Tsar Bomba: An atomic bomb that was too powerful for this world. Nuclear explosions that shook the entire planet (10 photos) Prospects for practical use

Seventy years ago, on July 16, 1945, the United States conducted the first tests in human history nuclear weapons. Since that time we have made a lot of progress: this moment More than two thousand tests of this incredibly destructive means of destruction have been officially recorded on Earth. Before you are ten of the largest explosions of nuclear bombs, each of which shook the entire planet.

On August 25 and September 19, 1962, with a break of just a month, the USSR conducted nuclear tests over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. Naturally, no video or photography was taken. It is now known that both bombs had a TNT equivalent of 10 megatons. The explosion of one charge would destroy all life within four square kilometers.

Castle Bravo

The world's largest nuclear weapon was tested at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954. The explosion was three times stronger than the scientists themselves expected. Cloud radioactive waste carried towards inhabited atolls, numerous cases of radiation sickness were subsequently recorded among the population.

Evie Mike

This was the world's first test of a thermonuclear explosive device. The United States decided to test a hydrogen bomb near the Marshall Islands. Eevee Mike's detonation was so powerful that it simply vaporized the island of Elugelab, where the tests took place.

Castle Romero

They decided to take Romero out to the open sea on a barge and blow him up there. Not for the sake of any new discoveries, the United States simply no longer had free islands where it could safely test nuclear weapons. The explosion of Castle Romero amounted to 11 megatons of TNT. If a detonation had occurred on land, a scorched wasteland would have spread around within a radius of three kilometers.

Test No. 123

On October 23, 1961, the Soviet Union conducted a nuclear test code number 123. A poisonous flower of a 12.5 megaton radioactive explosion bloomed over Novaya Zemlya. Such an explosion could cause third-degree burns to people over an area of ​​2,700 square kilometers.

Castle Yankee

The second launch of the Castle series nuclear device occurred on May 4, 1954. The TNT equivalent of the bomb was 13.5 megatons, and four days later the consequences of the explosion hit Mexico City - the city was 15 thousand kilometers from the test site.

Tsar bomb

Engineers and physicists of the Soviet Union managed to create the most powerful nuclear device ever tested. The explosion energy of the Tsar Bomb was 58.6 megatons of TNT. On October 30, 1961, the nuclear mushroom rose to a height of 67 kilometers, and the fireball from the explosion reached a radius of 4.7 kilometers.

From September 5 to September 27, 1962, the USSR conducted a series of nuclear tests on Novaya Zemlya. Tests No. 173, No. 174 and No. 147 are in fifth, fourth and third places on the list of the strongest nuclear explosions in history. All three devices were equal to 200 megatons of TNT.

Test No. 219

Another test with serial number No. 219 took place there, on Novaya Zemlya. The bomb had a yield of 24.2 megatons. An explosion of such force would have burned everything within 8 square kilometers.

The Big One

One of America's biggest military failures occurred during the testing of the hydrogen bomb The Big One. The force of the explosion exceeded the power expected by scientists by five times. Radioactive contamination was observed across large parts of the United States. The diameter of the crater from the explosion was 75 meters deep and two kilometers in diameter. If such a thing fell on Manhattan, all that would be left of all of New York would be memories.

Tsar Bomba is the name of the AN602 hydrogen bomb, which was tested in the Soviet Union in 1961. This bomb was the most powerful ever detonated. Its power was such that the flash from the explosion was visible 1000 km away, and the nuclear mushroom rose almost 70 km.

The Tsar Bomba was a hydrogen bomb. It was created in Kurchatov's laboratory. The power of the bomb was such that it would have been enough to destroy 3800 Hiroshimas.

Let's remember the history of its creation.

At the beginning of the “atomic age,” the United States and the Soviet Union entered into a race not only in the number of atomic bombs, but also in their power.

The USSR, which acquired atomic weapons later than its competitor, sought to level the situation by creating more advanced and more powerful devices.

The development of a thermonuclear device codenamed “Ivan” was started in the mid-1950s by a group of physicists led by Academician Kurchatov. The group involved in this project included Andrei Sakharov, Viktor Adamsky, Yuri Babaev, Yuri Trunov and Yuri Smirnov.

During research work scientists also tried to find the limits of the maximum power of a thermonuclear explosive device.

The theoretical possibility of obtaining energy by thermonuclear fusion was known even before World War II, but it was the war and the subsequent arms race that raised the question of creating technical device to practically create this reaction. It is known that in Germany in 1944, work was carried out to initiate thermonuclear fusion by compressing nuclear fuel using charges of conventional explosives - but they were not successful, since it was not possible to obtain the required temperatures and pressures. The USA and the USSR have been developing thermonuclear weapons since the 40s, almost simultaneously testing the first thermonuclear devices in the early 50s. In 1952, the United States exploded a charge with a yield of 10.4 megatons on the Eniwetak Atoll (which is 450 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Nagasaki), and in 1953, the USSR tested a device with a yield of 400 kilotons.

The designs of the first thermonuclear devices were poorly suited for actual combat use. For example, the device tested by the United States in 1952 was a ground-based structure the height of a 2-story building and weighing over 80 tons. Liquid thermonuclear fuel was stored in it using a huge refrigeration unit. Therefore, in the future, 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 on the Bikini Atoll, and in 1955, a new Soviet one was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site. thermonuclear bomb. In 1957, tests of a hydrogen bomb were carried out in Great Britain.

