planet Jupiter

Jupiter has been described as a star that failed - albeit downsized from a viable star

[See also Jupiter's 3:1-'twin'-relation to Saturn]

But within the deepest depths of Jupiter is an accumulation of stellar fusion-fuel, high in deuterium content, that might sustain a brief burn.

I propose to detonate Jupiter [or Saturn] and 'burp' its atmosphere, to put a planet-size load of gas into orbit for more convenient repropellanting the GNSCruisers. This scheme shall require the development and deployment of a liquid-uranium 'lub' nuclear fission bomb deposited into the planetary depths. Initially the 'lub' shall be solid, but as it sinks to great overpressures it liquifies and compresses: this constrains the design to liquid-mode only. The 'lub' shall be a chemical compound of uranium, which may detonate by one of two methods: 1) rapid phase-change to higher density (compactness) at the super pressures encountered in the depths, or possibly 2) pressure-triggered chemical decomposition 'cold' explosion of the 'lub' itself, first expanding the 'lub' matrix, and allowing the lighter nuclide chemical explosive to escape the slower-moving heavy nuclide uranium mass, and cooling somewhat to lower recompression resistance - and releasing a quantity of lithium for incipient tritium production, and allowing hydrogen-deuterium moderator to intermix to chain-reaction to convert included 238U to 239Np rapidly - followed by re-compressing rapidly to over-density critical compactness [for the increased fissile mass] [SIC: critical mass] and inertial-(self)-tampered detonation. The detonating 'lub' triggers a region of the local deuterium-lithium mix to nuclear fusion [via deuterium-tritium] - which triggers a larger surrounding region of plainer deuterium ....

This 'lub' device may earn a nickname for the GNSC Grand Nuclear Space Cruiser as a 'planet-destroyer' (near-stellar gas-planets).

This article was done in development of a project SesQuaTercet movie-story.

A premise discovery under the title,

Grand-Admiral Petry
'Majestic Service in a Solar System'
Nuclear Emergency Management

© 1996 GrandAdmiralPetry@Lanthus.net