With the total caveat that I’m not a nuclear physicist, I think the problem is that as the core goes critical, it will output a profound lot of light. If the whole thing were to go through fission reaction, the light would very quickly not just melt but vaporize the beryllium hemispheres and then continue out to the rest of the local postal zipcode.
However, one of the problems is that while the core is critical it will want to break apart violently, and fragments of the core will be ejected before it goes through fission, hence the explosion would be dirty, getting plutonium everywhere.
Now we’ve developed designs for particle beam weapons, including neutron beam weapons, which are essentially magnetic accelerators where the ultimate target is external.
I think they are implying that when it is nearly fully enclosed it would go super critical…and kaboom.
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With the total caveat that I’m not a nuclear physicist, I think the problem is that as the core goes critical, it will output a profound lot of light. If the whole thing were to go through fission reaction, the light would very quickly not just melt but vaporize the beryllium hemispheres and then continue out to the rest of the local postal zipcode.
However, one of the problems is that while the core is critical it will want to break apart violently, and fragments of the core will be ejected before it goes through fission, hence the explosion would be dirty, getting plutonium everywhere.
Now we’ve developed designs for particle beam weapons, including neutron beam weapons, which are essentially magnetic accelerators where the ultimate target is external.