Design research lasted for several years, and the final stage of development of “product 602” occurred in 1961 and took 112 days.

The AN602 bomb had a three-stage design: the nuclear charge of the first stage (calculated contribution to the explosion power is 1.5 megatons) triggered a thermonuclear reaction in the second stage (contribution to the explosion power - 50 megatons), and it, in turn, initiated the so-called nuclear “ Jekyll-Hyde reaction" (nuclear fission in uranium-238 blocks under the influence of fast neutrons generated as a result of the thermonuclear fusion reaction) in the third stage (another 50 megatons of power), so that the total calculated power of AN602 was 101.5 megatons.

However, the original option was rejected, since in this form it would have caused extremely powerful radiation contamination (which, however, according to calculations, would still have been seriously inferior to that caused by much less powerful American devices).
As a result, it was decided not to use the “Jekyll-Hyde reaction” in the third stage of the bomb and to replace the uranium components with their lead equivalent. This reduced the estimated total power of the explosion by almost half (to 51.5 megatons).

Another limitation for the developers was the capabilities of aircraft. The first version of a bomb weighing 40 tons was rejected by aircraft designers from the Tupolev Design Bureau - the carrier aircraft would not be able to deliver such a cargo to the target.

As a result, the parties reached a compromise - nuclear scientists reduced the weight of the bomb by half, and aviation designers were preparing a special modification of the Tu-95 bomber for it - the Tu-95V.

It turned out that it would not be possible to place a charge in the bomb bay under any circumstances, so the Tu-95V had to carry the AN602 to the target on a special external sling.

In fact, the carrier aircraft was ready in 1959, but nuclear physicists were instructed not to speed up work on the bomb - just at that moment there were signs of a decrease in tension in international relations in the world.

At the beginning of 1961, however, the situation worsened again, and the project was revived.

The final weight of the bomb including the parachute system was 26.5 tons. The product turned out to have several names at once - “ Big Ivan", "Tsar Bomba" and "Kuzka's Mother". The latter stuck to the bomb after Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s speech to the Americans, in which he promised to show them “Kuzka’s mother.”

In 1961, Khrushchev quite openly spoke to foreign diplomats about the fact that the Soviet Union was planning to test a super-powerful thermonuclear charge in the near future. On October 17, 1961, the Soviet leader announced the upcoming tests in a report at the XXII Party Congress.

The test site was determined to be the Sukhoi Nos test site on Novaya Zemlya. Preparations for the explosion were completed in late October 1961.

The Tu-95B carrier aircraft was based at the airfield in Vaenga. Here, in a special room, final preparations for testing were carried out.

On the morning of October 30, 1961, the crew of pilot Andrei Durnovtsev received an order to fly to the test site area and drop a bomb.

Taking off from the airfield in Vaenga, the Tu-95B reached its design point two hours later. The bomb was dropped from a parachute system from a height of 10,500 meters, after which the pilots immediately began to move the car away from the dangerous area.

At 11:33 Moscow time, an explosion was carried out at an altitude of 4 km above the target.

The power of the explosion significantly exceeded the calculated one (51.5 megatons) and ranged from 57 to 58.6 megatons in TNT equivalent.

Operating principle:

The action of a hydrogen bomb is based on the use of energy released during the thermonuclear fusion reaction of light nuclei. It is this reaction that takes place in the depths of stars, where, under the influence of ultra-high temperatures and enormous 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 number of energy - thanks to this, stars release huge amounts of energy constantly. Scientists copied this reaction using isotopes of hydrogen - deuterium and tritium, which gave it the name "hydrogen bomb". Initially, liquid isotopes of hydrogen were used to produce charges, and later lithium-6 deuteride was used, solid, a compound of deuterium and an isotope of lithium.

Lithium-6 deuteride is the main component of the hydrogen bomb, thermonuclear fuel. It already stores deuterium, and the lithium isotope serves as the raw material for the formation of tritium. To start a thermonuclear fusion reaction, it is necessary to create high temperatures and pressures, as well as to separate 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, and a conventional nuclear charge with a power of several kilotons is placed next to the container - it is called a trigger, or initiator charge of a hydrogen bomb. During the explosion of the plutonium initiator charge under the influence of powerful X-ray radiation, the shell of the container turns into plasma, compressing 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. Deuterium and tritium nuclei 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 own power to the explosion of a bomb - 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.

Witnesses of the test say that they have never seen anything like this in their lives. The nuclear mushroom of the explosion rose to a height of 67 kilometers, the light radiation could potentially cause third-degree burns at a distance of up to 100 kilometers.

Observers reported that at the epicenter of the explosion, the rocks took a surprisingly flat shape, and the ground turned into some kind of military parade ground. Complete destruction was achieved over an area equal to the territory of Paris.

Ionization of the atmosphere caused radio interference even hundreds of kilometers from the test site for about 40 minutes. The lack of radio communication convinced the scientists that the tests went as well as possible. The shock wave resulting from the explosion of the Tsar Bomba circled three times Earth. The sound wave generated by the explosion reached Dikson Island at a distance of about 800 kilometers.

Despite the heavy clouds, witnesses saw the explosion even at a distance of thousands of kilometers and could describe it.

