Word: fissionability
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...detonator of a thermonuclear bomb is a fission bomb containing plutonium or uranium 235, and its explosion sets off the main charge of fusion material, which is essentially deuterium (heavy hydrogen). Fission detonators are expensive, but a single one can explode any amount of comparatively cheap fusion material. Result: the bigger the bomb, the cheaper it is in terms of explosive yield. Clark figures that a ten-megaton bomb costs somewhat more than $1,000,000, mostly for the detonator. But further increases in yield cost only about $5,000 per megaton, so that the price...
Soviet citizens living south of the test area have reason to hope that the fireball actually did clear the ground. If it did, most of its fission products were carried into the stratosphere, from which they will fall gradually over several years, covering a broad zone around the Northern Hemisphere. If the fireball touched the ground, its local fallout would seriously contaminate a cigar-shaped region many hundreds of miles downwind. U.S. weathermen calculated that the north winds blowing just after the Soviet test would carry local fallout southward into Soviet Russia down to the latitude of Leningrad...
Unwelcome Cloud. Even if the blast gave no local fallout, it surely created some fission products that stayed below the stratosphere to drift with the winds of the lower atmosphere until rain or snow brought them down. By studying their charts, U.S. meteorologists figured that this cloud of tropospheric fallout moved southward into Russia, then swung eastward to cross Siberia. At week's end, it was heading across to the U.S. (see map) near Oregon and Idaho where rain was expected to wash some of its radioactive debris to earth...
...high atmosphere gradually decreased, and most airlines stowed their Geiger counters in mothballs. Recent Soviet tests have started the trouble all over again, and this time it is expected to grow worse and last longer. Jetliners of the 19605 fly well up in the stratosphere, where radioactive fission products linger for years...
...check them frequently. The airplanes are washed down with special detergent solutions, and the mops used in this process are also checked. They sometimes prove notably hot, and from them PHS has extracted the 25-odd radioisotopes that make up the most dangerous debris in a cloud of fission products...