The development of the hydrogen bomb began in Germany during World War II. But the experiments ended in vain due to the fall of the Reich. The first in the practical phase of research were American nuclear physicists. On November 1, 1952, a 10.4 megaton explosion took place in the Pacific Ocean.
On October 30, 1961, a few minutes before noon, seismologists around the world recorded a strong shock wave that circled the globe several times. Such a terrible plume was left by a hydrogen bomb activated. The authors of such a noisy explosion were Soviet nuclear physicists and the military. The world was horrified. It was another round of confrontation between the West and the Soviets. Humanity has stood at the crossroads of its existence.
The history of the creation of the first hydrogen bomb in the USSR
Physicists of the leading powers of the world knew the theory of extraction of thermonuclear fusion back in the 30s of the twentieth century. The dense development of the thermonuclear concept fell on the period of the Second World War. Germany became the leading developer. Until 1944, German scientists were diligently working on the activation of thermonuclear fusion through the compaction of nuclear fuel using conventional explosives. However, the experiment could not succeed in any way due to insufficient temperatures and pressure. The defeat of the Reich put an end to thermonuclear research.
However, the war did not prevent the USSR and the USA from engaging in similar developments from the 40s, albeit not as successfully as the Germans. By the time of testing, both superpowers approached at about the same time. The Americans became pioneers in the practical phase of research. The explosion took place on November 1, 1952 on the Eniwetok coral atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The operation received the secret name Ivy Mike.
Specialists pumped up a 3-story building with liquid deuterium. The total power of the charge was 10.4 megatons of TNT. It turned out to be 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. After the explosion, the island of Elugelab, which became the center for placing the charge, disappeared from the face of the earth without a trace. A crater 1 mile in diameter formed in its place.
Over the entire history of the development of nuclear weapons on Earth, more than 2,000 explosions have been carried out: in the aboveground, underground, air and underwater positions. The ecosystem has been severely damaged.
Operating principle
The design of the hydrogen bomb is based on the use of energy released during the reaction of thermonuclear fusion of light nuclei. A similar process takes place inside a star, where exposure to ultra-high temperatures, along with gigantic pressure, causes hydrogen nuclei to collide. At the exit, weighted helium nuclei are formed. In the process, part of the mass of hydrogen is transformed into energy of exceptional strength. That is why stars are constant sources of energy.
Physicists adopted the fission scheme, replacing hydrogen isotopes with elements such as deuterium and tritium. However, the product was still given the name hydrogen bomb based on the basic design. Early designs also used liquid hydrogen isotopes. But later, the solid deuterium of lithium-6 became the main component.
Lithium-6 deuterium already contains tritium. But in order to highlight it, you need to create a peak temperature and tremendous pressure. To do this, a shell of uranium-238 and polystyrene is constructed for thermonuclear fuel. A small nuclear weapon with a yield of several kilotons is being installed nearby. It serves as a trigger.
When the charge explodes, the uranium shell goes into a plasma state, creating a peak temperature and enormous pressure. In the process, plutonium neutrons come into contact with lithium-6, which allows tritium to be released. The nuclei of deuterium and lithium communicate, forming a thermonuclear explosion. This is the principle of the hydrogen bomb.
Why does the explosion form a "mushroom"?
When a thermonuclear charge is detonated, a hot luminous spherical mass is formed, better known as a fireball. As it forms, the mass expands, cools, and rushes upward. In the process of cooling, the vapors in the fireball condense into a cloud of solid particles, moisture, and charge elements.
An air sleeve is formed, which draws moving elements from the surface of the landfill and transfers them to the atmosphere. The heated cloud rises to a height of 10-15 km, then cools and begins to spread over the surface of the atmosphere, taking on a mushroom shape.