Radioactive contamination from the explosion turned out to be minimal, as the developers had planned - more than 97% of the power of the explosion was provided by the thermonuclear fusion reaction, which practically did not create radioactive contamination.

This allowed scientists to begin studying the test results on the experimental field within two hours after the explosion.

The explosion of the Tsar Bomba really made an impression on the whole world. It turned out to be four times more powerful than the most powerful American bomb.

There was a theoretical possibility of creating even more powerful charges, but it was decided to abandon the implementation of such projects.

Oddly enough, the main skeptics turned out to be the military. From their point of view, practical sense similar weapons didn't have. How do you order him to be delivered to the “den of the enemy”? The USSR already had missiles, but they were unable to fly to America with such a load.

Strategic bombers were also unable to fly to the United States with such “luggage.” In addition, they became easy targets for air defense systems.

Atomic scientists turned out to be much more enthusiastic. Plans were put forward to place several super-bombs with a capacity of 200–500 megatons off the coast of the United States, the explosion of which would cause a giant tsunami that would literally wash away America.

Academician Andrei Sakharov, future human rights activist and laureate Nobel Prize peace, put forward another plan. “The carrier could be a large torpedo launched from a submarine. I fantasized that it was possible to develop a ramjet water-steam nuclear jet engine for such a torpedo. The target of an attack from a distance of several hundred kilometers should be enemy ports. A war at sea is lost if the ports are destroyed, the sailors assure us of this. The body of such a torpedo can be very durable; it will not be afraid of mines and barrage nets. Of course, the destruction of ports - both by a surface explosion of a torpedo with a 100-megaton charge that “jumped out” of the water, and by an underwater explosion - is inevitably associated with very large casualties,” the scientist wrote in his memoirs.

Sakharov told Vice Admiral Pyotr Fomin about his idea. An experienced sailor, who headed the “atomic department” under the Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Navy, was horrified by the scientist’s plan, calling the project “cannibalistic.” According to Sakharov, he was ashamed and never returned to this idea.

Scientists and military personnel received generous awards for the successful testing of the Tsar Bomba, but the very idea of ​​super-powerful thermonuclear charges began to become a thing of the past.

Nuclear weapons designers focused on things less spectacular, but much more effective.

And the explosion of the “Tsar Bomba” to this day remains the most powerful of those ever produced by humanity.

Tsar Bomba in numbers:

Weight: 27 tons
Length: 8 meters
Diameter: 2 meters
Yield: 55 megatons of TNT
Mushroom height: 67 km
Mushroom base diameter: 40 km
Fireball diameter: 4.6 km
Distance at which the explosion caused skin burns: 100 km
Explosion visibility distance: 1000 km
The amount of TNT required to equal the power of the Tsar Bomb: a giant TNT cube with a side of 312 meters (the height of the Eiffel Tower).

IN The true scale of nuclear explosions (video)

We all know how dangerous nuclear weapons are, but few people imagine the true scale of their destructive power. The bombs we have today are so powerful that the explosion of the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima can be used as a unit of measurement.

Alexander Ponomarev

The most powerful explosive device in the history of mankind was and remains the legendary “Tsar Bomba” with an estimated yield of 50 megatons or approximately 3333 Hiroshima. The bomb was tested on October 30, 1961 at the test site of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. 2 hours after the Tu-95B bomber took off, the Tsar Bomba was dropped from a height of 10,500 meters using a parachute system on a conditional target within the Sukhoi Nos nuclear test site.

The bomb was detonated barometrically at 11:33, 188 seconds after being dropped at an altitude of 4200 meters above sea level. The carrier plane managed to fly a distance of 39 kilometers, and the laboratory plane - 53.5 kilometers. The carrier aircraft was thrown into a dive by the shock wave and lost 800 meters of altitude before control was restored. In the laboratory aircraft, the effect of the shock wave from the explosion was felt in the form of a slight shaking, without affecting the flight mode. According to eyewitnesses, the shock wave broke glass in some houses in Norway and Finland.

The power of the Tsar Bomba explosion exceeded the calculated one and ranged from 57 to 58.6 megatons of TNT. Later, the Pravda newspaper wrote that the bomb, code-named AN602, was already yesterday's nuclear weapons and Soviet scientists developed a bomb of even greater power. This gave rise to numerous rumors in the West that a new “Tsar Bomba” was being prepared for testing, twice as powerful as the previous one.

The mythical 100-megaton bomb, even if it was created, was, fortunately, never tested. Even the most common American thermonuclear aerial bomb, the B83, with a power of up to 1.2 megatons, forms a mushroom upon explosion greater than the flight altitude of passenger airliners! The true scale of the destructive power of nuclear weapons is clearly shown in the video.

+ Original taken from sokura in Underground nuclear explosion

Original taken from masterok V Underground nuclear explosion

Of course, everyone knows about this type of testing as an underground nuclear explosion, but I still did not quite understand the specifics of this option. How? For what? Why is this test option more profitable and better? For what purpose?

In 1947, the USSR Council of Ministers approved a resolution to begin construction of a test site for testing the first Soviet atomic bomb. Construction was completed on July 26, 1949. The landfill area is 18,540 square meters. km was located 170 km from Semipalatinsk. Subsequently, it turned out that the choice of location for the test site was made successfully: the terrain made it possible to conduct underground nuclear tests in adits and wells.

