assuming the ICBM is a nuclear warhead…. Doesn’t the whole process behind a nuclear warhead involve an explosion that propels the nuclear “fuel” to start a chain reaction? i.e. exploding a warhead will essentially be the same as the explosion that causes the isotope to undergo fission?
ig the same can be said about conventional bombs as well but nuclear is more confusing.
In: Chemistry
The fissionable material slips out without igniting. Most of it. Some might go off.
Going nuclear means the atoms split. They only split when they’re squeezed really tightly and send knocking into each other.
The gun-type nuclear bomb over Hiroshima only used about 2% of all it’s uranium. They just rammed one part into another. The very surface layer went nuclear. But then the blast of that layer exploding spread out and wasted the other 98%. Still a big boom. All bombs since then work at squeezing all the material into all the other material. It’s a really tricky detonation.
It’s like, uhhhhh, a semi-truck full of barrels of oil. If it crashes and explodes, the barrels can either be rupture and explode themselves, or they can be tossed out harmlessly to the side.
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