On August 12, 1953, at 7.30 am, the first Soviet hydrogen bomb was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site, which had the service name "Product RDS-6c". This was the fourth Soviet nuclear weapon test.
The beginning of the first work on the thermonuclear program in the USSR dates back to 1945. Then information was received about the research conducted in the United States on the thermonuclear problem. They were initiated by the American physicist Edward Teller in 1942. The Teller concept of thermonuclear weapons was taken as a basis, which in the circles of Soviet nuclear scientists received the name "pipe" - a cylindrical container with liquid deuterium, which was supposed to be heated from the explosion of an initiating device such as a conventional atomic bomb. It was only in 1950 that the Americans established that the "pipe" was futile, and they continued to develop other designs. But by this time, Soviet physicists had already independently developed another concept of thermonuclear weapons, which soon - in 1953 - led to success.
An alternative hydrogen bomb scheme was invented by Andrei Sakharov. The bomb was based on the idea of "puff" and the use of lithium-6 deuteride. Developed at KB-11 (today it is the city of Sarov, formerly Arzamas-16, Nizhny Novgorod Region), the RDS-6s thermonuclear charge was a spherical system of layers of uranium and thermonuclear fuel surrounded by a chemical explosive.
To increase the energy release of the charge, tritium was used in its design. The main task in the creation of such a weapon was to heat and ignite heavy hydrogen - deuterium with the help of the energy released during the explosion of an atomic bomb, to carry out thermonuclear reactions with the release of energy, capable of supporting themselves. To increase the fraction of "burnt" deuterium, Sakharov proposed to surround the deuterium with a shell of ordinary natural uranium, which was supposed to slow down the expansion and, most importantly, significantly increase the density of deuterium. The phenomenon of ionization compression of thermonuclear fuel, which became the basis of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb, is still called "saccharification".
According to the results of work on the first hydrogen bomb, Andrei Sakharov received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor and laureate of the Stalin Prize.
"Product RDS-6s" was made in the form of a transportable bomb weighing 7 tons, which was placed in the bomb hatch of the Tu-16 bomber. For comparison, the bomb, created by the Americans, weighed 54 tons and was the size of a three-story building.
To assess the destructive effects of the new bomb, a city of industrial and administrative buildings was built at the Semipalatinsk test site. In total, there were 190 different structures on the field. In this test, vacuum intakes for radiochemical samples were used for the first time, which automatically opened under the action of a shock wave. A total of 500 different measuring, recording and filming devices installed in underground casemates and solid ground structures were prepared for testing the RDS-6s. Aviation technical support of tests - measurement of the shock wave pressure on the aircraft in the air at the moment of the explosion of the product, air sampling from the radioactive cloud, aerial photography of the area was carried out by a special flight unit. The bomb was detonated remotely, by giving a signal from the remote control, which was located in the bunker.
It was decided to make an explosion on a steel tower 40 meters high, the charge was located at a height of 30 meters. The radioactive soil from past tests was removed to a safe distance, special structures were rebuilt in their own places on old foundations, a bunker was built 5 meters from the tower to install the equipment developed at the Institute of Chemical Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, recording thermonuclear processes.
Military equipment of all combat arms was installed on the field. During the tests, all experimental structures within a radius of up to four kilometers were destroyed. A hydrogen bomb explosion could completely destroy a city 8 kilometers across. The environmental consequences of the explosion were dire, with the first explosion accounting for 82% strontium-90 and 75% cesium-137.
The power of the bomb reached 400 kilotons, 20 times more than the first atomic bombs in the USA and the USSR.
The work on the creation of the hydrogen bomb was the world's first intellectual "battle of the minds" of a truly global scale. The creation of the hydrogen bomb initiated the emergence of completely new scientific directions - physics of high-temperature plasma, physics of ultra-high energy densities, physics of anomalous pressures. For the first time in the history of mankind, mathematical modeling was used on a large scale.
The work on the "RDS-6s product" created a scientific and technical groundwork, which was then used in the development of an incomparably more advanced hydrogen bomb of a fundamentally new type - a two-stage hydrogen bomb.
The Sakharov's hydrogen bomb not only became a serious counterargument in the political confrontation between the United States and the USSR, but also served as the reason for the rapid development of Soviet cosmonautics in those years. It was after the successful nuclear tests that the Korolev Design Bureau received an important government task to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile to deliver the created charge to the target. Subsequently, the rocket, called the "Seven", launched the first artificial satellite of the Earth into space, and it was on it that the first cosmonaut of the planet, Yuri Gagarin, started.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources
The content of the article
H-BOMB, a weapon of great destructive power (of the order of megatons in TNT equivalent), the principle of operation of which is based on the reaction of thermonuclear fusion of light nuclei. The source of the explosion energy are processes similar to the processes taking place in the Sun and other stars.
Thermonuclear reactions.