In total, 122 atmospheric and 456 underground nuclear tests were carried out at the Semipalatinsk test site between 1949 and 1989.

This is the technology for conducting an underground nuclear explosion...

First - USA

The first underground nuclear explosion in history was carried out by the United States, codenamed “Uncle,” at the Nevada Test Site on November 19, 1951. The 1.2 kiloton soil ejection explosion was carried out at a shallow depth (5.5 m), solely in the interests of the Ministry of Defense for verification damaging factors. The first “full-scale” underground nuclear test, Rainier, took place at the Nevada test site, Rainier Mesa, on September 19, 1957.

Rainier nuclear test diagram

A nuclear device with a yield of 1.7 kilotons was detonated in a mountain tunnel at a depth of 275 m.

It was carried out to develop methods for testing nuclear charges in underground conditions, as well as to test methods and means for early detection of underground explosions. This test laid the foundations for the technology of underground nuclear testing, which became especially relevant after the signing of the 1963 Moscow Treaty banning nuclear testing in the atmosphere, outer space and under water.

Clouds of dust raised by the shock wave of the Rainier explosion

A total of 21 underground nuclear tests were conducted by the US government during operations prior to the first Soviet underground explosion.

Preparation for testing

The adit for the first Soviet underground nuclear explosion, 380 m long, was dug inside the rock mass of the test site at a depth of 125 m. After the adit was converted into an explosion chamber, a container with a nuclear charge of 1 kt in TNT equivalent was fed on a special trolley along the rails.

During an explosion inside the chamber, the pressure could reach several million atmospheres, so the adit was equipped with three driving areas. This was done to prevent radioactive explosion products from getting out.

The first driving section, 40 m long, had a reinforced concrete wall and consisted of crushed stone backfill. A pipe passed through the blockage to carry out the flow of neutrons and gamma radiation to the sensors of the devices, which recorded the development of the chain reaction. The second section, consisting of reinforced concrete wedges, was 30 m long. The third driving section, 10 meters long, was built at a distance of 200 m from the blast chamber. There were three instrument boxes with measuring equipment. Other measuring instruments were also placed throughout the adit.

The epicenter was indicated by a red flag located on the surface of the mountain, directly above the explosion chamber. The charge was detonated automatically from the command console, located at a distance of 5 km from the mouth of the adit. Seismic equipment and equipment for recording electromagnetic radiation from the explosion were also located here.

Trial

On the appointed day, a radio signal was sent from the command console, turning on hundreds of devices various types, and also ensured the detonation of the nuclear charge itself.

As a result, a dust cloud caused by a rockfall formed at the site of the explosion, and the surface of the mountain above the epicenter rose by 4 m.

No release of radioactive products was observed. After the explosion, dosimetrists and workers who entered the adit discovered that the section of the adit from the mouth to the third plug and the instrument boxes were not destroyed. There was also no radioactive contamination recorded.

On November 6, 1971, on the deserted island of Amchitka (Aleutian Islands, Alaska), a 5-megaton Cannikin thermonuclear charge was detonated - the most powerful in the history of underground explosions. The test was carried out by the United States to study seismic effects.

The consequence of the explosion was an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale, which caused the ground to rise to a height of about 5 meters, large landslides on the coastline and shifts of earth layers throughout the island with an area of ​​308.6 km.

Peaceful explosions

From 1965 to 1988, the USSR operated a program of peaceful nuclear explosions. As part of the secret “Program No. 7,” 124 “peaceful” nuclear explosions were carried out, 117 of them were carried out outside the boundaries of nuclear test sites, and with the help of explosions of nuclear charges, scientists solved only national economic problems. Thus, the nuclear explosion closest to Moscow was carried out in the Ivanovo region.

Here we discussed in more detail

The 20th century was oversaturated with events: it included two World Wars, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis (which almost led to a new global conflict), the fall of communist ideology and the rapid development of technology. During this period, the development of a wide variety of weapons was carried out, but the leading powers sought to develop weapons specifically mass destruction.

Many projects were canceled, but the Soviet Union managed to create weapons of unprecedented power. We are talking about the AN602, known to the general public as the “Tsar Bomba,” created during the arms race. Development took quite a long time, but the final tests were successful.

History of creation

“Tsar Bomba” became a natural result of the period of the arms race between America and the USSR, the confrontation between these two systems. USSR received atomic weapons later than a competitor and wanted to level up the military potential with advanced, more powerful devices.

The choice logically fell on the development of thermonuclear weapons: hydrogen bombs were more powerful than conventional nuclear shells.

Even before World War II, scientists came to the conclusion that energy could be extracted using thermonuclear fusion. During the war, Germany, the USA and the USSR were developing thermonuclear weapons, and the Soviets and America already by the 50s. The first explosions began.

Post-war time and beginning cold war made the creation of weapons of mass destruction a priority task of the leading powers.

Initially, the idea was to create not a “Tsar Bomba”, but a “Tsar Torpedo” (the project received the abbreviation T-15). Due to the lack at that time of the necessary aircraft and rocket carriers for thermonuclear weapons, it had to be launched from a submarine.

Its explosion was supposed to cause a devastating tsunami on the US coast. After conducting a closer study, the project was canceled, recognizing it as doubtful from the standpoint of real combat effectiveness.