First tests
In the USSR, an experimental thermonuclear explosion was first made on August 12, 1953. At 7:30 am, an RDS-6 hydrogen bomb was detonated at the Semipalatinsk test site. It is worth saying that this was the fourth testing of atomic weapons in the Soviet Union, but the first thermonuclear one. The mass of the bomb was 7 tons. She could freely fit in the bomb bay of the Tu-16 bomber. In comparison, let's take an example from the West: the American Ivy Mike bomb weighed 54 tons, and a 3-story building similar to a house was built for it.
Soviet scientists went further than the Americans. To assess the strength of destruction, a town was built at the site from residential and administrative buildings. Placed around the perimeter of military equipment from each type of troops. In total, 190 different objects of immovable and movable property were located in the affected area. Along with this, scientists have prepared more than 500 types of all kinds of measuring equipment at the test site and in the air, on observer aircraft. Movie cameras were installed.
The RDS-6 bomb was installed on a 40-meter iron tower with the possibility of remote detonation. All traces of past tests, radiation soil, etc. were removed from the test site. The observation bunkers were strengthened, and next to the tower, just 5 meters away, a major shelter was built for equipment that registers thermonuclear reactions and processes.
Explosion. The shock wave demolished everything that was installed at the test site within a radius of 4 km. Such a charge could easily turn a 30,000-strong town into dust. Instruments recorded horrendous environmental consequences: almost 82% strontium-90, and about 75% cesium-137. These are off-scale indicators of radionuclides.
The power of the explosion was estimated at 400 kilotons, which was 20 times higher than the American counterpart Ivy Mike. According to studies in 2005, more than 1 million people suffered from tests at the Semipalatinsk test site. But these figures are deliberately underestimated. The main consequences are oncology.
After testing, the developer of the hydrogen bomb, Andrei Sakharov, was awarded the degree of academician of physical and mathematical sciences and the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
Explosion at the Dry Nose test site
Eight years later, on October 30, 1961, the USSR detonated the 58-megaton Tsar Bomba AN602 over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago at an altitude of 4 km. The projectile was dropped by a Tu-16A aircraft from a height of 10.5 km by parachute. After the explosion, the shock wave circled the planet three times. The fireball reached a diameter of 5 km. Light radiation had a striking force within a radius of 100 km. Nuclear mushroom grew by 70 km. The roar spread over 800 km. The power of the explosion was 58.6 megatons.
Scientists admitted that they thought that the atmosphere began to burn and oxygen burn out, and this would mean the end of all life on earth. But the fears turned out to be unfounded. Subsequently, it was proved that a chain reaction from a thermonuclear detonation does not threaten the atmosphere.
The AN602 hull was designed for 100 megatons. Nikita Khrushchev later joked that the volume of the charge was reduced due to the fear of "breaking all the windows in Moscow." The weapon did not enter service, but it was such a political trump card that it was impossible to cover at that time. The USSR demonstrated to the whole world that it is capable of solving the problem of any megatonnage of nuclear weapons.
Possible consequences of a hydrogen bomb explosion
First of all, the hydrogen bomb is a weapon of mass destruction. It is capable of destroying not only with an explosive wave, as TNT shells are capable of, but also with radiation consequences. What happens after the explosion of a thermonuclear charge:
- a shock wave that sweeps away everything in its path, leaving behind large-scale destruction;
- thermal effect - incredible thermal energy, capable of melting even concrete structures;
- radioactive fallout - a cloudy mass with drops of radiation water, elements of charge decay and radionuclides, moves with the wind and falls out as precipitation at any distance from the epicenter of the explosion.
Near nuclear test sites or man-made disasters, a radioactive background has been observed for decades. The consequences of the use of a hydrogen bomb are very serious, capable of harming future generations.
In order to visually assess the effect of the destructive power of thermonuclear weapons, we suggest watching a short video of the explosion of the RDS-6 at the Semipalatinsk test site.