The interior of the Sun contains a huge amount of hydrogen, which is in a state of ultra-high compression at a temperature of approx. 15,000,000 K. At such a high temperature and plasma density, hydrogen nuclei experience constant collisions with each other, some of which ends with their fusion and, ultimately, the formation of heavier helium nuclei. Such reactions, called thermonuclear fusion, are accompanied by the release of a huge amount of energy. According to the laws of physics, the energy release during thermonuclear fusion is due to the fact that during the formation of a heavier nucleus, part of the mass of the light nuclei included in its composition is converted into a colossal amount of energy. That is why the Sun, possessing a gigantic mass, in the process of thermonuclear fusion loses approx. 100 billion tons of matter and releases energy, thanks to which life on Earth became possible.
Isotopes of hydrogen.
The hydrogen atom is the simplest of all atoms in existence. It consists of one proton, which is its nucleus, around which a single electron revolves. Thorough studies of water (H 2 O) have shown that there is an insignificant amount of "heavy" water containing the "heavy isotope" of hydrogen - deuterium (2 H). The deuterium nucleus consists of a proton and a neutron - a neutral particle with a mass close to a proton.
There is a third isotope of hydrogen, tritium, which contains one proton and two neutrons in its nucleus. Tritium is unstable and undergoes spontaneous radioactive decay, turning into an isotope of helium. Traces of tritium are found in the Earth's atmosphere, where it is formed as a result of the interaction of cosmic rays with gas molecules that make up the air. Tritium is produced artificially in a nuclear reactor by irradiating the isotope of lithium-6 with a flux of neutrons.
Development of a hydrogen bomb.
A preliminary theoretical analysis showed that thermonuclear fusion is easiest to carry out in a mixture of deuterium and tritium. Taking this as a basis, US scientists in the early 1950s embarked on a project to create a hydrogen bomb (HB). The first tests of a model nuclear device were carried out at the Eniwetok test site in the spring of 1951; thermonuclear fusion was only partial. Significant success was achieved on November 1, 1951, when testing a massive nuclear device, the explosion power of which was 4 e 8 Mt in TNT equivalent.
The first hydrogen aerial bomb was detonated in the USSR on August 12, 1953, and on March 1, 1954, the Americans detonated a more powerful (about 15 Mt) aerial bomb on Bikini Atoll. Since then, both powers have carried out explosions of advanced megaton weapons.
The explosion at Bikini Atoll was accompanied by the release of large quantities of radioactive substances. Some of them fell hundreds of kilometers from the site of the explosion on the Japanese fishing boat "Happy Dragon", and the other covered the island of Rongelap. Since stable helium is formed as a result of thermonuclear fusion, the radioactivity in the explosion of a purely hydrogen bomb should be no more than that of an atomic detonator of a thermonuclear reaction. However, in the case under consideration, the predicted and real radioactive fallout significantly differed in quantity and composition.
The mechanism of action of a hydrogen bomb.
The sequence of processes occurring during the explosion of a hydrogen bomb can be represented as follows. First, the charge that initiates a thermonuclear reaction (a small atomic bomb) inside the HB shell explodes, as a result of which a neutron burst occurs and a high temperature is created, which is necessary for initiating thermonuclear fusion. Neutrons bombard a lithium deuteride insert - a compound of deuterium with lithium (a lithium isotope with a mass number of 6 is used). Lithium-6 splits into helium and tritium under the action of neutrons. Thus, the atomic fuse creates the materials necessary for the synthesis directly in the bomb itself.
Then a thermonuclear reaction begins in a mixture of deuterium and tritium, the temperature inside the bomb rises rapidly, involving more and more hydrogen in the synthesis. With a further increase in temperature, a reaction between deuterium nuclei, characteristic of a purely hydrogen bomb, could begin. All reactions, of course, are so fast that they are perceived as instantaneous.
Division, synthesis, division (superbomb).
In fact, in a bomb, the sequence of processes described above ends at the stage of the reaction of deuterium with tritium. Further, the bomb designers preferred to use nuclear fission rather than nuclear fusion. As a result of the fusion of deuterium and tritium nuclei, helium and fast neutrons are formed, the energy of which is large enough to cause the fission of uranium-238 (the main isotope of uranium, much cheaper than uranium-235 used in conventional atomic bombs). Fast neutrons split the atoms of the uranium shell of the superbomb. Fission of one ton of uranium creates energy equivalent to 18 Mt. Energy goes not only to the explosion and the release of heat. Each uranium nucleus splits into two highly radioactive "fragments". Fission products include 36 different chemical elements and nearly 200 radioactive isotopes. All this constitutes the radioactive fallout accompanying the explosions of superbombs.
Thanks to the unique design and the described mechanism of action, weapons of this type can be made as powerful as desired. It is much cheaper than atomic bombs of the same power.
The consequences of the explosion.
Shockwave and thermal effect.
The direct (primary) effect of a superbomb explosion is threefold. The most obvious of the direct impacts is a shockwave of tremendous intensity. The strength of its impact, depending on the power of the bomb, the height of the explosion above the earth's surface and the nature of the terrain, decreases with distance from the epicenter of the explosion. The thermal effect of an explosion is determined by the same factors, but, in addition, depends on the transparency of the air - the fog dramatically reduces the distance at which a thermal flash can cause serious burns.
