a month or two later, perhaps in response to it:

www.space.com...

a huge black spot appeared.

apparently it would take roughly a month for the rtg pellets to reach the depths required fo the phase change to occur (this calculation, if it was even done properly, is obviously going to have some very big error bars on it since it involves the structure of Jupiter's atmosphere (largely unknown) and the aerodynamics of the falling rtg (also largely unknown))

THAT is the thing that makes me pause and go hmmm... I dont think so but...maybe?

(the theory being that after falling to this depth, one or more of the pellets "went off" in a fission explosion but failed to create a sustained fusion reaction


Dr Teller was afraid that the blast would produce sufficient energy to start a Bethe cycle (solar phoenix) between CO2, nitrogen and water vapor. It turns out that not even the Sun is large enough to use the Bethe cycle, but it took them some time to decide it couldn't happen.

Supposedly Fermi was taking bets at the Trinity site as to whether or not they'd got the maths right.


pretty safe bet I guess (assuming he bet against it happening), not like he'd be around to care if he lost... wonder what the odds were?




reply posted on 4-11-2007 @ 12:52 PM by Tom Bedlam
Originally posted by diablomonic...the fact that there is a phase change to a higher density state and that this "collapse" could occur quite quickly (though I doubt anything like as quick as a shaped charge crushing a spherical shell) means to me that there is at least a slight possibility of a decent yield explosion


I went looking cursorily for a phase diagram for plutonium oxide but didn't find one worth using. 238Pu isn't the world's best fissile due to self-radiation - so if you didn't get a really snappy collapse you'll just fizzle. Also when you compress a high density material with a low density material (Jovian atmosphere on pellet) you get boundary conditions conducive to the formation of Munroe jets. It's why you see those lumps of dense material actually doing the compression in the on-line depictions of nuclear bomb design. So what happens is, when the collapse occurs, it's like squirting water in your hands. You don't get a good mass. That's exacerbated by the cylindrical shape of the pellet.

Also, I'm not sure you can get enough compression to make 150g of material critical, especially without a reflector, although I'd have to run through the criticality rule of thumb, which requires a lot of info on the material and some miserable number munching. My gut feel is that you cannot. With very careful attention to detail you can get useful super-criticality with "significantly less" than the bare sphere number of about 10kg, but even the "PP shot" used way over 150g.


never heard of it (rinf) previously myself, please read it anyway and address the argument not the source.


I am, obviously, but you should really avoid that site if you want useful information. They thrive on inaccuracy. Fish around there, you'll see.


fair enough, not gonna argue, but this is not really applicable (Li transmutation/product fusion vs H-H fusion.. see later sun comment)


Yet, it's an example of the lengths you have to go to to get even D-T to work, much less a three-stage H-H process, which is why I mentioned it in passing.


you sound like you may be able to actually DO these calculations.. love to see them done for this particular situation (that was a complement not sarcasm). I'm having a look through the document you linked.


It's been about 20 years since I last used it other than for play. Damn, how time flies. We had to learn the basics at a job I once had so we wouldn't screw up egregiously by ignorance.


as to your work question: no, I would not say that, work requires a force to be applied over a distance ( and results in a change in kinetic energy of the object to which the work is done, so the direction of the force also matters to whether work is done or not: ie object in orbit: force, distance but no work, object falling out of orbit: work). if the magnet is not moving in relation to the plate, it cannot do any work on it.


Bingo! I ran across a statement from him to that end last night. Apparently he made the mistake of venturing into one of the dens of "real physicists", and put forth a number of very puzzling statements, of which that was one. He fled the forum in the face of a nasty scathing. I didn't bookmark it but most likely if you look for "van der worp magnet work" you'd come across it.

The crowd he hangs with is pretty loony.


reply posted on 4-11-2007 @ 05:01 PM by Tom Bedlam
reply to post by zorgon


I'm not saying that the sun is on fire. You were the one saying that Saturn was combustible and likening it to a gas stove and the Hindenberg.


reply posted on 4-11-2007 @ 06:01 PM by Melbourne_Militia
Just thought I'd throw this into the mix -

curious.astro.cornell.edu...

What elements make up the Sun?