Name

“Tsar Bomba” had several abbreviations:

• AN 602 (“product 602”)
• RDS-202 and RN202 (both are erroneous).

Other names were in use (coming from the West):

• "Big Ivan"
• "Kuzka's mother."

The name “Kuzka’s Mother” takes its roots from Khrushchev’s statement: “We will show America Kuzka’s mother!”

This weapon was unofficially called the “Tsar Bomb” because of its unprecedented power compared to all actually tested carriers.

An interesting fact: “Kuzka’s Mother” had a power comparable to the explosion of 3,800 Hiroshima, so in theory, the “Tsar Bomb” really brought the apocalypse to the enemies in the Soviet way.

Development

The bomb was developed in the USSR between 1954 and 1961. The order came personally from Khrushchev. A group of nuclear physicists, the best minds of that time, participated in the project:

• HELL. Sakharov;
• V.B. Adamsky;
• Yu.N. Babaev;
• S.G. Kocharyants;
• Yu.N. Smirnov;
• Yu.A. Trutnev et al.

The development was led by Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences I.V. Kurchatov. The entire team of scientists, in addition to creating a bomb, sought to identify the limits of the maximum power of thermonuclear weapons. AN 602 was developed as a smaller version of the RN202 explosive device. In comparison with the original idea (the mass reached 40 tons), it really lost weight.

The idea of ​​delivering a 40-ton bomb was rejected by A.N. Tupolev due to inconsistency and inapplicability in practice. Not a single Soviet aircraft of those times could have lifted it.

In the final stages of development, the bomb changed:

1. They changed the shell material and reduced the dimensions of “Mother Kuzma”: it was a cylindrical body 8 m long and about 2 m in diameter, which had a streamlined shape and tail stabilizers.
2. They reduced the power of the explosion, thereby slightly reducing the weight (the uranium shell began to weigh 2,800 kg, and the total mass of the bomb decreased to 24 tons).
3. Its descent was carried out using a parachute system. It slowed down the fall of the ammunition, which allowed the bomber to leave the epicenter of the explosion in a timely manner.

Tests

The mass of the thermonuclear device was 15% of the take-off mass of the bomber. To ensure that it was freely located in the ejection compartment, the fuselage fuel tanks were removed from it. A new, more load-bearing beam holder (BD-242), equipped with three bomber locks, was responsible for holding the projectile in the bomb bay. Electric automation was responsible for dropping the bomb, thanks to which all three locks opened simultaneously.

Khrushchev announced the planned weapons tests already at the XXII Congress of the CPSU in 1961, as well as during meetings with foreign diplomats. On October 30, 1961, AN602 was delivered from the Olenya airfield to the training ground " New land».

The bomber's flight took 2 hours, the shell was dropped from an altitude of 10,500 m.

The explosion took place at 11:33 Moscow time after being dropped from a height of 4,000 m above the target. The bomb's flight time was 188 seconds. During this time, the plane delivering the bomb flew 39 km from the drop zone, and the laboratory plane (Tu-95A) accompanying the carrier flew 53 km.

The shock wave caught up with the car at a distance of 115 km from the target: significant vibration was felt, about 800 meters of altitude was lost, but this did not affect the further flight. The reflective paint was faded in some places, and parts of the aircraft were damaged (some even melted).

The final power of the “Tsar Bomba” explosion (58.6 megatons) exceeded the planned one (51.5 megatons).

After the operation we summed up the results:

1. Fire ball, formed as a result of the explosion, had a diameter of about 4.6 km. In theory, it could have grown to the surface of the earth, but thanks to the reflected shock wave this did not happen.
2. Light radiation would result in 3rd degree burns to everyone within 100 km of the target.
3. The resulting mushroom reached 67 km. in height, and its diameter at the upper tier reached 95 km.
4. Wave atmospheric pressure after the explosion, circled the ground three times, moving with average speed at 303 m/s (9.9 degrees of arc per hour).
5. People who were 1000 km away. from the explosion, we felt it.
6. The sound wave reached a distance of approximately 800 km, but no destruction or damage was officially detected in nearby areas.
7. Ionization of the atmosphere led to radio interference at a distance of several hundred kilometers from the explosion and lasted 40 minutes.
8. Radioactive contamination at the epicenter (2-3 km) from the explosion was about 1 milliroentgen per hour. 2 hours after the operation, the contamination was practically harmless. By official version, no dead were found.
9. The crater created by the Kuzkina Mother explosion was not huge for a bomb with a yield of 58,000 kilotons. It exploded in the air, over rocky ground. The location of the “Tsar Bomb” explosion on the map showed that it was about 200 m in diameter.
10. After the release, due to the thermonuclear fusion reaction (which leaves virtually no radioactive contamination), relative purity was present - more than 97%.

Consequences of the test

Traces from the explosion of the Tsar Bomba are still preserved on Novaya Zemlya. We were talking about the most powerful explosive device in the entire history of mankind. Soviet Union demonstrated to other powers that he possesses advanced weapons of mass destruction.

Science in general also benefited from the AN 602 test. The experiment made it possible to test the then existing principles of calculation and design of multistage thermonuclear charges. It has been experimentally proven that:

1. The power of a thermonuclear charge, in fact, is not limited by anything (theoretically, the Americans concluded this 3 years before the bomb exploded).
2. The cost of increasing the charge power can be calculated. At 1950 prices, one kiloton of TNT cost 60 cents (for example, an explosion comparable to the bombing of Hiroshima cost $10).