According to calculations, when a 20-megaton bomb explodes in the atmosphere, people will remain alive in 50% of cases if they 1) hide in an underground reinforced concrete shelter at a distance of about 8 km from the epicenter of the explosion (EE), 2) are in ordinary city buildings at a distance of approx ... 15 km from EV, 3) were in an open place at a distance of approx. 20 km from EV. In conditions of poor visibility and at a distance of at least 25 km, if the atmosphere is clear, for people in open areas, the probability of surviving increases rapidly with distance from the epicenter; at a distance of 32 km, its calculated value is more than 90%. The area over which the penetrating radiation that occurs during the explosion causes death is relatively small, even in the case of a high-yield superbomb.
Fire ball.
Depending on the composition and mass of the combustible material involved in the fireball, giant self-sustaining fire hurricanes can form, raging for many hours. However, the most dangerous (albeit secondary) consequence of the explosion is radioactive contamination. environment.
Fallout.
How they are formed.
When the bomb explodes, the resulting fireball is filled with a huge amount of radioactive particles. Usually, these particles are so small that, once in the upper atmosphere, they can remain there for a long time. But if a fireball touches the surface of the Earth, everything that is on it turns into hot dust and ash and draws them into a fiery tornado. In a vortex of flame, they mix and bind with radioactive particles. Radioactive dust, except for the largest, does not settle immediately. The finer dust is carried away by the resulting explosion cloud and gradually falls out as it moves in the wind. Directly at the site of the explosion, radioactive fallout can be extremely intense - mainly coarse dust settling on the ground. Hundreds of kilometers from the explosion site and at farther distances, small but still visible ash particles fall to the ground. Often they form a cover that looks like fallen snow, deadly to anyone who happens to be nearby. Even smaller and invisible particles, before they settle on the earth, can wander in the atmosphere for months and even years, many times around the globe. By the time they fall out, their radioactivity is significantly weakened. The most dangerous is the radiation of strontium-90 with a half-life of 28 years. Its fallout is clearly seen throughout the world. By settling on foliage and grass, it enters the food chain, including humans. As a result, noticeable, although not yet dangerous, amounts of strontium-90 were found in the bones of the inhabitants of most countries. The accumulation of strontium-90 in human bones is very dangerous in the long term, as it leads to the formation of bone malignant tumors.
Long-term contamination of the area with radioactive fallout.
In the event of hostilities, the use of a hydrogen bomb will lead to immediate radioactive contamination of an area within a radius of approx. 100 km from the epicenter of the explosion. When a superbomb explodes, an area of tens of thousands of square kilometers will be contaminated. Such a huge area of destruction with a single bomb makes it a completely new type of weapon. Even if the super bomb does not hit the target, i.e. will not hit the object with shock-thermal effects, penetrating radiation and the radioactive fallout accompanying the explosion will make the surrounding space unsuitable for habitation. Such precipitation can last for days, weeks or even months. Depending on their quantity, the intensity of the radiation can reach lethal levels. A relatively small number of superbombs are enough to completely cover a large country with a layer of radioactive dust that is deadly to all living things. Thus, the creation of the superbomb marked the beginning of an era when it became possible to make entire continents uninhabitable. Even after a long time after the cessation of the direct impact of radioactive fallout, the danger will remain due to the high radiotoxicity of isotopes such as strontium-90. With food products grown on soils contaminated with this isotope, radioactivity will enter the human body.
H-bomb
Thermonuclear weapons- a type of weapon of mass destruction, the destructive power of which is based on the use of the energy of the nuclear fusion reaction of light elements into heavier ones (for example, the fusion of two nuclei of deuterium (heavy hydrogen) atoms into one nucleus of a helium atom), in which a colossal amount of energy is released. Having the same damaging factors as nuclear weapons, thermonuclear weapons have a much higher explosion power. In theory, it is only limited by the number of available components. It should be noted that radioactive contamination from a thermonuclear explosion is much weaker than from an atomic explosion, especially in relation to the power of the explosion. This gave reason to call thermonuclear weapons "clean". This term, which appeared in the English-language literature, fell out of use by the end of the 70s.
general description
A thermonuclear explosive device can be built using either liquid deuterium or compressed gas. But the appearance of thermonuclear weapons became possible only thanks to a type of lithium hydride - lithium-6 deuteride. It is a compound of a heavy hydrogen isotope - deuterium and a lithium isotope with a mass number of 6.
Lithium-6 deuteride is a solid substance that allows you to store deuterium (the normal state of which under normal conditions is a gas) at positive temperatures, and, in addition, its second component, lithium-6, is a raw material for obtaining the most scarce isotope of hydrogen - tritium. Actually, 6 Li is the only industrial source of tritium production:
Early US thermonuclear munitions also used natural lithium deuteride, which contains mainly a lithium isotope with a mass number of 7. It also serves as a source of tritium, but for this the neutrons participating in the reaction must have an energy of 10 MeV or higher.
In order to create the neutrons and temperature (about 50 million degrees) necessary for the start of a thermonuclear reaction, a small atomic bomb explodes in a hydrogen bomb. The explosion is accompanied by a sharp rise in temperature, electromagnetic radiation, and the emergence of a powerful flux of neutrons. As a result of the reaction of neutrons with the isotope of lithium, tritium is formed.
