Kuzkina-mother and the Soviet Tsar-bomb
Fifty years have passed since a high-power thermonuclear bomb exploded on Novaya Zemlya. Even today one cannot unequivocally assess this event without considering the situation preceding this demonstration of power by the Soviet Union.
World War II is over. The winning nation set about rebuilding the country. But the further development of world events forced the country, which suffered the most from the fascist invasion, to think again about its security.
Already in March, 1946, the speech of the British leader Churchill in Fulton, who accused the USSR of unrestricted export of his ideas and influence to the countries of the world, led to the beginning of the Cold War.
In September, at the meeting of the Communist Parties, 1947, the general opinion was voiced that the world was divided into two opposing camps: the United States recognized as the imperialist leader, the Soviet Union headed the anti-imperialist one.
As a result of the deterioration of relations between the former allies of the past war, the leadership of the USSR in 1948 began to take measures to limit the free movement between the occupation zones of the eastern and western part of Germany.
The formation of NATO in 1949 significantly strengthened the position of the bloc led by Washington. The members of the formed union (USA, Great Britain, Luxembourg, France, Canada, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Denmark, Belgium, Iceland, Norway) agreed on joint actions in the event of aggression. No one doubted that the countries of the Soviet bloc were the aggressor.
In 1949, the USSR passed atomic bomb tests.
Beginning with 1950, at the direction of US President Truman, the development of a new and powerful weapons - hydrogen bomb. Truman makes a decision through Congress on a significant increase in funding for military purposes. In the same year Truman, threatening to use atomic weapons in Korea, makes it clear to the USSR that it already has weapons of unprecedented power.
In February 1952, Churchill officially informed the world community about the creation of the atomic bomb. And in November of the same year, an explosion of the first thermonuclear charge was carried out by the Americans at Eniwetok Atoll. The device was not a bomb and was a structure filled with liquid deuterium and housed in a three-story house. The power of the explosion was 10 megatons. The neutron flux turned out to be so large that the physicists participating in this project succeeded in researching the explosion products to discover new transuranium elements: Einsteinium and Fermi. The charge explosion experiment was an intermediate step for American scientists to create hydrogen weapons.
Soviet scientists 12 August 1953, managed to carry out an explosion of a real hydrogen charge. A unique scheme proposed by A.D. was applied in the experiment. Sakharov - the so-called "puff", and lithium was used as a fuel in the form of a solid chemical compound. The use of lithium has significantly increased the power of the charge. Of great importance was the fact that the charge was ready for transportation - i.e. already represented a real bomb. The success was preceded by the idea of Soviet physicists: Yu.B. Khariton, I.I. Gurevich, Ya.B. Zeldovich and I.Y. Pomeranchuk, outlined in 1946 year, and which consisted of the following:
- as a detonator of an explosive reaction, it is necessary to use an atomic explosion;
- nuclear reaction in deuterium in the case of creating a high temperature of the entire mass will proceed unabated;
- the power of the explosion will be significantly increased by creating the highest density of deuterium;
- to enhance nuclear detonation, the development of a massive envelope is necessary.
Since this idea arose in the study of the energy source of stars, it was not classified and kept in the archives of the Kurchatov Institute. The country's leadership, the proposed project, was not interested, but this fact confirms the fact that Soviet scientists did not steal the secrets of Western scientists in the development of the newest weapons (as claimed by the American media so far). Another fact confirms the falsity of the statement about the US championship in the development of the hydrogen bomb. In 1950, American physicists recognize the direction of the hydrogen bomb, which they were engaged in during the 1942-1950 period, erroneous. The essence, as it turned out, of unpromising developments was that the charge was a cylindrical container filled with liquid deuterium (in the slang of the "pipe" developers) and such a design turned out to be inoperable.
In 1948, Soviet scientists, on the basis of the information they have about the work of the Americans in the field of the creation of a hydrogen bomb, developed the basic ideas that determined the ways to solve the government’s task of creating thermonuclear weapons as soon as possible.
It is with the name of Sakharov that the development of a new technology for the creation of a thermonuclear device is associated. The scientist proposed a construction consisting of alternating layers of heavy substance U (238) and light (tritium and deuterium), called a “puff”.