H-bomb
thermonuclear weapon- a type of weapon of mass destruction, the destructive power of which is based on the use of the energy of the reaction of nuclear fusion 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 an enormous amount of energy is released. Having the same damaging factors as nuclear weapons, thermonuclear weapons have a much greater explosion power. Theoretically, it is limited only by the number of components available. It should be noted that radioactive contamination from a thermonuclear explosion is much weaker than from an atomic one, especially in relation to the power of the explosion. This gave reason to call thermonuclear weapons "clean". This term, which appeared in English-language literature, fell into disuse by the end of the 70s.
general description
A thermonuclear explosive device can be built using either liquid deuterium or gaseous compressed deuterium. But the appearance of thermonuclear weapons became possible only thanks to a variety of lithium hydride - lithium-6 deuteride. This is a compound of the heavy isotope of hydrogen - deuterium and the isotope of lithium with a mass number of 6.
Lithium-6 deuteride is a solid substance that allows you to store deuterium (whose normal state is a gas under normal conditions) 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:
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 and higher.
In order to create the neutrons and temperature necessary to start a thermonuclear reaction (about 50 million degrees), a small atomic bomb first explodes in a hydrogen bomb. The explosion is accompanied by a sharp rise in temperature, electromagnetic radiation, and the emergence of a powerful neutron flux. As a result of the reaction of neutrons with an isotope of lithium, tritium is formed.
The presence of deuterium and tritium at the high temperature of an atomic bomb explosion initiates a thermonuclear reaction (234), which gives the main energy release in 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 the reaction (242)) cause a new uncontrolled fission chain reaction in it. There is a third phase of the explosion of the hydrogen bomb. In this 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 munition device
Thermonuclear munitions exist both in the form of aerial bombs ( hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb), and warheads for ballistic and cruise missiles.
Story
the USSR
The first Soviet project of a thermonuclear device resembled a layer cake, and therefore received the code name "Sloyka". The design was developed in 1949 (even before the first Soviet nuclear bomb was tested) by Andrey Sakharov and Vitaly Ginzburg, and had a different charge configuration from the now-famous split Teller-Ulam design. 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, did little to increase the overall 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 a conventional explosive - the initiator of the primary fission reaction, which further increased the required mass of conventional explosives. The first Sloyka-type device was tested in 1953 and was named in the West "Jo-4" (the first Soviet nuclear tests were codenamed from the American nickname of Joseph (Joseph) Stalin "Uncle Joe"). The power of the explosion was equivalent to 400 kilotons with an efficiency of only 15 - 20%. Calculations showed that the expansion of unreacted material prevents an increase in power over 750 kilotons.
After the US Evie Mike test in November 1952, which proved the possibility of building 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 using lithium deuteride in the bomb, which, when irradiated with neutrons, forms tritium and releases deuterium.
At the end of 1953, physicist Viktor Davidenko proposed to place 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 Zel'dovich in the spring of 1954. It involved using X-rays from a fission reaction to compress lithium deuteride prior to 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 by testing 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 a strong-willed 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 lost all meaning, even taking into account the fact that it was already tested in the form of a ready-made bomb.
USA
The idea of a fusion bomb initiated by an atomic charge was proposed by Enrico Fermi to his colleague Edward Teller as early as 1941, at the very beginning of the Manhattan Project. Teller spent much of his work on the Manhattan Project working on the fusion bomb project, to some extent neglecting the atomic bomb itself. His focus on difficulties and his "devil's advocate" position in discussions of problems caused Oppenheimer to lead Teller and other "problem" physicists to a siding.
The first important and conceptual steps towards the implementation of the synthesis project were taken by Teller's collaborator Stanislav Ulam. To initiate thermonuclear fusion, Ulam proposed to compress the thermonuclear fuel before it starts heating, using the factors of the primary fission reaction for this, 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, to carry out sufficient implosion (compression) and initiate a thermonuclear reaction. Later, Teller, his supporters and detractors discussed Ulam's contribution to the theory behind this mechanism.
favWhat happens inside a thermonuclear warhead that reaches its target? A lot of amazing and beautiful, from the point of view of physics, things. True, just before the apocalypse, hardly anyone will think about them, so we will talk about the origin of a nuclear explosion right now.