The presence of deuterium and tritium at a high temperature of the explosion of an atomic bomb initiates a thermonuclear reaction (234), which gives the main release of energy during the explosion of a hydrogen (thermonuclear) bomb. If the bomb body is made of natural uranium, then fast neutrons (carrying away 70% of the energy released during reaction (242)) cause a new uncontrolled fission chain reaction in it. The third phase of the explosion of the hydrogen bomb occurs. In a similar way, a thermonuclear explosion of practically unlimited power is created.
An additional damaging factor is the neutron radiation that occurs at the time of the explosion of a hydrogen bomb.
Thermonuclear ammunition device
Thermonuclear ammunition exists both in the form of aerial bombs ( hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb) and warheads for ballistic and cruise missiles.
History
the USSR
The first Soviet project of a thermonuclear device resembled a puff cake, in connection with which it received the code name "Sloika". The project was developed in 1949 (even before the test of the first Soviet nuclear bomb) by Andrei Sakharov and Vitaly Ginzburg and had a charge configuration different from the now known separate Teller-Ulam scheme. In the charge, layers of fissile material alternated with layers of fusion fuel — lithium deuteride mixed with tritium (“Sakharov's first idea”). The fusion charge located around the fission charge was ineffective in increasing the total power of the device (modern Teller-Ulam devices can give a multiplication factor of up to 30 times). In addition, the areas of fission and fusion charges were interspersed with the usual explosive - the initiator of the primary fission reaction, which additionally increased the required mass of conventional explosives. The first Sloika-type device was tested in 1953 and was named in the West “Joe-4” (the first Soviet nuclear tests were codenamed from the American nickname of Joseph (Joseph) Stalin “Uncle Joe”). The explosion power was equivalent to 400 kilotons with an efficiency of only 15 - 20%. Calculations have shown that the expansion of unreacted material prevents an increase in power over 750 kilotons.
After the United States conducted the Ivy Mike tests in November 1952, which proved the possibility of creating megaton bombs, the Soviet Union began to develop another project. As Andrei Sakharov mentioned in his memoirs, the "second idea" was put forward by Ginzburg back in November 1948 and proposed to use lithium deuteride in a bomb, which, when irradiated with neutrons, forms tritium and releases deuterium.
At the end of 1953, physicist Viktor Davidenko proposed placing the primary (fission) and secondary (fusion) charges in separate volumes, thus repeating the Teller-Ulam scheme. The next big step was proposed and developed by Sakharov and Yakov Zeldovich in the spring of 1954. He meant to use X-rays from the fission reaction to compress lithium deuteride before fusion ("beam implosion"). Sakharov's "third idea" was tested during tests of the RDS-37 with a capacity of 1.6 megatons in November 1955. Further development of this idea confirmed the practical absence of fundamental restrictions on the power of thermonuclear charges.
The Soviet Union demonstrated this with tests in October 1961, when a 50 megaton bomb delivered by a Tu-95 bomber was detonated on Novaya Zemlya. The efficiency of the device was almost 97%, and initially it was designed for a capacity of 100 megatons, which was subsequently cut in half by the willful decision of the project management. It was the most powerful thermonuclear device ever developed and tested on Earth. So powerful that its practical use as a weapon made no sense, even taking into account the fact that it was already tested in the form of a finished bomb.
USA
The idea of a nuclear fusion bomb was proposed by Enrico Fermi to his colleague Edward Teller back in 1941, at the very beginning of the Manhattan Project. Teller devoted much of his work during the Manhattan Project to working on the fusion bomb project, somewhat neglecting the atomic bomb itself. His focus on difficulties and the position of "devil's advocate" in discussions of problems forced Oppenheimer to take Teller and other "problematic" physicists to a siding.
The first important and conceptual steps towards the implementation of the synthesis project were made by Teller's employee Stanislav Ulam. To initiate thermonuclear fusion, Ulam proposed to compress the thermonuclear fuel before heating it, using the factors of the primary fission reaction, and also to place the thermonuclear charge separately from the primary nuclear component of the bomb. These proposals made it possible to translate the development of thermonuclear weapons into a practical plane. Based on this, Teller suggested that the X-ray and gamma radiation generated by the primary explosion could transfer enough energy to the secondary component located in a common shell with the primary one to effect sufficient implosion (squeezing) and initiate a thermonuclear reaction. Teller, his supporters and opponents later discussed Ulam's contributions to the theory behind this mechanism.
The hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb has become the cornerstone of the arms race between the United States and the USSR. For several years, the two superpowers argued over who would become the first owner of a new type of destructive weapon.
Thermonuclear weapons project
At the beginning of the Cold War, the test of the hydrogen bomb was the most important argument for the leadership of the USSR in the fight against the United States. Moscow wanted to achieve nuclear parity with Washington and invested huge amounts of money in the arms race. However, work on the creation of a hydrogen bomb began not thanks to generous funding, but because of reports from undercover agents in America. In 1945, the Kremlin learned that the United States was preparing to create a new weapon. It was a superbomb, the project of which was named Super.
