to ignite a small hydrogen burn neutrons produced by the hydrogen burn were then used to increase, or boost, the ability of the continuing fission reaction.In 1953 the USSR exploded a small booster device that used dry lithium deuteride, instead of liqiud deuterium or a mixture of deuterium and tritium, as fuel. The neutrons released by the atomic bomb explosion created tritium on the spot, which then fused with the deuterium in the compound. This method made it needless to produce expensive tritium in reactors and made it podddible to build fusion weapons that could fit into an airplane. The United States exploded a 15-megaton super device using this principle in the Bravo test at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954 and a Soviet test followed a year later.In the following years, development efforts were directed toward perfecting hydrogen bombs of various sizes that could be delivered by aircraft, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). Bombs ranged in size from small-yield tactical weapons to the 60-megaton bomb exploded by the USSR in 1961.The 60-megaton Soviet bomb is believed to have consisted of the first two parts of a fission-fusion-fission bomb. ...