The predominant element in the Sun is hydrogen, and then helium: by mass, it is 70% hydrogen, 28% helium, 1.5% carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, and 0.5% all other elements. We expect stars of the Sun's size to be composed mainly of hydrogen and helium since these are the elements formed shortly after the Big Bang, whereas all other elements are made during a star's life or death. More interestingly, we know that the Sun is not big enough to make the 0.5% "other" elements for itself: this means that the Sun is not a first generation star but formed in a region where more massive, violent stars once lived.


So it states that our Sun "does" have oxygen, but it is shared with carbon, nitrogen, which only constitute 1.5% of the Suns total makeup.

Therefore the question must be asked, is 1.5% comprised oxygen enough to enable the sun to burn as it does?

And if that is the case, could smashing the payload into Saturn or Jupiter, not only spark a nuclear reaction but could oxygen be a byproduct of the reaction and by chance that would be enough of it tocontinue to burn?

Just a theory, and unfortunately Im not as educated in chemistry as I wish I was


reply posted on 4-11-2007 @ 09:58 PM by diablomonic
Hi tom

heres some paragraphs I'd like you to debunk/confirm for me from that link I posted:

"In summary, most of the cylinders will survive the initial impact with Saturn's upper atmosphere, because they are designed to do that, they have been successfully tested at an impact pressure of 19,600 PSI and higher than that for non-impact pressure.16 Each cylinder has a heat shield that can withstand temperatures in excess of 6400° F. "

-seems true to me

"The notion that Pu-238 cannot be fissile is very much in error, at least when talking about Saturn/Jupiter conditions. I will use Jacco van der Worp's analysis and also remind the reader of the declassified 1962 test mentioned earlier."
-this is also apparently true, according to my research. Interestingly even though officially it has been tested successfully in a fission device, this "http://nuclear.inl.gov/spacenuclear/docs/final72005faqs.pdf" gov website about the safety of it claims it would be almost impossible to engineer one...


"Pu-238 has a normalized reactivity of 1.1 and a spontaneous fission rate of 3440 neutrons per gram per second. This results in critical mass under normal conditions at 200 grams (this is why the cylinders are kept at 151 grams or 1/3 lb to avoid critical in Cassini)."

- this I dont know. It does have a way shorter half life than 239, so I'd assume this makes its critical mass quite a bit smaller. Like you mentioned, it being PuO2 not pure Pu would obviously affect this, and also it being cylindrical and not spherical. I vaguely remember finding a relevant phase diagram a year ago or so which I cant seem to relocate. would be interesting to know exactly how much density difference we are talking about.
- the rtg pellets are surrounded by graphite (which apparently can work as a neutron reflector) and iridium (which has a very high density making it a possible tamper reflector: its inertia delays the expansion after supercriticality allowing a higher yield. (I would imagine the official reason they are there is their strength and heat resistant properties)



"The cylinders will keep falling and may wander apart or stay together when the craft burns up - it doesn't matter much because each cylinder will eventually reach critical on its own when the pressure builds enough in the fall into Saturn. Even if the cylinders wander apart, each one that is still intact will be ignited by a shower of neutrons from any cylinder that ignites. Around ¼ of the plutonium may fission because the surrounding Saturn pressure will maximize the results."

again, your comments would be appreciated

" With 72 lbs (32.7 kg) of plutonium this is equivalent to a 600 kiloton explosion. In comparison, the Nagasaki explosion used 7 kilograms, 1.2kg of which went into fission and caused a 22 kiloton explosion. This Saturn explosion would create temperatures of around 100,000,000° K because of the high density at the point of detonation. Even the sun's interior is not that hot (only 30,000,000° K). This is way above the threshold for fusion to start. Saturn is similar in content to the sun and the same ingredients can produce the same result: ignition of the entire body of dense hydrogen. 7 "

if the preceding blocks of text are true, then this would be true to I think...


anyway, it would appear to me that if one went off, nearby ones would trigger due to being close to triggering anyway, and being blasted with neutrons (which would preceed the pressure wave) meaning that you could get multiple detonations whose pressure waves all push in towards certain points, allowing extremely high pressures to form in parts of the atmosphere and heightening the chance of a fusion blast. Any comments?


reply posted on 5-11-2007 @ 01:28 AM by SevenThunders
reply to post by diablomonic