The source of valuable information was Klaus Fuchs, an employee of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the USA. He conveyed to the Soviet Union specific information that related to the secret American development of a superbomb. By 1950, the Super project was thrown into the trash, as it became clear to Western scientists that such a new weapon scheme could not be implemented. Edward Teller was the head of this program.
In 1946, Klaus Fuchs and John developed the Super project and patented their own system. Fundamentally new in it was the principle of radioactive implosion. In the USSR, this scheme began to be considered a little later - in 1948. In general, we can say that at the initial stage it was completely based on American information obtained by intelligence. But, continuing research already on the basis of these materials, Soviet scientists were noticeably ahead of their Western colleagues, which allowed the USSR to obtain first the first and then the most powerful thermonuclear bomb.
On December 17, 1945, at a meeting of a special committee created under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, nuclear physicists Yakov Zeldovich, Isaak Pomeranchuk and Yuliy Khartion made a presentation on "The Use of Nuclear Energy of Light Elements." This document considered the possibility of using a bomb with deuterium. This speech was the beginning of the Soviet nuclear program.
In 1946, theoretical studies of the hoist were carried out at the Institute of Chemical Physics. The first results of this work were discussed at one of the meetings of the Scientific and Technical Council in the First Main Directorate. Two years later, Lavrenty Beria instructed Kurchatov and Khariton to analyze materials about the von Neumann system, which were delivered to the Soviet Union thanks to secret agents in the west. The data from these documents gave an additional impetus to the research, thanks to which the RDS-6 project was born.
Eevee Mike and Castle Bravo
On November 1, 1952, the Americans tested the world's first thermonuclear. It was not yet a bomb, but already its most important component. The detonation took place at Enivotek Atoll, in the Pacific Ocean. and Stanislav Ulam (each of them is actually the creator of the hydrogen bomb) shortly before that had developed a two-stage design, which the Americans tried out. The device could not be used as a weapon, as it was produced using deuterium. In addition, it was distinguished by its enormous weight and dimensions. Such a projectile simply could not be dropped from an airplane.
The first hydrogen bomb was tested by Soviet scientists. After the United States learned about the successful use of the RDS-6s, it became clear that it was necessary to close the gap with the Russians in the arms race as soon as possible. The American test took place on March 1, 1954. Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands was chosen as a testing ground. The Pacific archipelagos were not chosen by chance. There was almost no population here (and the few people who lived on the nearby islands were evicted on the eve of the experiment).
The most devastating American hydrogen bomb explosion became known as Castle Bravo. The charge power turned out to be 2.5 times higher than the expected one. The explosion led to the radiation contamination of a large area (many islands and the Pacific Ocean), which led to a scandal and a revision of the nuclear program.
Development of RDS-6s
The project of the first Soviet thermonuclear bomb was named RDS-6s. The plan was written by the outstanding physicist Andrei Sakharov. In 1950, the Council of Ministers of the USSR decided to concentrate work on the creation of a new weapon in KB-11. According to this decision, a group of scientists led by Igor Tamm went to the closed Arzamas-16.
The Semipalatinsk test site was specially prepared for this ambitious project. Before the test of the hydrogen bomb began, numerous measuring, filming and recording instruments were installed there. In addition, almost two thousand indicators appeared there on behalf of scientists. The area affected by the hydrogen bomb test included 190 structures.
The Semipalatinsk experiment was unique not only because of the new type of weapon. We used unique intakes designed for chemical and radioactive samples. They could only be opened by a powerful shock wave. Recording and filming devices were installed in specially prepared fortified structures on the surface and in underground bunkers.
Alarm Clock
Back in 1946, Edward Teller, who worked in the United States, developed a prototype of the RDS-6s. It was named Alarm Clock. Initially, the design of this device was proposed as an alternative to Super. In April 1947, a series of experiments began at the Los Alamos laboratory, designed to investigate the nature of thermonuclear principles.
Scientists expected the greatest energy release from Alarm Clock. In the fall, Teller decided to use lithium deuteride as fuel for the device. Researchers had not yet used this substance, but expected that it would increase efficiency. Interestingly, Teller already noted in his memos the dependence of the nuclear program on the further development of computers. Scientists needed this technique for more accurate and complex calculations.
Alarm Clock and RDS-6s had a lot in common, but differed in many ways. The American version was not as practical as the Soviet one because of its size. He inherited the large dimensions from the Super project. In the end, the Americans had to abandon this development. The last research took place in 1954, after which it became clear that the project was unprofitable.
The explosion of the first thermonuclear bomb
The first test of a hydrogen bomb in human history took place on August 12, 1953. In the morning, a brightest flash appeared on the horizon, which blinded even through goggles. The RDS-6s explosion turned out to be 20 times more powerful than an atomic bomb. The experiment was found to be successful. Scientists have been able to achieve an important technological breakthrough. For the first time, lithium hydride was used as a fuel. Within a radius of 4 kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion, the wave destroyed all buildings.
