While Teller and Ulam wrestled with the theoretical issues of how to sustain thermonuclear fusion, the engineers at Sandia faced a more practical question: How do you deliver a hydrogen bomb without destroying the aircraft that carried it to the target? The latest calculations suggested that an H-bomb would weigh as much as forty thousand pounds, and the only American bomber large enough to transport one to the Soviet Union, the B-36, was too slow to escape the blast.
One alternative is, of course, to not tell anyone. The pilots would figure it out soon enough.
