Documents / Report
This Defense Intelligence Reference Document from the Defense Intelligence Agency is dated 3 January 2011. It was produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) Program as part of a series of advanced technology reports. The report asks whether negative mass exists and whether it could be used for propulsion. It concludes that one route might be an ultra-light form of matter that could have gathered at the Moon's center. Reaching it would take a tunnel dug with thermonuclear shape charges.
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UNCLASSIFIED/)'P9R: 9PPll!ltllt W!ilE 1n•tY make a critical assembly) released. For a 10 kiloton fission explosion the shatter radius computed from (110) is ~ 20 m. With a tunnel radius ro ~ 10 m one would have (rj1;,)- 2and from (118) that (121) Putting for the depth of the tunnel (if measured from the surface of the moon) 8 = R- r, with (122) or that 5eal0km. For a depth < 10 km the nuclear explosion with a yield < 10 kiloton would suffice, a yield which is uneconomical. It is for this reason suggested that one uses altogether thermonuclear explosive devices where the cost per yield is much lower. To penetrate and shatter the rocks more efficiently, jet-generating thermonuclear explosive lenses could be used. The thermonuclear detonation wave ignited at one point is there shaped into a jet-producing conical explosion by placing obstacles in the path of the wave. The ignition can be done by a fission explosive, but conceivably also by a powerful laser beam, with the laser beam projected down the tunnel shaft, triggering the thermonuclear explosive positioned at the lower end. With the above-given estimate of ~ 50 Megaton needed to dig the tunnel shaft, the number of thermonuclear explosive devices making use of the detonation wave lens technique could for this reason be quite reasonable, and certainly much less than the number of required fission explosives. After nuclear explosions have crushed the rocks and the heat is removed, the tunnel wall has to be made from some kind of ceramic material, since water with which to make concrete is only sparsely available on the moon. But for the wall to last, its temperature must be kept low. The low heat conductivity of rocks, requiring little cooling, is there of considerable help. For the crushed rocks the heat conduction coefficient should not be very different than for solid rocks. According to eqn (112) the 37 UNCLASSIFIED/ ;CFQA: QFFI&I.«1L W!ilE 8HLI/
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 43 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.