[xorxornop]

I wouldn't be concerned about this, personally, for the precise reason that it is a fusion device - not fission!

Fusion is incredibly difficult just to start, let alone keep burning - unlike fission, which is only too happy to enter runaway conditions if not very carefully regulated. Fusion is like a little ember in your fireplace you have to carefully blow on to keep alight; fission is like keeping a fireplace lit by pouring gasoline into it.

[grues-dinner]

I'd say (older-generation) fission is more like having an indoor swimming pool filled with burning gasoline, but keeping the windows shut so there's only enough air for it to burn at the rate you want to heat the house.

[HPsquared]

Or a swimming pool full of those spicy rocket propellents discussed in the book Ignition! which have combustion products like hydrogen fluoride.

[grues-dinner]

Neither of the hypergolics described in Command and Control seem chill either: the fuel reacts with atmospheric water and oxygen, the oxidizer is in the highest category of poison (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/extracts/command-and-co...).

Indeed there's no such thing as a free launch, and that is rocket science.

[exe34]

"Things I will not work with" - "at this point hydrogen fluoride loses its gentle nature".

[sheepscreek]

Would love to take a look at your library.

[FiatLuxDave]

Not the poster above, but as someone who also has a copy of Ignition! in their library, I think you might enjoy the pdf version:

https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd...