Soviet scientist Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (1921-1989) developed several types of both serial and promising thermonuclear weapons. Their goal was not only to ensure nuclear parity for the USSR, but also total victory in the global thermonuclear war with the United States.
The myth about Stalin and Sakharov
There is a myth that after the first test of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, Stalin was informed of the names of the scientists who participated in its development. And they mentioned that "the calculations were carried out by a graduate student Sakharov," to which Stalin replied: "Please convey my congratulations to Academician Sakharov."
The myth arose because in 1953, precisely after the test of the first thermonuclear bomb in the USSR, Andrei Sakharov was elected (at 32, which was a curiosity) as a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. And bypassing the stage of corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences.
But, firstly, the bomb test took place on August 12, 1953, when Stalin had been dead for more than five months. Secondly, at that time Sakharov was no longer a graduate student, but a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences.
Third, Sakharov's well-known unofficial title - "father of the hydrogen bomb" - does not belong to him alone. A team of scientists took part in the development of the RDS-6S, as the first Soviet device of this type was called.
Sakharov's Sloika
In 1948, Sakharov (at that time - a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences) proposed a design model for a thermonuclear explosive device, in which a nuclear charge was immersed in layers of heavy and light elements. The detonation of this charge caused a nuclear chain reaction one layer after another. This scheme got the designation "C" for "layer" or "layered". As a joke, nuclear physicists have nicknamed this device "Sakharov's puff."
Another option, also proposed by Sakharov, was based on the detonation of an atomic bomb in heavy hydrogen. He received the designation "T" from the word "pipe". Further work showed that it is the "C" model that is promising. It was implemented in the USSR. Option "T" was not feasible in terms of technology.
The only Russian among the "fathers" of the hydrogen bomb
All the work on the hydrogen bomb was supervised by (at that time, professor) Yuri Khariton. And directly the RDS-6S project was led by Professor Igor Tamm, the future Nobel laureate.
It was after the successful test of the RDS-6S, in October 1953, that those involved in this project became full members of the USSR Academy of Sciences. These were Khariton, Tamm and Sakharov (the youngest among them). Vitaly Ginzburg, who worked on the project with Sakharov (and was five years older than him), was elected on this occasion only as a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences, and a full academician only in 1966. The well-known physicist Yakov Zeldovich, who worked in the project, and Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences since 1946, together with Khariton in 1939, was the first in the USSR to calculate a theoretical model of an atomic bomb, also became an academician much later.
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Subsequently, Ginzburg argued that he and Zeldovich were not elected along with Sakharov (or that Sakharov was elected together with Khariton and Tamm) only to maintain "national parity": Sakharov was the only Russian in this collective.
RDS-37
The next stage was the creation of a two-stage hydrogen bomb, in which a thermonuclear reaction was caused by a shock wave from the detonation of an atomic charge. A team of scientists from the same KB-11, where Sakharov worked, took part in the work on this project, under the leadership of academicians Igor Kurchatov, Mstislav Keldysh and Andrei Tikhonov.
During tests at the Semipalatinsk test site on November 20, 1955, the weather suddenly deteriorated, cloudiness appeared, and there was a threat of a bomb being dropped into a populated area. The question arose about canceling the test when the plane with the bomb had already taken off. Under these conditions, Zeldovich and Sakharov gave an emergency conclusion about the possibility of a safe landing of an aircraft with a hydrogen bomb on board. The test was carried out two days later.
In search of the "king-weapon"
The Soviet leadership was very worried that the carriers of nuclear weapons in service with the USSR were not able to reach the territory of the United States, while American planes and missiles from their bases in the allied countries could strike anywhere in the USSR. Work on the creation of a Soviet "tsar-weapon" capable of discouraging the United States from the desire to subject the territory of the USSR to atomic bombardment, and ideally, to preemptively destroy the United States even before the conflict, was begun even under Stalin.
In the development of ballistic missiles and strategic bombers, the USSR covered the gap with the United States, but these were catch-up steps. They did not provide the Soviet nuclear forces with strategic superiority over the American ones. I wanted to find some kind of "asymmetric" answer - cheap and effective.
And the way out was found. At least in the idea. It is known that American civilization gravitates towards the sea. Most of the largest cities and about half of the US population are concentrated on the ocean coasts. Moreover, what is important, these are the shores of open ocean areas, and not closed seas.
The tests of the first hydrogen bombs made a stunning impression on the Soviet leadership. It seemed that a force was found equal in power to the elements of nature. It was clear that the explosion of a thermonuclear device at sea could cause a destructive wave - a tsunami - which would multiply the impact of the explosion itself. So, back in the late 1940s. in the USSR, work began on the creation of a nuclear torpedo.
Tsar torpedo
Sakharov initially had nothing to do with these works. He was connected to them already at an advanced stage, after a successful test of the "puff" of his name. The nuclear torpedo T-15 ("king-torpedo") was to become the weapon that would wipe the United States off the face of the earth.
Sakharov's know-how in this work was to develop a ramjet atomic jet engine for a torpedo. On this path, he failed completely. However, no one in the world has yet managed to create such an engine, despite the fact that theoretical work on it has been going on since the 1950s.
According to Sakharov's project, the "king-torpedo" was supposed to be equipped with a super-powerful thermonuclear warhead with a capacity of up to 100 megatons. Its counterpart was blown up over Novaya Zemlya on October 30, 1961. But the installation of such a warhead on a torpedo fired from a submarine was limited by its dimensions. The existing propulsion systems did not allow equipping the torpedo with a warhead with a capacity of more than 3 megatons. This was clearly not enough to cause a tsunami of such magnitude as to destroy the east coast of the United States. Submarines, as a strategic means, were recognized as suitable only as carriers of ballistic missiles.
However, in our time, the idea of a "king-torpedo" has been revived in the "Status-6" project, where the carrier of a super-powerful thermonuclear warhead is no longer a torpedo, but the robotic submarine itself without a crew. Thus, the ideas of Academician Sakharov continue to fuel the race of destroying weapons in our time.
Yaroslav Butakov