Prospects for practical use

AN602 is not ready for use in combat. In conditions of fire on the carrier aircraft, the bomb (comparable in size to a small whale) would not have been able to be delivered to the target. Rather, its creation and testing was an attempt to demonstrate the technology.

Later, in 1962, at “Novaya Zemlya” (a test site in the Arkhangelsk region) they tested a new weapon, a manufactured thermonuclear charge in the AN602 housing, tests were carried out several times:

1. Its mass was 18 tons and its power was 20 megatons.
2. Delivery was carried out from heavy strategic bombers 3M and Tu-95.

The dump confirmed that thermonuclear aerial bombs of lower mass and power are easier to produce and use in combat conditions. The new ammunition was still more destructive than those dropped on Hiroshima (20 kilotons) and Nagasaki (18 kilotons).

Using the experience of creating the AN602, the Soviets developed combat units even greater power installed on super-heavy combat missiles:

1. Global: UR-500 (could be sold under the name "Proton").
2. Orbital: N-1 (on its basis they later tried to create a launch vehicle that would deliver the Soviet expedition to the Moon).

As a result, the Russian bomb was not developed, but indirectly influenced the course of the arms race. Later, the creation of “Kuzka’s Mother” formed part of the concept for the development of strategic nuclear forces USSR – “Malenkov-Khrushchev Nuclear Doctrine.”

Device and technical characteristics

The bomb was similar to the RN202 model, but had a number of design changes:

1. A different alignment.
2. 2-stage explosion initiation system. The 1st stage nuclear charge (1.5 megatons of the total explosion power) triggered a thermonuclear reaction in the 2nd stage (with lead components).

The detonation of the charge occurred as follows:

First, there is an explosion of a low-power initiator charge, closed inside the NV shell (essentially a miniature atomic bomb with a power of 1.5 megatons). As a result of a powerful emission of neutrons and high temperature thermonuclear fusion begins in the main charge.

Neutrons destroy the deuterium-lithium insert (a compound of deuterium and the isotope lithium-6). As a result of a chain reaction, lithium-6 splits into tritium and helium. As a result, the atomic fuse contributes to the onset of thermonuclear fusion in the detonated charge.

Tritium and deuterium are mixed, a thermonuclear reaction is triggered: inside the bomb the temperature and pressure rapidly increase, the kinetic energy of the nuclei increases, promoting mutual penetration with the formation of new, heavier elements. The main products of the reaction are free helium and fast neurons.

Fast neutrons are capable of splitting atoms from the uranium shell, which also generate enormous energy (approx. 18 Mt). The fission process of uranium-238 nuclei is activated. All of the above contributes to the formation of a blast wave and the release of a huge amount of heat, due to which the fireball grows.

Each uranium atom upon decay gives 2 radioactive parts, resulting in up to 36 different chemical elements and about 200 radioactive isotopes. And because of this, radioactive fallout appears, which, after the explosion of the Tsar Bomba, was recorded at a distance of hundreds of kilometers from the test site.

The charge and decomposition scheme of the elements are created in such a way that all these processes occur instantly.

The design allows you to increase power with virtually no restrictions, and, compared to standard atomic bombs, saving money and time.

At first, a 3-stage system was planned (as planned, the second stage activated nuclear fission in blocks from the 3rd stage, which had a component of uranium-238), initiating a nuclear “Jekyll-Hyde reaction”, but it was removed due to the potential high level radioactive contamination. This resulted in half the estimated explosion yield (from 101.5 megatons to 51.5).

The final version differed from the original version by a lower level of radioactive contamination after the explosion. As a result, the bomb lost more than half of its planned charge power, but this was justified by scientists. They were afraid that the earth's crust might not withstand such a powerful impact. It was for this reason that they cried out not on the ground but in the air.

It was necessary to prepare not only the bomb, but also the aircraft responsible for delivering and dropping it. This was beyond the capabilities of a conventional bomber. The aircraft must have:

• Reinforced suspension;
• Appropriate bomb bay design;
• Reset device;
• Coated with reflective paint.

These problems were solved after revising the dimensions of the bomb itself and making it a carrier of nuclear bombs of enormous power (in the end this model was adopted by the Soviets and was named Tu-95V).

Rumors and hoaxes related to AN 602

It was rumored that the final power of the explosion was 120 megatons. Such projects took place (for example, a combat version of the UR-500 global missile, the planned capacity of which is 150 megatons), but were not implemented.

There was a rumor that the initial charge power was 2 times higher than the final one.

We reduced it (except for the above) due to fear of the emergence of a self-sustaining thermonuclear reaction in the atmosphere. It is curious that similar warnings previously came from the scientists who developed the first atomic bomb (the Manhattan Project).

The last misconception is about the occurrence of “geological” consequences of weapons. It was believed that detonation of the original version of the Ivan Bomb could penetrate earth's crust to the mantle if it exploded on the ground and not in the air. This is incorrect - the diameter of the crater after a ground detonation of a bomb, say, one megaton is approximately 400 m, and its depth is up to 60 m.