Subsequent tests of the hydrogen bomb in the USSR were based on the experience obtained using the RDS-6s. These devastating weapons were not only the most powerful. An important advantage of the bomb was its compactness. The projectile was placed in a Tu-16 bomber. The success allowed Soviet scientists to outstrip the Americans. In the United States at this time there was a thermonuclear device the size of a house. It was not transportable.
When Moscow announced that the USSR's hydrogen bomb was ready, Washington disputed this information. The main argument of the Americans was the fact that the thermonuclear bomb should be made according to the Teller-Ulam scheme. It was based on the principle of radiation implosion. This project will be implemented in the USSR in two years, in 1955.
Physicist Andrey Sakharov made the greatest contribution to the creation of RDS-6s. The hydrogen bomb was his brainchild - it was he who proposed the revolutionary technical solutions that made it possible to successfully complete the tests at the Semipalatinsk test site. Young Sakharov immediately became an academician in the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Hero of Socialist Labor and laureate of the Stalin Prize. Other scientists also received awards and medals: Julius Khariton, Kirill Shchelkin, Yakov Zeldovich, Nikolai Dukhov, etc. In 1953, the test of the hydrogen bomb showed that Soviet science can overcome what until recently seemed to be fiction and fantasy. Therefore, immediately after the successful explosion of the RDS-6s, the development of even more powerful shells began.
RDS-37
On November 20, 1955, the next tests of the hydrogen bomb took place in the USSR. This time it was two-stage and corresponded to the Teller-Ulam scheme. The RDS-37 bomb was going to be dropped from the plane. However, when he took to the air, it became clear that tests would have to be carried out in an emergency situation. Contrary to forecasters' forecasts, the weather deteriorated noticeably, because of which the polygon was covered with dense clouds.
For the first time, specialists were forced to land a plane with a thermonuclear bomb on board. For some time there was a discussion at the Central Command Post about what to do next. A proposal to drop a bomb in the mountains nearby was considered, but this option was rejected as too risky. Meanwhile, the plane continued to circle near the landfill, producing fuel.
Zeldovich and Sakharov received the decisive word. A hydrogen bomb that exploded outside the range would have led to disaster. Scientists understood the full extent of the risk and their own responsibility, and yet they gave written confirmation that the plane would be safe to land. Finally, the commander of the Tu-16 crew, Fyodor Golovashko, received the command to land. The landing was very smooth. The pilots showed all their skills and did not panic in a critical situation. The maneuver was perfect. The Central Command Post breathed a sigh of relief.
The creator of the hydrogen bomb, Sakharov, and his team suffered the test. The second attempt was scheduled for November 22. On this day, everything went without extraordinary situations. The bomb was dropped from a height of 12 kilometers. While the projectile was falling, the plane managed to retire to a safe distance from the epicenter of the explosion. In a few minutes, the mushroom cloud reached a height of 14 kilometers, and its diameter was 30 kilometers.
The explosion was not without tragic accidents. The shock wave shattered glass at a distance of 200 kilometers, causing several injuries. A girl who lived in a neighboring village, on which the ceiling collapsed, also died. Another victim was a soldier in a special waiting area. The soldier fell asleep in the dugout, and he died of suffocation before his comrades could pull him out.
Development of "Tsar Bomba"
In 1954, the best nuclear physicists of the country, under the leadership, began to develop the most powerful thermonuclear bomb in the history of mankind. Andrei Sakharov, Viktor Adamsky, Yuri Babaev, Yuri Smirnov, Yuri Trutnev, etc. also took part in this project. Due to its power and size, the bomb became known as the Tsar Bomba. The project participants later recalled that this phrase appeared after Khrushchev's famous statement about "Kuzkina's mother" at the UN. Officially, the project was called AN602.
For seven years of development, the bomb has gone through several reincarnations. At first, scientists planned to use components from uranium and the Jekyll-Hyde reaction, but later this idea had to be abandoned due to the danger of radioactive contamination.
Test on Novaya Zemlya
For a while, the Tsar Bomba project was frozen, as Khrushchev was going to the United States, and there was a short pause in the Cold War. In 1961, the conflict between the countries flared up again and in Moscow they again remembered about thermonuclear weapons. Khrushchev announced the upcoming tests in October 1961 during the XXII Congress of the CPSU.
On the 30th, the Tu-95V with a bomb on board took off from Olenya and headed for Novaya Zemlya. The plane reached the target for two hours. Another Soviet hydrogen bomb was dropped at an altitude of 10.5 thousand meters above the Sukhoi Nos nuclear test site. The shell exploded while still in the air. A fireball appeared, which reached a diameter of three kilometers and almost touched the ground. Scientists estimate that the seismic wave from the explosion crossed the planet three times. The impact was felt from a thousand kilometers away, and all living things at a distance of one hundred kilometers could receive third-degree burns (this did not happen, since the area was uninhabited).
At that time, the most powerful US thermonuclear bomb was four times inferior in power to the Tsar Bomba. The Soviet leadership was pleased with the result of the experiment. In Moscow, they got what they wanted so much from the next hydrogen bomb. The test showed that the USSR has a weapon far more powerful than that of the United States. In the future, the destructive record of "Tsar Bomba" was never broken. The most powerful hydrogen bomb explosion was the most important milestone in the history of science and the Cold War.
