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From: richter@pavepaws.berkeley.edu (Adam J. Richter)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.sci
Subject: Re: Californium bombs
Message-ID: <377@cad.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Mon, 19-May-86 18:11:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: cad.377
Posted: Mon May 19 18:11:10 1986
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Reply-To: richter@pavepaws.UUCP (Adam J. Richter)
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	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.