...Well, let's say "title="">an ICBM warhead came to the calculated point. Or an atomic bomb parachuted down to the height where, in popular terms, it is imperative to bang. And bang - how is it? What happens in the bomb body for the moment when it with the content turns into energy?
No, I don’t need it here about the “flash on the left”, about “kicking into the epicenter” and other banter based on a badly serrated civil defense textbook. What exactly is happening under the body of a thermonuclear warhead at a time when this body still exists - at least conditionally and partially?
Leave me alone with your repentance, it's such a beautiful physics! (Laßt mich in Ruhe mit euren Gewissensbissen, das ist doch so schöne Physik!)
So said Enrico Fermi before the first nuclear tests in Alamogordo, July 1945. (Unless, of course, you believe the author of the book “Brighter than a Thousand Suns” Robert Jung. There is not the slightest reason to believe him, but the phrase is still good, and we will use it cynically. )
We will consider a two-stage ammunition, made according to the Teller-Ulam scheme. In the Soviet Union, she is widely known as the “third idea” from the memoirs of Andrei Sakharov, although she had a whole platoon of real “fathers” in our Palestinians - at least Davidenko, Frank-Kamenetsky, Zeldovich, Babaev and Trutnev. Therefore, it would be wrong to attribute it personally to Comrade Academician Sakharov, as is sometimes done. (Comrade Academician also did not ascribe anything superfluous to himself. Be like Comrade Academician.)
kiloton lighter
It all starts with the first step - the so-called trigger. This is a simple atomic charge (well, maybe not quite simple), and everything starts in it by the simultaneous detonation of a conventional explosive charge, cleverly wrapped around a fissile substance.
In the ancient times of the atomic age, it was important that the detonators fired exactly simultaneously, with a minimum mismatch - within tens of nanoseconds. Otherwise, there will be a small ordinary explosion with a quickly extinguished nuclear reaction (the so-called "pop"). He will pollute the entire neighborhood with wasted plutonium and other radioactive trash. In the end, they came up with a cunning version of undermining, the so-called "swan". In it, synchronism is not critical, and you can not stick the entire surface with detonators.
A specially trained explosive explodes and puts pressure on the tamper (pusher - a heavy shell of the trigger). It “falls” inward through a void, in the center of which, surrounded by a beryllium neutron reflector, hangs the most interesting thing: a small ball of plutonium-239. The tamper compresses the ball, bringing the pressure to several million atmospheres, and transfers it to a supercritical state.
Attention: several tens of microseconds have already passed since the launch of the detonators, and yet there is no nuclear reaction yet. But now it will.
At the moment of compression of the plutonium nucleus, the “fuse” is activated: the starting source begins to drive neutrons into the nucleus.
Here it is, the “zero” mark: from this moment all the fun begins.
The first fissions of plutonium began, still under the influence of an external neutron flux. A few additional nanoseconds, and the next wave of neutrons, already "own", went on a spree in the thickness of plutonium.
Congratulations, ladies and gentlemen, we have a chain reaction. You have been warned.
The pressure in the center is already on the scale of a billion atmospheres, the temperature is steadily moving towards 100 million degrees Kelvin. And what happens outside this little ball? Was there an ordinary explosion there? So he is. Hanging, excuse me for such a verb, keeps this whole structure through a tamper so that it doesn’t run away right away, but its strength is running out.
This is where it all ends: after one ten-millionth of a second from the moment "zero" (0.1 microseconds, but all numbers are very approximate), the reaction in plutonium is completed.
Substitute the bucket
It seems like everything, a nuclear explosion took place, are we dispersing? Well, theoretically yes. But if you leave everything as it is, the explosion will not be very powerful. It can be strengthened (boosted) with layers of thermonuclear fuel. True, there is one problem. There the shock wave is hanging, it is already falling apart at the seams, I'm tired of holding your vigorous bomb. How to burn it all before it runs away? Will you make seventeen floors, five will react, we live on those two percent, and the rest - a carpet in the countryside? No, let's think.