Thermonuclear weapons of other countries
British development of the hydrogen bomb began in 1954. The project leader was William Penney, who was previously a member of the Manhattan Project in the United States. The British possessed scraps of information about the structure of thermonuclear weapons. The American allies did not share this information. In Washington, they referred to the atomic energy law passed in 1946. The only exception for the British was permission to monitor the trials. In addition, they used aircraft to collect samples left over from the explosions of American shells.
At first, London decided to limit itself to the creation of a very powerful atomic bomb. This is how the Orange Messenger trials began. During them, the most powerful non-thermonuclear bombs in the history of mankind were dropped. Its disadvantage was that it was too expensive. On November 8, 1957, a hydrogen bomb was tested. The story of the creation of the British two-stage device is an example of successful progress in the conditions of lagging behind two arguing superpowers.
In China, the hydrogen bomb appeared in 1967, in France in 1968. Thus, there are five states in the club of countries possessing thermonuclear weapons today. Information about a hydrogen bomb in North Korea remains controversial. The head of the DPRK said that his scientists were able to develop such a projectile. During the tests, seismologists from different countries recorded seismic activity caused by a nuclear explosion. But there is still no specific information about the hydrogen bomb in the DPRK.
HYDROGEN BOMB, a weapon of great destructive power (of the order of megatons in TNT equivalent), the principle of which is based on the reaction of thermonuclear fusion of light nuclei. The source of the explosion energy are processes similar to the processes taking place in the Sun and other stars.
In 1961, the most powerful explosion of a hydrogen bomb was made.
On the morning of October 30 at 11 hours 32 minutes. A hydrogen bomb with a capacity of 50 million tons of TNT was detonated over Novaya Zemlya in the area of Guba Mityusha at an altitude of 4000 m above the land surface.
The Soviet Union tested the most powerful thermonuclear device in history. Even in the "half" version (and the maximum power of such a bomb is 100 megatons), the explosion energy tenfold exceeded the total power of all explosives used by all the warring parties during the Second World War (including the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki). The shock wave from the explosion circled the globe three times, the first time in 36 hours and 27 minutes.
The light flash was so bright that, despite the overcast, it was visible even from the command post in the village of Belushya Guba (almost 200 km away from the epicenter of the explosion). The mushroom cloud has grown to a height of 67 km. By the time of the explosion, while the bomb was slowly descending from a height of 10,500 to the calculated detonation point on a huge parachute, the Tu-95 carrier aircraft with its crew and its commander, Major Andrei Yegorovich Durnovtsev, was already in the safe zone. The commander was returning to his airfield as a lieutenant colonel, Hero of the Soviet Union. In an abandoned village - 400 km from the epicenter - wooden houses were destroyed, and stone houses lost their roofs, windows and doors. For many hundreds of kilometers from the landfill, as a result of the explosion, the conditions for the passage of radio waves changed for almost an hour, and radio communication was stopped.
The bomb was developed by V.B. Adamsky, Yu.N. Smirnov, A.D. Sakharov, Yu.N. Babaev and Yu.A. Trutnev (for which Sakharov was awarded the third medal of the Hero of Socialist Labor). The mass of the "device" was 26 tons; a specially modified Tu-95 strategic bomber was used for its transportation and discharge.
"Superbomb", as A. Sakharov called it, did not fit in the bomb compartment of the aircraft (its length was 8 meters, and its diameter was about 2 meters), so the non-power part of the fuselage was cut out and a special lifting mechanism and a device for mounting the bomb were mounted; while in flight, it still stuck out more than half. The entire body of the aircraft, even the blades of its propellers, was covered with a special white paint that protects against a flash of light in an explosion. The same paint was applied to the hull of the accompanying laboratory aircraft.
The results of the explosion of the charge, which received the name "Tsar Bomba" in the West, were impressive:
* The nuclear "mushroom" of the explosion rose to a height of 64 km; the diameter of its cap has reached 40 kilometers.
The bursting fireball reached the ground and almost reached the bomb drop height (that is, the radius of the explosion fireball was approximately 4.5 kilometers).
* The radiation caused third-degree burns at a distance of up to one hundred kilometers.
* At the peak of emission of radiation, the explosion reached a power of 1% of the solar power.
* The shock wave from the explosion circled the globe three times.
* Ionization of the atmosphere caused radio interference even hundreds of kilometers from the landfill within one hour.
* Witnesses felt the impact and were able to describe the explosion at a distance of thousands of kilometers from the epicenter. Also, the shock wave to some extent retained its destructive force at a distance of thousands of kilometers from the epicenter.
* The acoustic wave reached Dixon Island, where the blast wave knocked out windows in houses.
The political result of this test was a demonstration by the Soviet Union of possession of weapons of mass destruction unlimited in power - the maximum megatonnage of a bomb tested by the United States by that time was four times less than that of the Tsar Bomba. Indeed, the increase in the power of the hydrogen bomb is achieved by simply increasing the mass of the working material, so that, in principle, there are no factors preventing the creation of a 100 megaton or 500 megaton hydrogen bomb. (In fact, the Tsar Bomba was designed for a 100-megaton equivalent; the planned explosion power was cut in half, according to Khrushchev, "In order not to break all the glass in Moscow"). By this test, the Soviet Union demonstrated the ability to create a hydrogen bomb of any power and a means of delivering the bomb to the point of detonation.
