Word: fissioning
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...bomb (after the Russians exploded their first A-bomb), "Dr. Oppenheimer strongly opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb on moral grounds, on grounds that it was not politically desirable," as well as because the H-bomb program would be a drain on the orderly development of the fission bomb program. Said the report: "Until the late spring of 1951, he questioned the feasibility of the hydrogen bomb efforts then in progress...
...exploded its first hydrogen bomb in November 1952; Russia, in August 1953. As a matter of actual fact (which neither Dr. Oppenheimer nor any other physicist could have predicted), H-bomb development proved to be no strain on the fission bomb program...
Citation: "Eminent authority on theoretical physics . . . One of the first to appreciate the potentialities of nuclear fission and fusion, you have given much of yourself to the development of the atomic energy project for peaceful pursuits as well as national defense...
...fusion bomb can be made really "dry," with no tritium at all. a new era of nuclear energy has arrived. Every fission bomb in the world's stockpiles can then be upgraded into an H-bomb, with hundreds or thousands of times its original power. They will have to be reworked slightly and surrounded by a reasonable amount of lithium-six deuteride...
Unlike plutonium bombs, whose fission products are naturally radioactive, a lithium-six deuteride bomb is only a moderate producer of radioactive contamination. Its end product, helium, is not radioactive at all. The detonator yields the normal products of fission, but they are no worse than those of an old-style atom bomb. Side reactions may produce radioactive isotopes, but they can be minimized. Apparently, they were minimized effectively in the H-bomb that exploded in the Marshall Islands on March...