As Teller wrote in substantiating his idea, somewhere between 70-80% of the energy of a nuclear reaction is released in the form of X-rays, which move much faster than fragments of plutonium fission rushing outward. What does this give the inquisitive mind of a physicist?
And let's, the physicist says, until the blast wave crawled up to us and then everything didn’t shatter at all to edrene-phene, we use the x-ray that has already left the trigger to ignite the thermonuclear reaction.
We put a bucket of liquid deuterium next to it (as Teller had in the first product) or solid lithium deuteride (as Ginzburg suggested in the Union), and use the trigger explosion as a lighter, or, if you like, as a REAL EXPLOSION detonator.
No sooner said than done. Now the design of our charge is clear: a hollow tank, from one end - a trigger, the whole meanness of the fall of which we have already discussed. The space between the first and second stages is filled with various tricky radiolucent materials. Everywhere it is officially indicated that at first it was polystyrene foam. But since the late 1970s, the Americans, for example, have been using a very secret FOGBANK material - presumably airgel. The filler protects the second stage from early overheating, and the outer case of the charge from rapid destruction. The housing also applies pressure to the second stage and generally contributes to the symmetry of the compression.
In addition, in the same place - in a small break between the first and second - very cunning and completely secret constructions are installed, about which they try not to write anything at all. They can be cautiously called X-ray concentrators. All this is necessary so that the X-ray does not just shine into space, but properly reaches the second stage.
Everything else is occupied by the second stage. Its package is also not easy, but what kind of package is needed. In the very core of this cylinder of lithium deuteride, packed in a strong heavy case, a channel was made into which a rod of the same plutonium-239 or uranium-235 was treacherously inserted.
When the Motherland needs - and the stars are lit
The X-ray has evaporated the filler, is re-reflected from the inside from the outer shell and acts on the second stage case. And in general, to be honest, this whole fair is already starting to eliminate the bomb itself as a material structure. But we will have time, we need nothing at all, about a microsecond.
Everything evaporated breaks into the center and with terrible force presses and heats (millions of degrees, hundreds of millions of atmospheres) the outer shell of the second stage. It also begins to evaporate (ablation effect). Well, how to evaporate ...
A jet engine in afterburner, in comparison, is an attempt to delicately blow your nose.
From here you can estimate the pressure on what's inside the shell. See above about the tamper on the first stage, the idea is somewhat similar.
The second stage is reduced in size - 30 times for the cylindrical version and about 10 for the spherical one. The density of matter increases more than a thousand times. The inner rod of plutonium is brought to supercriticality and a nuclear reaction begins in it - already the second in our ammunition in the last microsecond.
So, a tamper was pressed on top, it was hard bombed inside, a stream of neutrons went off - and we have wonderful weather inside.
Hello, fusion of light nuclei, lithium into tritium, all together into helium, here it is, power output. Hundreds of millions of degrees, like in the stars. The thermonuclear bomb has arrived.
A microsecond drips, the ignited lithium deuteride burns from the center outward ... stop, but what if we don’t have enough power now?
Let's rewind a little back and organize the body of the second stage not just like that, but from uranium-238. In fact, from natural metal, and even from depleted.
We have a stream of very fast neutrons from the synthesis of light nuclei, they rush from the inside to the underevaporated uranium tamper and - oh, a miracle! - in this harmless isotope, a nuclear reaction starts. It is not chain, it cannot support itself. But so many of these neutrons fly out of the fusion that it is enough for a ton of uranium: the entire second stage works like a huge neutron source.
This is the so-called "Jekyll-Hyde reaction". That’s why the name is this: I didn’t touch anyone, it seemed to be normal, and here you are SUDDENLY.
It hatched
We recall that less than two microseconds have passed, and so many important things have already been done: they detonated an atomic bomb, set fire to thermonuclear fuel with its help, and, if necessary, forced the apolitical nihilist - uranium-238 to share. The latter, by the way, is important: it can greatly overclock the power of the device. But a lot of dirt will fly into the environment.