Thermonuclear reactions. The interior of the Sun contains a huge amount of hydrogen, which is in a state of ultra-high compression at a temperature of approx. 15,000,000 K. At such a high temperature and plasma density, hydrogen nuclei experience constant collisions with each other, some of which ends with their fusion and, ultimately, the formation of heavier helium nuclei. Such reactions, called thermonuclear fusion, are accompanied by the release of a huge amount of energy. According to the laws of physics, the energy release during thermonuclear fusion is due to the fact that during the formation of a heavier nucleus, part of the mass of the light nuclei included in its composition is converted into a colossal amount of energy. That is why the Sun, possessing a gigantic mass, in the process of thermonuclear fusion loses approx. 100 billion tons of matter and releases energy, thanks to which life on Earth became possible.
Isotopes of hydrogen. The hydrogen atom is the simplest of all atoms in existence. It consists of one proton, which is its nucleus, around which a single electron revolves. Thorough studies of water (H 2 O) have shown that it contains an insignificant amount of "heavy" water containing a "heavy isotope" of hydrogen - deuterium (2 H). The deuterium nucleus consists of a proton and a neutron - a neutral particle with a mass close to a proton.
There is a third hydrogen isotope, tritium, which contains one proton and two neutrons in its nucleus. Tritium is unstable and undergoes spontaneous radioactive decay, turning into an isotope of helium. Traces of tritium are found in the Earth's atmosphere, where it is formed as a result of the interaction of cosmic rays with gas molecules that make up the air. Tritium is produced artificially in a nuclear reactor by irradiating the isotope of lithium-6 with a flux of neutrons.
Development of a hydrogen bomb. A preliminary theoretical analysis showed that thermonuclear fusion is easiest to carry out in a mixture of deuterium and tritium. Taking this as a basis, US scientists in the early 1950s embarked on a project to create a hydrogen bomb (HB). The first tests of a model nuclear device were carried out at the Eniwetok test site in the spring of 1951; thermonuclear fusion was only partial. Significant success was achieved on November 1, 1951 when testing a massive nuclear device, the explosion power of which was 4? 8 Mt in TNT equivalent.
The first hydrogen aerial bomb was detonated in the USSR on August 12, 1953, and on March 1, 1954, the Americans detonated a more powerful (about 15 Mt) aerial bomb on Bikini Atoll. Since then, both powers have carried out explosions of advanced megaton weapons.
The explosion at Bikini Atoll was accompanied by the release of large quantities of radioactive substances. Some of them fell hundreds of kilometers from the site of the explosion on the Japanese fishing boat "Happy Dragon", and the other covered the island of Rongelap. Since stable helium is formed as a result of thermonuclear fusion, the radioactivity in the explosion of a purely hydrogen bomb should be no more than that of an atomic detonator of a thermonuclear reaction. However, in the case under consideration, the predicted and real radioactive fallout significantly differed in quantity and composition.
The mechanism of action of a hydrogen bomb. The sequence of processes occurring during the explosion of a hydrogen bomb can be represented as follows. First, the charge that initiates a thermonuclear reaction (a small atomic bomb) inside the HB shell explodes, as a result of which a neutron burst occurs and a high temperature is created, which is necessary for initiating thermonuclear fusion. Neutrons bombard a lithium deuteride insert - a compound of deuterium with lithium (a lithium isotope with a mass number of 6 is used). Lithium-6 splits into helium and tritium under the action of neutrons. Thus, the atomic fuse creates the materials necessary for the synthesis directly in the bomb itself.
Then a thermonuclear reaction begins in a mixture of deuterium and tritium, the temperature inside the bomb rises rapidly, involving more and more hydrogen in the synthesis. With a further increase in temperature, a reaction between deuterium nuclei, characteristic of a purely hydrogen bomb, could begin. All reactions, of course, are so fast that they are perceived as instantaneous.
Division, synthesis, division (superbomb). In fact, in a bomb, the sequence of processes described above ends at the stage of the reaction of deuterium with tritium. Further, the bomb designers preferred to use nuclear fission rather than nuclear fusion. As a result of the fusion of deuterium and tritium nuclei, helium and fast neutrons are formed, the energy of which is large enough to cause the fission of uranium-238 (the main isotope of uranium, much cheaper than uranium-235 used in conventional atomic bombs). Fast neutrons split the atoms of the uranium shell of the superbomb. Fission of one ton of uranium creates energy equivalent to 18 Mt. Energy goes not only to the explosion and the release of heat. Each uranium nucleus splits into two highly radioactive "fragments". Fission products include 36 different chemical elements and nearly 200 radioactive isotopes. All this constitutes the radioactive fallout accompanying the explosions of superbombs.
Thanks to the unique design and the described mechanism of action, weapons of this type can be made as powerful as desired. It is much cheaper than atomic bombs of the same power.