AAWSAP DIRD, Advanced Nuclear Propulsion for Manned Deep Space Missions, March 2010

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of the cylindrical argon rod. If the shock is launched from a distance of ~1 m onto an
argon rod with a radius equal to 10 cm, the temperature reaches 90,000 K, just right to
excite the upper laser level of argon. Following its heating to 90,000 K, the argon
cylinder radially expands and cools, with the upper laser level frozen into the argon.
This is similar to a gas dynamic laser, where the upper laser level is frozen in the gas
during its isentropic expansion in a Laval nozzle. To reduce depopulation of the upper
laser level during the expansion by superradiance, one may dope to the argon with a
saturable absorber, acting as an "antiknock" additive. In this way, megajoule laser
pulses can be released within 10 nanoseconds. A laser pulse from a small Q-switched
argon ion laser placed in the spacecraft can then launch a photon avalanche in the
argon rod, igniting a DT microexplosion.
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Figure 5. Argon Ion Laser Igniter, to Ignite a Staged DT -+DD Fusion Explosion in a Mini-Teller-Ulam
Configuration. A solid argon rod. HE cylindrical shell of high explosive, d detonators. Q Q-switched argon ion laser
oscillator.
Employing the Teller-Ulam configuration, by replacing the fission explosive with a DT
microexplosion, one can then ignite a much larger DD explosion.
As an alternative, one may generate a high current linear pinch discharge with a high­
explosive-driven magnetic flux compression generator. If the current I is on the order
of I= 107A, the laser can ignite a DT thermonuclear detonation wave propagating down
the high current discharge channel, which in turn can ignite a much larger pure DD
explosion.
If the craft is launched from the Earth's surface, one has to take into account the mass
of the air entrained in the fireball. The situation resembles a hot-gas-driven gun, albeit
one of rather poor efficiency. There the velocity gained by the craft with N explosions,
each setting off the energy E,, , is given by
(27)
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