True, this is where the “beautiful physics” of the giants of scientific thought in the middle of the 20th century ends. Now all this primordial element is ready to pour out, beyond the ghostly boundaries of what until recently was the body of the bomb.
The hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb became the cornerstone of the arms race between the US and the USSR. The two superpowers have been arguing for several years about who will be 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 secret agents in America. In 1945, the Kremlin learned that the United States was preparing to create a new weapon. It was a super-bomb, the project of which was called Super.
The source of valuable information was Klaus Fuchs, an employee of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the USA. He gave the Soviet Union specific information that concerned the secret American developments of the superbomb. By 1950, the Super project was thrown into the trash, as it became clear to Western scientists that such a scheme for a new weapon could not be implemented. The head of this program was Edward Teller.
In 1946, Klaus Fuchs and John developed the ideas of 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 received by intelligence. But, continuing research already on the basis of these materials, Soviet scientists were noticeably ahead of their Western counterparts, which allowed the USSR to first obtain the first, and then the most powerful thermonuclear bomb.
On December 17, 1945, at a meeting of a special committee established under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, nuclear physicists Yakov Zel'dovich, Isaak Pomeranchuk and Julius Khartion made a report "Using the nuclear energy of light elements." This paper considered the possibility of using a deuterium bomb. 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 covert 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.
Evie Mike and Castle Bravo
On November 1, 1952, the Americans tested the world's first thermonuclear bomb. It was not yet a bomb, but already its most important component. The explosion occurred on the Enivotek Atoll, in the Pacific Ocean. and Stanislav Ulam (each of them is actually the creator of the hydrogen bomb) shortly before developed a two-stage design, which the Americans tested. 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 aircraft.
The test of the first hydrogen bomb was carried out 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 passed on March 1, 1954. Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands was chosen as the test site. The Pacific archipelagos were not chosen by chance. There was almost no population here (and those few people who lived on 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 expected. The explosion led to 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 new weapons in KB-11. According to this decision, a group of scientists led by Igor Tamm went to the closed Arzamas-16.
Especially for this grandiose project, the Semipalatinsk test site was prepared. Before the test of the hydrogen bomb began, numerous measuring, filming and recording devices were installed there. In addition, on behalf of scientists, almost two thousand indicators appeared there. 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. Unique intakes designed for chemical and radioactive samples were used. Only a powerful shock wave could open them. 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 the RDS-6s prototype. It was called Alarm Clock. Initially, the project of this device was proposed as an alternative to Super. In April 1947, a whole series of experiments began at the Los Alamos laboratory to investigate the nature of thermonuclear principles.
From the Alarm Clock, scientists expected the greatest energy release. In the fall, Teller decided to use lithium deuteride as fuel for the device. Researchers had not yet used this substance, but they 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. This technique was needed by scientists for more accurate and complex calculations.
Alarm Clock and RDS-6s had much in common, but they differed in many ways. The American version was not as practical as the Soviet one due to its size. He inherited the large size from the Super project. In the end, the Americans had to abandon this development. The last studies took place in 1954, after which it became clear that the project was unprofitable.
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 bright 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 considered successful. Scientists were 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 the buildings.
Subsequent tests of the hydrogen bomb in the USSR were based on the experience gained using the RDS-6s. This devastating weapon was not only the most powerful. An important advantage of the bomb was its compactness. The projectile was placed in the Tu-16 bomber. Success allowed Soviet scientists to get ahead of the Americans. In the USA at that time there was a thermonuclear device, the size of a house. It was non-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 manufactured 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.
The physicist Andrei Sakharov made the greatest contribution to the creation of the RDS-6s. The hydrogen bomb was his brainchild - it was he who proposed the revolutionary technical solutions that made it possible to successfully complete tests at the Semipalatinsk test site. Young Sakharov immediately became an academician at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and other scientists also received awards and medals as a Hero of Socialist Labor: Yuli Khariton, Kirill Shchelkin, Yakov Zeldovich, Nikolai Dukhov, etc. In 1953, a hydrogen bomb test showed that Soviet science could overcome what until recently seemed fiction and fantasy. Therefore, immediately after the successful explosion of the RDS-6s, the development of even more powerful projectiles began.
