About 60 years ago in Semipalatinsk, the USSR tested the first RDS-6s hydrogen bomb. The letter "s" meant "puff" - the coded name of one of the key ideas submitted by physicist Andrei Sakharov, who was not yet known to the world. Eight years after Semipalatinsk, in 1961, the 50-megaton hydrogen bomb, the most powerful explosive device ever developed and tested on Earth, was tested on the Novaya Zemlya islands in the Arctic Ocean.
The history of the creation of military thermonuclear
The first idea of a thermonuclear bomb in 1941 was submitted by Enrico Fermi in a conversation with Edward Teller. For the genius Italian, who once offered the Mussolini regime to finance the nuclear program and moved to America after the refusal, the military fusion was "just good physics." And the not very strong scientist Teller had the talent of an organizer-lobbyist, being also an ardent anti-communist. They made a good couple.
In the USSR, the beginning of the first work on the thermonuclear program dates back to 1945, when I. V. Kurchatov received information about research in the United States. Despite the fact that we have not yet had an atomic bomb, we decided to work on a hydrogen bomb in parallel.
Many prominent Soviet scientists (P. L. Kapitsa, L. D. Landau and others), foreseeing the prospects for such work, evaded it under various pretexts. The scientific part of the project was headed by I. E. Tamm, who included the young physicist Sakharov in the list of developers. It was Sakharov who came up with the main idea in creating such a powerful bomb. He understood the horror of what he had done, but he justified his work, like his teacher Tamm, by the fact that it was a "paradise for a theoretical physicist."
Yes, it was fantastic physics and … Our scientists used the schemes developed by the Americans - an exciting battle of the Cold War was going on. Colossal calculations were ahead, and while new high-speed computers were awaiting in the States, the Union did a simpler thing: they mobilized all the mathematical institutes and departments of the Academy of Sciences. Everyone calculated their plot blindly. The enrollment of students at the physics and mathematics departments of universities has been dramatically increased. As a result, by 1950 the USSR had become the world leader in the number of mathematicians. The first version of a thermonuclear bomb was calculated and … thrown into the trash. Our people understood the mistake of the Americans before they themselves.
Promotional video:
Puff
Already in 1949, Soviet physicists completely switched to the original Sakharov-Ginzburg model. The idea of a "puff", which implied an atomic charge surrounded by several layers of light and heavy metals, was submitted by Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov, and Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg got the idea to use lithium in a bomb along with expensive artificially obtained tritium.
And although the Americans were the first in the world to test a thermonuclear device with a capacity of 10.4 megatons (it was large and immovable) on November 1, 1952, they did not manage to get ahead of the Russians in creating hydrogen weapons. Six months later, on August 12, 1953, the Soviet Union tested the first portable hydrogen bomb. As they say, the process has started …
By the way, slightly distracted from the main narrative, I cannot but tell that Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov regretfully recalled some episodes of those years. For example, when he turned to Rear Admiral of the Navy P. F. Fomin with a "rationalization" proposal: to release a torpedo with a 100-megaton thermonuclear charge off the coast of the United States from under the water, in order to wipe out all ports on the east coast at once. “Yes, you scientists are absolutely brutal! - Fomin exclaimed. “We, sailors, are accustomed to fighting the enemy in open combat, and not destroying the civilian population!”
Kuzkina's mother
The 50-megaton bomb was created in the most terrible tension. After all, Nikita Khrushchev announced in advance the date and even the power of the future explosion to the whole world (an unprecedented act!). The error was excluded! Sakharov, actively participating in the work and calling the future bomb "the highlight of the program," tried to convince Khrushchev not to be the first to violate the then moratorium on nuclear weapons testing. But in vain! Our ruler was asleep and saw how he would show these Yankees a superbomb - the same mother he had promised to Kuzka.
On the morning of October 30, 1961, when the delegates to the XXII Congress of the CPSU voted unanimously to remove Stalin's body from the Mausoleum, a Tu-95 strategic bomber painted with special white paint flew up to one of the islands of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. The eight-meter-high iron body did not fit into the extended bomb bay and protruded with its "head" outward, like a monstrous baby bursting out of its mother's womb …
A flash of light has been seen in Siberia, Alaska and Northern Europe. For hundreds of kilometers on the mainland, glass flew out in coastal houses. Throughout the Arctic, radio communications were interrupted for an hour. The swirling giant mushroom rose to a height of 67 kilometers, and the radioactive cloud three hours after the explosion occupied an area of 100 by 200 kilometers. The rocks of the nearby islands of the archipelago turned into a flat surface, as if they had been ironed with a huge iron …
Effects
The monstrous explosion on Novaya Zemlya, contrary to the hopes of Andrei Dmitrievich, did not lead to the immediate conclusion of a treaty banning nuclear weapons tests. Both sides broke loose: in the next year alone, more than 200 explosions poisoned the Earth's atmosphere.
Only on August 5, 1963, having come to their senses, the USSR, the USA and England signed a multilateral international treaty banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, outer space and under water. In the future, many countries joined this agreement.
Years later, some of the participants in the hydrogen project in the USSR and the USA repented of what they had done then. Others stayed with their convictions. However, most of them are already in another world.
And the thermonuclear gun still hangs on the wall of our common house, threateningly reminding us of the well-known stage law …
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №10. Author: Vadim Kulinchenko, captain of the 1st rank, retired