The W59 was an American thermonuclear warhead used on some Minuteman I ICBM

LGM-30 Minuteman

The LGM-30 Minuteman is a U.S. nuclear missile, a land-based intercontinental ballistic missile . As of 2010, the version LGM-30G Minuteman-III is the only land-based ICBM in service in the United States...

 missiles from 1962-1969.

The W59 was 16.3 inches in diameter and 47.8 inches long, and it weighed 550 pounds. It had a design yield of 1 megaton

TNT equivalent

TNT equivalent is a method of quantifying the energy released in explosions. The ton of TNT is a unit of energy equal to 4.184 gigajoules, which is approximately the amount of energy released in the detonation of one ton of TNT...

.

A total of 150 W59 warheads were produced during its lifetime.

The W59 was one of five nuclear weapon designs identified by researcher Chuck Hansen

Chuck Hansen

Chuck Hansen compiled, over a period of 30 years, the world's largest private collection of documents on how America developed the atomic bomb. These documents were obtained through the U.S...

 as using the common design Tsetse primary

Tsetse primary

The Tsetse was the common design nuclear fission bomb core for several Cold War designs for American nuclear and thermonuclear weapons, according to researcher Chuck Hansen....

 or first fission bomb stage.

Hansen's research indicates that the Tsetse primary was used in the US B43 nuclear bomb

B43 nuclear bomb

The B43 was a United States air-dropped variable yield nuclear weapon used by a wide variety of fighter bomber and bomber aircraft.The B43 was developed from 1956 by Los Alamos National Laboratory, entering production in 1959. It entered service in April 1961. Total production was 2,000 weapons,...

, W44 nuclear warhead

W44

The W44 was an American nuclear warhead used on the ASROC tactical anti-submarine missile system.The W44 had basic dimensions of 13.75 inches diameter and 25.3 inches length, a weight of 170 pounds, and a yield of 10 kilotons....

, W50 nuclear warhead

W50 (atomic weapon)

The W-50 or W50 thermonuclear warhead was a nuclear bomb used on the MGM-31 Pershing intermediate range nuclear missile.There were two major variants produced , in three yield options .All variants were in diameter and long, weighing .The W50 used the Tsetse primary design...

, B57 nuclear bomb

B57 nuclear bomb

The B57 nuclear bomb was a tactical nuclear weapon developed by the United States during the Cold War.Entering production in 1963 as the Mk 57, the bomb was designed to be dropped from high-speed tactical aircraft. It had a streamlined casing to withstand supersonic flight. It was 3 m long, with a...

, and W59.

Historical evidence indicates that these weapons shared a reliability problem, which Hansen attributes to miscalculation of the reaction cross section of Tritium

Tritium

Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. The nucleus of tritium contains one proton and two neutrons, whereas the nucleus of protium contains one proton and no neutrons...

 in fusion reactions. The weapons were not tested as extensively as some prior models due to a mid-1960s nuclear test moratorium, and the reliability problem was discovered and fixed after the moratorium ended. This problem was apparently shared by the Python primary

Python primary

According to researcher Chuck Hansen, the W34 Python was a gas-boosted fission primary used in several designs of American thermonuclear weapons....

 designs.

See also

• List of nuclear weapons
• Teller-Ulam design
  Teller-Ulam design
  The Teller–Ulam design is the nuclear weapon design concept used in most of the world's nuclear weapons. It is colloquially referred to as "the secret of the hydrogen bomb" because it employs hydrogen fusion, though in most applications the bulk of its destructive energy comes from uranium fission,...
  
  
• B43 nuclear bomb
  B43 nuclear bomb
  The B43 was a United States air-dropped variable yield nuclear weapon used by a wide variety of fighter bomber and bomber aircraft.The B43 was developed from 1956 by Los Alamos National Laboratory, entering production in 1959. It entered service in April 1961. Total production was 2,000 weapons,...
  
  
• W44
  W44
  The W44 was an American nuclear warhead used on the ASROC tactical anti-submarine missile system.The W44 had basic dimensions of 13.75 inches diameter and 25.3 inches length, a weight of 170 pounds, and a yield of 10 kilotons....
  
  
• W50 (atomic weapon)
  W50 (atomic weapon)
  The W-50 or W50 thermonuclear warhead was a nuclear bomb used on the MGM-31 Pershing intermediate range nuclear missile.There were two major variants produced , in three yield options .All variants were in diameter and long, weighing .The W50 used the Tsetse primary design...
  
  
• B57 nuclear bomb
  B57 nuclear bomb
  The B57 nuclear bomb was a tactical nuclear weapon developed by the United States during the Cold War.Entering production in 1963 as the Mk 57, the bomb was designed to be dropped from high-speed tactical aircraft. It had a streamlined casing to withstand supersonic flight. It was 3 m long, with a...
  
  

External links

• Allbombs.html list of all US nuclear warheads at nuclearweaponarchive.org
• Beware the old story by Chuck Hansen, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 2001 pp. 52–55.