I'm not a nuclear physicist, but I thought that Saturn would be too small to sustain a star-like nuclear fusion reaction. I mean you need some kind of critical mass to achieve the desired pressure I'd imagine. If the pellets do fission, the area of exploding gases would have a much lower mass density and thus would be forced to bubble back up to the surface. This probably makes the ignition of Saturn even trickier. Still, given the insanity of the shadow government I wouldn't be surprised if they were trying.


reply posted on 5-11-2007 @ 07:43 AM by diablomonic
reply to post by SevenThunders


Saturn and Jupiter are too small to spontaneously start a stable fusion reaction internally, but as far as I've read, this has a lot more to do with not achieving the required temperature spontaneously than not being able to keep it going if triggered artificially. I would like to see this proven wrong, but as far as I know(not all that far ), this is right.

as to bubbling up due to lower pressure: Id imagine the heat/pressure front of a nuclear fusion chain reaction would outrace the speed it bubbles up due to buoyancy, meaning IF it could manage to become self sustaining, then yes lots of hot gas would bubble up but the actual fusion would still remain deep within the planet


reply posted on 5-11-2007 @ 07:58 AM by Tom Bedlam
Originally posted by diablomonic

"The notion that Pu-238 cannot be fissile is very much in error, at least when talking about Saturn/Jupiter conditions. I will use Jacco van der Worp's analysis and also remind the reader of the declassified 1962 test mentioned earlier."
-this is also apparently true, according to my research. Interestingly even though officially it has been tested successfully in a fission device, this "http://nuclear.inl.gov/spacenuclear/docs/final72005faqs.pdf" gov website about the safety of it claims it would be almost impossible to engineer one...


I don't have a lot of time so it may be tomorrow before I can get back to you on this post in detail. Yes, you can use it in a fission device but it's incredibly crappy. Not only do you have a lot of issues with that self-heating thing making it physically unstable, but it has a really high spontaneous fission rate which tends to make it fizzle. I think I mentioned that part of it a couple of posts back. Oh, and it's uncool to have your physics package putting out 5kW of heat wrapped up by precision explosives charges - they tend to melt, deform, separate chemically or become "touchy".


"Pu-238 has a normalized reactivity of 1.1 and a spontaneous fission rate of 3440 neutrons per gram per second. This results in critical mass under normal conditions at 200 grams (this is why the cylinders are kept at 151 grams or 1/3 lb to avoid critical in Cassini)."


That part's just absolutely wrong, though, so I thought I would let you go look for that yourself while I'm off with customers late into the evening.

The bare sphere critical mass for 238Pu is something like 9.9-10.1 kg. It's just a hair less than for 239Pu. Now, the phrase "under normal conditions" is just bs. You have to specify the conditions you are discussing. For example, you generally use a bare sphere number at STP for comparisons. A cylinder will have a different critical mass than a sphere. A mass with a reflector will have a different critical mass by far than one without. So "under normal conditions" - what does that even mean? If he's saying bare sphere at STP, he's absolutely incorrect. Again, the weapons I know about personally, even the ones engineered for really high compressions, aren't anywhere near as low as 150g.

So your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to go and find several cites for the bare sphere critical mass for 238Pu.

(peeks)

Ah, yes, amazing, found one first shot.

Even better, they worked out the numbers for 238PuO2! Skim down to table III. Down the left are the names of the mathematical models they're using, I mentioned that above. They diverge somewhat but they're pretty close, probably because it's a solid spherical geometry. And the tables tell me for 238PuO2, that the unreflected bare sphere critical mass is no less than 24.97kg. Not grams. Kilograms.

Up in table II you see a lot more divergence for metallic 238Pu, most of them are yielding in the 9-10kg range but a couple are down in the 7 kg range. You can generally toss the outliers.

So, what have we learned? His phrasing is off, pretty badly in places, which generally tells me he hasn't actually worked with the stuff 'professionally', next, his numbers are off by three orders of magnitude. I think this tells you what you need to know about Mr van der Worp and that site.

Anyway, you'll get the same ranges of numbers anywhere legitimate that you look. And that's why I keep saying you probably can't get enough compression using any reasonable method to get 150g to criticality. You generally have about 1/2-2/3 a bare sphere CM. If you have to compress the metal down to 1/100 the volume or something, you just can't do it either due to the force required or boundary instabilities that lead to Munroe jets and mass disassembly by "squirting".
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