>>2005287

a thought re: Sum of All Fears

salted fission device. wrap that fucker in gold, and you get short hazard duration fallout. essentially a neutron bomb. kill the people, save the buildings, move into the fallout zone in days.

not sure, so don't quote me, but the gold isotope may also obscure the origin of the fissile "pit"

>1.6 Cobalt Bombs and other Salted Bombs

>A "salted" nuclear weapon is reminiscent of fission-fusion-fission weapons, but instead of a fissionable jacket around the secondary stage fusion fuel, a non-fissionable blanket of a specially chosen salting isotope is used (cobalt-59 in the case of the cobalt bomb). This blanket captures the escaping fusion neutrons to breed a radioactive isotope that maximizes the fallout hazard from the weapon rather than generating additional explosive force (and dangerous fission fallout) from fast fission of U-238.

>Variable fallout effects can be obtained by using different salting isotopes. Gold has been proposed for short-term fallout (days), tantalum and zinc for fallout of intermediate duration (months), and cobalt for long term contamination (years). To be useful for salting, the parent isotopes must be abundant in the natural element, and the neutron-bred radioactive product must be a strong emitter of penetrating gamma rays.

Table 1.6-1 Candidate Salting Agents

Parent Natural Radioactive Half-Life

Isotope Abundance Product

Cobalt-59 100% Co-60 5.26 years

Gold-197 100% Au-198 2.697 days

Tantalum-181 99.99% Ta-182 115 days

Zinc-64 48.89% Zn-65 244 days

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq1.html