This vintage may or may not have used Tritium as a fusion enhancer (half-life 12.3 years) along with Li-7 (stable), though that would have been a bit early. No problem with the Pu or U. 10K+ years for Pu-239.

No doubt mechanical parts flaky and the explosives no longer trustworthy for exact performance. And it must be exact or it fizzles - then massive contamination as consolation prize.

But the physics doesn't change, nor likely would the sphere need even machining. You'd construct something new and your implosion lens would be as good as your intelligence collecting (and whether you knew how to use the fast _tron switch devices. Hell, we somehow let some of those gadgets from Berkeley Nucleonics get to Saddam's crew, a few years back).

You would get valuable insight into the layered different-velocity machined explosives, on disassembly. A chem analysis would confirm what materials you needed to find - fresh. If builder had knowledge of the multi-element later designs (?) could even increase yield...

No question that there'd be plenty to salvage after even 50 years - but work, after a quick drying out? Nahhh. Well.. how close would you want to stand for such a trial, though?



A.