RDS-37
On November 20, 1955, another test 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 about to be dropped from an aircraft. However, when he took to the air, it became clear that the tests would have to be carried out in an emergency. Contrary to forecasts of weather forecasters, the weather deteriorated noticeably, due to which dense clouds covered the test site.
For the first time, experts 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 was considered to drop the bomb on the mountains nearby, but this option was rejected as too risky. Meanwhile, the plane continued to circle near the landfill, producing fuel.
Zel'dovich and Sakharov received the decisive word. A hydrogen bomb that did not explode at a test site would have led to disaster. Scientists understood the full degree of risk and their own responsibility, and yet they gave written confirmation that the landing of the aircraft would be safe. 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 let out a breath of relief.
The creator of the hydrogen bomb Sakharov and his team have postponed the tests. The second attempt was scheduled for 22 November. On this day, everything went without emergency 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. A few minutes later, the nuclear mushroom reached a height of 14 kilometers, and its diameter was 30 kilometers.
The explosion was not without tragic incidents. From the shock wave at a distance of 200 kilometers, glass was knocked out, because of which several people were injured. A girl who lived in a neighboring village also died, on which the ceiling collapsed. Another victim was a soldier who was 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 the "Tsar bomb"
In 1954, the best nuclear physicists of the country, under the leadership, began the development of the most powerful thermonuclear bomb in the history of mankind. Andrey 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. Project participants later recalled that this phrase appeared after Khrushchev's famous statement about "Kuzka's mother" at the UN. Officially, the project was called AN602.
Over the seven years of development, the bomb has gone through several reincarnations. At first, scientists planned to use uranium components and the Jekyll-Hyde reaction, but later this idea had to be abandoned due to the danger of radioactive contamination.
Trial on New Earth
For some time, 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 thermonuclear weapons. Khrushchev announced the upcoming tests in October 1961 during the XXII Congress of the CPSU.
On the 30th, a 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 Dry Nose 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. According to scientists, the seismic wave from the explosion crossed the planet three times. The impact was felt a thousand kilometers away, and all living things at a distance of a 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 less powerful than 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 weapons much more powerful than the United States. In the future, the devastating record of the Tsar Bomba was never broken. The most powerful explosion of the hydrogen bomb was a 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 had previously been a member of the Manhattan Project in the United States. The British had crumbs of information about the structure of thermonuclear weapons. American allies did not share this information. Washington cited the 1946 Atomic Energy Act. The only exception for the British was permission to observe the tests. In addition, they used aircraft to collect samples left after the explosions of American shells.
At first, in London, they decided to limit themselves to the creation of a very powerful atomic bomb. Thus began the testing of the Orange Herald. During them, the most powerful non-thermonuclear bomb in the history of mankind was dropped. Its disadvantage was excessive cost. On November 8, 1957, a hydrogen bomb was tested. The history of the creation of the British two-stage device is an example of successful progress in the conditions of lagging behind the two superpowers arguing with each other.
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 the hydrogen bomb in North Korea remains controversial. The head of the DPRK stated 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.
On August 12, 1953, the first Soviet hydrogen bomb was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site.
And on January 16, 1963, at the height of the Cold War, Nikita Khrushchev announced to the world that the Soviet Union possesses new weapons of mass destruction in its arsenal. A year and a half earlier, the most powerful explosion of a hydrogen bomb in the world was carried out in the USSR - a charge with a capacity of over 50 megatons was blown up on Novaya Zemlya. In many ways, it was this statement by the Soviet leader that made the world aware of the threat of a further escalation of the nuclear arms race: already on August 5, 1963, an agreement was signed in Moscow banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, outer space and under water.
