richter@pavepaws.berkeley.edu (Adam J. Richter) (05/20/86)
All of the speculation on the feasability of a californium-based micronuke inspired my to look it up in the CRC handbook (a couple of years old). According to it, californium can be purchased for $10/microgram and the total amount of californium produced at the date of publication was roughly 65 milligrams. So, if the critical mass of californium is, say, 6.5 grams then each bomb would cost roughly sixty-five million clams and would use a thousand times the total world production of californium. This does not make it impossible. After all, I'm sure that if one wanted to make that much of the stuff, it would become much cheaper, but if you were saving your pennies for it, forget it. -- Adam P.S.: Does anyone know of any summer programming/aerospace projects/jobs around? Thanks.