Developed in parallel two options for the creation of weapons - "pipe" and "puff." Since hydrogen isotopes in their liquid stage were used in the “pipe” version, the researchers agreed on the futility of this solution. The problem was that the neutrons too much energy was carried along the "tube", and not concentrated in one place. Therefore, it was the “puff” project that became the basis of the project for the successful testing of a thermonuclear charge in 1953.
"Puff", tested in 1953 year, had several disadvantages:
- large quantity and high cost of used tritium;
- The charge had a limited survivability (not more than six months).
The developers understood that in order to improve the bomb, it was necessary to find a way to maximize the compression of thermonuclear fuel (atomic compression). And the exit was found. He was suggested in his note by Ya.B. Zeldovich: for the maximum atomic compression of a fuel it is necessary to apply an atomic explosion. Then the scheme was finalized: the compression of the main charge should be carried out due to the impact of the products of the explosion itself and structural materials. For this purpose, a massive casing was used, which allows for the enhancement of charge compression due to particles reflected from the casing.
The work on thermonuclear weapons led to the emergence of many scientific and technical disciplines, for example, the physics of high temperatures and pressure. Also, a great impetus for the development of mathematical disciplines received, because for the calculations required new software. The Institute of Applied Mathematics carried out the development of mathematical programs and calculations on them.
Collectives of scientists engaged in various aspects of the creation of thermonuclear weapons, worked together, enthusiastically, using joint brainstorming to solve the problems.
By the middle of 1955, the main design work was completed and special enterprises began to manufacture the product itself. The works were carried out with high accuracy and using the most modern materials. To reduce the power of the explosion, part of the thermonuclear fuel was replaced by an inert substance. This was due to the need to ensure the safety of the aircraft, which delivered the bomb to the scene of the explosion, as well as due to the fact that there was a residential town in 70 kilometers from the test site.
In 1955, on November 22, Soviet scientists tested a new charge sample that did not contain tritium. It can be said with confidence that after this successful test, the Soviet Union owned an inexpensive, thermonuclear weapon that could be transported to any corner of the earth.
The arms race, carried out by two opposing camps, political differences over a wide range of world issues, led to the decision of the Soviet Union to demonstrate the military-industrial power of the state through the implementation of the biggest bang in stories. The site of the explosion was New Land. The bomb was called the "Tsar Bomb" (following the example of the Tsar Cannon, Tsar-Bell). In preparation for the explosion involved highly professional specialists. The plane that was supposed to deliver the bomb to the explosion site was reconstructed, equipped with the necessary equipment and protective equipment. Pilots have been trained. No one could give the pilots a guarantee of a safe return after the bomb was dropped. Even scientists who calculated all possible consequences of the explosion of such a power could not say exactly what was going to happen. Experts feared that after the explosion an uncontrolled thermonuclear reaction in the atmosphere could occur.
On the morning of October 30, a plane carrying a thermonuclear bomb took off from a military airfield. The power of the bomb was 50 million tons of trotyl. At the parallel course flew aircraft laboratory.
When approaching the scene of the explosion, the automatics and the bomb worked, tearing away from the plane body, dived into the gray mash of clouds. In order to allow the aircraft away from the scene of the explosion, the bomb was equipped with a parachute. The explosion occurred at an altitude of 4000 meters above ground in the 11 hours of 32 minutes. Eyewitnesses said that the beginning of the explosion was accompanied by a powerful flash of light, this unbearably bright color filled the entire space, and a huge orange ball appeared from the bottom, which gradually turned into a giant mushroom that seemed to pull the whole earth into itself. Electromagnetic waves caused by the explosion, turned off the radio, and the observers for an hour could not contact the crew of the aircraft carrier. The flash from the explosion was visible at a distance of 200 kilometers from the epicenter. In an abandoned village, located at a distance of 400 kilometers from the epicenter, trees were torn out, glass was broken and roofs of houses were demolished. Thrice blast wave circled the globe.
Encouraged by the result of the King of the Bomb explosion, the Sakharovites proposed to Khrushchev a project for an underwater explosion in the Atlantic (codenamed Armageddon). It was assumed that the explosion would cause a giant wave that would sweep away part of American cities. Khrushchev thought, abandoned the idea.
Now that fifty years have passed, it can be said that the explosion not only demonstrated the scientific and military might of the Soviet state to the world, but was also a wise political decision that prevented the start of a third world war. It is possible that due to this particular event fifty years ago, Russia exists as an independent state.
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