History of creation
The theoretical possibility of obtaining energy by thermonuclear fusion was known even before the Second World War, but it was the war and the subsequent arms race that raised the question of creating a technical device for the practical creation of this reaction. It is known that in Germany in 1944, work was underway to initiate thermonuclear fusion by compressing nuclear fuel using charges of conventional explosives - but they were unsuccessful, because they could not obtain the necessary temperatures and pressures. The USA and the USSR have been developing thermonuclear weapons since the 1940s, having tested the first thermonuclear devices almost simultaneously in the early 1950s. In 1952, on the Enewetok Atoll, the United States carried out an explosion of a charge with a capacity of 10.4 megatons (which is 450 times the power of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki), and in 1953 a device with a capacity of 400 kilotons was tested in the USSR.
The designs of the first thermonuclear devices were ill-suited for real combat use. For example, a device tested by the United States in 1952 was an above-ground structure as high as a 2-story building and weighing over 80 tons. Liquid thermonuclear fuel was stored in it with the help of a huge refrigeration unit. Therefore, in the future, the serial production of thermonuclear weapons was carried out using solid fuel - lithium-6 deuteride. In 1954, the United States tested a device based on it at Bikini Atoll, and in 1955, a new Soviet thermonuclear bomb was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site. In 1957, a hydrogen bomb was tested in the UK. In October 1961, a thermonuclear bomb with a capacity of 58 megatons was detonated in the USSR on Novaya Zemlya - the most powerful bomb ever tested by mankind, which went down in history under the name "Tsar Bomba".
Further development was aimed at reducing the size of the design of hydrogen bombs in order to ensure their delivery to the target by ballistic missiles. Already in the 60s, the mass of devices was reduced to several hundred kilograms, and by the 70s, ballistic missiles could carry more than 10 warheads at the same time - these are missiles with multiple warheads, each of the parts can hit its own target. To date, the United States, Russia and Great Britain have thermonuclear arsenals, tests of thermonuclear charges were also carried out in China (in 1967) and France (in 1968).
How the hydrogen bomb works
The action of a hydrogen bomb is based on the use of energy released during the reaction of thermonuclear fusion of light nuclei. It is this reaction that takes place in the interiors of stars, where, under the influence of ultrahigh temperatures and gigantic pressure, hydrogen nuclei collide and merge into heavier helium nuclei. During the reaction, part of the mass of hydrogen nuclei is converted into a large amount of energy - thanks to this, stars release a huge amount of energy constantly. Scientists have copied this reaction using hydrogen isotopes - deuterium and tritium, which gave the name "hydrogen bomb". Initially, liquid isotopes of hydrogen were used to produce charges, and later lithium-6 deuteride, a solid compound of deuterium and an isotope of lithium, was used.
Lithium-6 deuteride is the main component of the hydrogen bomb, thermonuclear fuel. It already stores deuterium, and the lithium isotope serves as a raw material for the formation of tritium. To start a fusion reaction, it is necessary to create high temperatures and pressures, as well as to isolate tritium from lithium-6. These conditions are provided as follows.
The shell of the container for thermonuclear fuel is made of uranium-238 and plastic, next to the container is placed a conventional nuclear charge with a capacity of several kilotons - it is called a trigger, or a charge-initiator of a hydrogen bomb. During the explosion of the initiating plutonium charge, under the influence of powerful X-ray radiation, the container shell turns into plasma, shrinking thousands of times, which creates the necessary high pressure and enormous temperature. At the same time, neutrons emitted by plutonium interact with lithium-6, forming tritium. The nuclei of deuterium and tritium interact under the influence of ultra-high temperature and pressure, which leads to a thermonuclear explosion.
If you make several layers of uranium-238 and lithium-6 deuteride, then each of them will add its power to the bomb explosion - that is, such a "puff" allows you to increase the power of the explosion almost unlimitedly. Thanks to this, a hydrogen bomb can be made of almost any power, and it will be much cheaper than a conventional nuclear bomb of the same power.
