by using multiple stages, there seems to be no practical limit as to how large one can build a thermonuclear bomb. Tsar Bomba was a cut-down demonstration of how large just a 2-stage bomb could be. no one has (publicly) tried 3-stage or larger.
theoretically, you have to avoid compressing the fuel so much that it goes beyond fusion and becomes a black hole, but I'm wildly guessing that's not a practical concern. actually, energy production from black hole accretion or Hawking radiation are much more efficient than fusion, so this might not be a problem even if it does happen.
if an asteroid were heading toward earth, could we vaporize it? not just break it into pieces, but totally vaporize it: there's no kill like overkill. with the survival of the species at stake, we could probably prepare a whole lot of lithium deuteride. is that the limiting reagent for a very large thermonuclear bomb?
original thought: in order to avoid radiation and mutation, humans should colonize space by building space stations deep inside asteroids. what if war broke out? could an attacker build a bomb powerful enough to penetrate the asteroid shell around a space station? (the alternative is to find a perfectly straight exhaust port leading straight to the habitation area, and then to precisely shoot a small torpedo through it.)
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