Calculations showed that the explosion of the Tsar Bomba on the surface would lead to the appearance of a crater with a diameter of 1.5 km and a depth of up to 200 m. The fireball that appeared after the explosion of the "Tsar Bomb" would have destroyed the city on which it fell, and in its place a large crater would have formed. The shock wave would have destroyed the suburb, and all survivors would have suffered 3rd and 4th degree burns. It might not have pierced the mantle, but earthquakes, all over the world, would have been guaranteed.

conclusions

The Tsar Bomba truly was a grandiose project and a symbol of that crazy era when the great powers sought to outstrip each other in the creation of weapons of mass destruction. A demonstration of the power of the new weapon of mass destruction was carried out.

For comparison, the United States, previously considered the leader in nuclear potential, the most powerful thermonuclear bomb in service, had a power (in TNT equivalent) 4 times less than that of the AN 602.

The Tsar Bomba was dropped from the carrier, while the Americans detonated their shell in the hangar.

Due to a number of technical and military nuances, we switched to developing less spectacular, but more effective weapons. It is impractical to produce 50 and 100 megaton bombs: these are single products suitable exclusively for political pressure.

“Kuzka’s Mother” helped develop negotiations on a ban on testing weapons of mass destruction in 3 environments. As a result, the USA, USSR and Great Britain signed an agreement in 1963. President of the USSR Academy of Sciences (chief " science Center Soviets of that time) Mstislav Keldysh said that Soviet science sees its goal as the further development and strengthening of peace.

Video

There is a technical term - “dilution”, that is, a decrease in the concentration of the element we need. What does it mean in the case of HEU, highly enriched uranium? HEU in nuclear warhead- it's metal. How, excuse me, do you stuff uranium-238 into it so that the concentration of uranium-235 drops from 90% to 5%? Agree - not the most trivial task, and therefore the question arises: what kind of angel did Russia so easily agree to sign first the Agreement, and then the HEU-LEU Contract. The answer, as is customary in Mordor, is simple: “but we had it with us.” Under terrible socialism, when we were born by order of the party and government, and thought only in unison and only by orders of the Central Committee, strange people in nuclear cities they came up with technology “in reserve” - these are the “atomic mind games”. In post-Soviet times, these games quickly turned into patents, although the names of the inventors, as usual, never appeared in the public domain.

Initially, the dilution scheme looked like this. Good people at the Mayak plant and at the Northern Chemical Plant (SKhK) they took nuclear loaves into their hands and literally... planed them to get metal shavings. I don’t know what this “plane” looked like, but the desired result was there. These shavings were converted at three of our four centrifuge plants (SCC, the Ural Electrolysis Chemical Plant and the Electrochemical Plant), that is, they were combined with fluorine. The centrifuges received not only “planed” weapons-grade uranium, but also the so-called diluent, which was produced at the Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Plant. The centrifuges hummed, roughly speaking, “in reverse side", the resulting fuel uranium went to St. Petersburg, to St. Petersburg Isotope, where it was loaded onto ships and sent to the States.

But if you think that's it technical part finished - you're in a hurry. What is this “thinner”? Let's rewind: we remember how uranium is enriched. The first centrifuge of the cascade receives 99.3% of uranium-238 and 0.7% of the uranium-235 we need. Part of the uranium-238 remained “in place”, and the second centrifuge now receives - roughly - 99.2% of uranium-238 and 0.8% of uranium-235 - and so on. Each time we add more and more uranium-235 until we reach the required concentration. Now the question is - where does the uranium that remained in the very first centrifuge, which was depleted, go? Where does the uranium that was left in centrifuge No. 2, which was depleted, go? You can’t throw it in the trash, it’s radioactive. Problem? Yes, and what else! This depleted uranium contains only 0.2-0.3% uranium-235. This is a kind of “tail” from getting rich. Nuclear scientists were not wise - “tail” has become a common technical term. And the accumulation of these “tails” near each enrichment plant is a flooded sea, counting hundreds of thousands of tons around the world. If you believe Greenpeace, then in 1996 the number of “tails” for some countries was as follows: France - 190 thousand tons, Russia - 500 thousand tons. USA - 740 thousand tons. Well, what to do with such wealth, you ask? The United States, if you recall, loved to dabble in bombs and shells with this same depleted uranium, which is why until 2005 they considered “tails” to be quite a valuable raw material. Europeans figured out how to replace fluorine with oxygen in the tailings - it is more convenient to store them in this form. Since 2005, the United States has been repeating the maneuver - uranium fluoride is converted into oxide and stored. And why they keep it - they themselves don’t understand... What is a “tail” if it’s on the fingers? Yes, almost 100% uranium-238! Well, no one needs it. It would seem. But there is also the terrible Mordor - stupid and backward. Since there are already so many technical details, I’ll tell you in more detail when the opportunity arises, but now briefly: we need it, and only us. Because only in the gas station country is the second fast neutron reactor already operating. And in this reactor, uranium-238 burns and produces heat and electricity. That’s why we don’t give our “tails” to anyone, we don’t bury them anywhere, we don’t destroy them.

