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Did Ted Taylor have a hand in the W54, & do you think its design influenced the design of Project Orion propellant charges? Don't recall any mention in George Dyson's book. I think Taylor joined the project in 1958.
Taylor is credited for the W54, yes, and he himself says the idea of small fission weapons was useful in Orion. But I don't think the W-54 was itself used in Orion in any way, just the experience of it. This is from G. Dyson:pic.twitter.com/fOASOu9KRm
A "full implosion bomb that you could hold in one hand that was about six inches in diameter" is awfully close to the nuclear hand grenade concept being tossed around (sorry!) in Congress in the early 1950s, at a time when nuclearizing conventional weapons was in vogue. Yikes!
Fun discussion. Some more information from C. Hansen on W54 and SADM. He claims 10 to 20 Tons yield on M-159/ SADM. I question his sources though. Note one being from Solider of Fortune Magazine...pic.twitter.com/KElpqtQYyt
I think Hansen wrong & has been source for claims of .01-.02kt yield claims going forward. only primary doc source giving a yield for Mk54 Mod 2 says 20 tons. Lil Feller tests both 20 tons +\- 10%. It’s 20 tons to me until someone coughs up a PRIMARY source doc otherwisepic.twitter.com/LzeVE4JOkD
I tend to take physicists talking in public like this with a grain of salt.
Excellent advice for anything physicists say, really. :p
How much yield could a 6 inch device make?
I don't know, but the term micro-nuke would be applicable.
Apart from the gee-whiz factor, discussing micro-nukes helps illuminate just how powerful nukes are. The W54 was 2X as powerful as the GBU-57 MOP, 70 lbs vs 11 tons
Or two to five times more powerful (depending on the yield) than the ammonium nitrate truck bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in April 1995. BTW, the W54 itself weighed just 51 pounds. The fully-assembled M388 projectile weighed 76 pounds.
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