🚀 go-pugleaf

In article 717748706@sw2001, urf@icl.se (Urban F) writes:
>tes@nomad.uucp (Thomas E. Smith [LORAL]) writes:
>
>>Another plan I have (as long as I'm already off the deep end) is ignite
>>Jupiter's atmosphere. It would be easier since it has all that hydrogen in it.
>
>I wouldn't use the word "ignite" if I didn't have anything to burn it
>with. But maybe you are thinking of nuclear fusion? Like the floating,
>pulsing ramjet used in Larry Niven's A World out of Time (only I think
>it was Saturn or Uranus). Fiction, of course.
>--

Might it be possible to set a fusion chain reaction in Jupiter's atmosphere if a big enough fusion bomb were used as an initiator ? 

I believe there were some worries about 'igniting the atmosphere' at the time of the first H-bomb test. This didn't occur because our atmosphere has a low H content - but on Jupiter of course, conditions are much more favourable.

Phil Isherwood.
pisherwo@wm.estec.esa.nl