Our “tails” lay there and lay there until the signing of HEU-LEU. But here they were needed. For what? Because of the American standard for reactor fuel - ASTM C996-96. This standard has strict requirements for the content of uranium isotopes, of which there are microscopic quantities in the ore (thousandths of a percent): uranium-232, uranium-234 and uranium-236. They are really harmful, the Americans never lie here. Uranium-232 is outrageously radioactive, as are its decay products, and this spoils the fuel pellets. Uranium-234 emits alpha particles - you can't get enough personnel, sorry. Uranium-236 absorbs the neutrons produced by the fission of uranium-235 and suppresses the chain reaction. Where does this “happiness” come from? Yes, from highly enriched uranium! All of the listed isotopes are lighter than basic uranium-238 - did you notice? This means that while centrifuges enrich uranium-235 to 90%, the concentration of this trinity 232/234/236 also increases at the same time. In the edren loaf, no one cares about the trinity - the radioactivity there is already over the top, and in the event of a nuclear explosion, no attempts to slow down the chain reaction simply have time to work. But, if the concentration of uranium-235 in the “tails” decreases, then the concentration of 232/234/236 in them is also less than in natural uranium. There is only one conclusion - HEU can only be diluted with “tails”. The Contract has been signed, which means the “tails” are ready for battle!

I have a suspicion that you all know that the most scary beast There’s a toad on the planet: it’s strangling so many people... It’s strangling our nuclear workers too—no ​​hand has ever been raised to take and destroy our “tails.” After all, you needed a lot of them: from 1 ton of HEU fuel uranium you get as many as 30 tons. 500 tons of HEU had to be diluted, therefore, it was necessary to chop up 14,500 tons of “tails” - and this was the minimum. Why "at a minimum"? Our nuclear scientists, who played with their minds about converting HEU into LEU, experimentally found out that dilution requires a concentration of uranium-235 of 1.5%. And in our “tails” it is only 0.3%. Therefore, the “tail” must first be enriched to this 1.5%, and only then it must be supplemented with HEU. As these calculations progressed, the weight of the toad increased significantly: the “tails” had to be cut almost to the root...

I don’t know what and how Albert Shishkin (head of Techsnabexport from 1988 to 1998) told the Americans. Maybe he danced a square dance or sang some songs and hung from a pole - this is clearly the most important state secret. But the result exceeded expectations: the Americans were ready to give us their “tails”, because they 146% believed that we “finally don’t have any.” They would give it back, but to do this they would have to change a dozen US laws that prohibited any supply of uranium to Russia. Shishkin, dressed in a blouse, spread his accordion furs offendedly, and even the bear behind his shoulder made a reproachful face: “Well, we considered you to be serious people...”. I also don’t know what and how the Americans did with their European partners - they used jiu-jitsu, wrestling or the Kama Sutra. But in 1996, the French Cogema, the French Eurodiff and the Anglo-Dutch-German URENCO in a row signed agreements with Techsnabexport to dock their “tails” - for 105,000 tons. The price of 1 kg of “tail” was a mind-boggling 62 cents, with the average price of natural uranium at that time being $85 per kilo. Once again - $0.62 and $85. Apparently, the Americans used the Kama Sutra...

Apparently, soon after the Europeans and Techsnabexport slammed their seals, the worries brought on by Albert Shishkin lifted from the Americans. Greenpeace was noisy, the trees were bending - these guys protested against almost every steamship, every train with depleted uranium coming from Europe to Russia. If you believe their heart-rending cries, Russia has already died out 3-4 times from the frenzied radioactivity that was just pouring out of its “tails.” Well, that is, bomb shells made from depleted uranium of the American military, who were beating around Yugoslavia, did not irradiate Americans, and the same depleted uranium at the sites of our enrichment plants fatally affected everyone from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok... It’s good that our nuclear scientists are calm people , we didn’t get distracted by this kind of hysterics.

However, nuclear scientists had something to do. The production of HEU diluent from tailings was patented in Russia (patent RU 2479489, developers - Palkin V.A., Chopin G.V., Gordienko V.S., Belousov A.A., Glukhov N.P., Iovik I .E., Chernov L.G., Ilyin I.V., patent owner - Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Plant) immediately after the Americans who arrived in Angarsk admitted that this development was many times better than anything they had come up with in the USA. I must note that the world of scientists is strikingly different from ours: American scientists helped our development team protect this patent in the USA. Geopolitical confrontation is one thing, but a successful idea is quite another. There were a number of other patents, also protected in both Russia and the USA, but this was the key one: the correct composition of the diluent ensured compliance with the requirements of the American uranium fuel quality standard for the content of harmful isotopes. Since 1994, since the signing of the HEU-LEU Contract, the technology has been mastered for less than two years - since 1996, dilution of HEU began at the Ural Electrolysis Chemical Plant, and the first batches of LEU began to cross the ocean. Gradually technology and necessary equipment They also mastered the SCC with ECP, and concentrated all the work on obtaining the diluent in Angarsk. I set out in such detail to once again emphasize: the HEU-LEU Contract provided work for all four of our enrichment plants, thereby ensuring the preservation of People and the opportunity to send all privatizers into the cracks - dollars under the Contract became a safety cushion for our nuclear project. Let me remind you that at the same time the issue of warheads remaining on Ukrainian territory was also being resolved.

And again a lot of books, damn it. And we just got to 1996 - a very, very remarkable year for the American Centrifuge Project. Bill Clinton, Rosatom's most secret agent, accomplished a feat of labor that by 2015 turned the abbreviation PAC into the word "pots." Where to place the bust of the hero is a debatable question, but it must be done, and at the expense of the state budget of the Russian Federation, since Clean Blinton clearly deserves it.