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 team involved in this project included Andrey Sakharov,Victor 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.
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 first stage nuclear charge (calculated contribution to the explosion power was 1.5 megatons) launched a thermo nuclear 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 initial option was rejected, since in this form the bomb explosion 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).
"Product 602"
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 They were preparing for it a special modification of the Tu-95 bomber - 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.
Time for “Mother Kuzma”
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 the speech of the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in front of the Americans, in which he promised to show them “Kuzka’s mother.”
What the Soviet Union is planning in soon test a super-powerful thermonuclear charge, in 1961 Khrushchev spoke quite openly foreign diplomats. 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 last days 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 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.
There was Paris - and there is no Paris
The power of the explosion significantly exceeded the calculated one (51.5 megatons) and ranged from 57 to 58.6 megatons in TNT equivalent.
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. 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 explosion power was provided by virtually no radioactive contamination thermonuclear fusion reaction.
This allowed scientists to begin studying the test results on the experimental field within two hours after the explosion.
Sakharov’s “cannibalistic” project
The explosion of the Tsar Bomba really made an impression on the whole world. She turned out to be more powerful than the most powerful American bomb four times.
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, such weapons had no practical meaning. 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 was supposed to cause a giant tsunami that would wash away America in the literal sense of the word.
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 direct-flow water-steam nuclear power plant for such a torpedo. jet engine. 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 spoke about his idea Vice Admiral Pyotr Fomin. 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.
Constructors nuclear weapons 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.
On October 30, 1961, the Soviet Union exploded the most powerful bomb in the world - Tsar Bomba. This 58-megaton hydrogen bomb was detonated at a test site located on Novaya Zemlya. After the explosion, Nikita Khrushchev liked to joke that the original plan was to detonate a 100-megaton bomb, but the charge was reduced “so as not to break all the glass in Moscow.”
"Tsar Bomba" AN602
Name
The name "Kuzka's Mother" appeared under the impression famous saying N. S. Khrushchev “We will still show America Kuzka’s mother!” Officially, the AN602 bomb did not have a name. In correspondence, the designation “product B” was also used for RN202, and AN602 was subsequently called that way (GAU index - “product 602”). Currently, all this is sometimes a cause of confusion, since AN602 is mistakenly identified with RDS-37 or (more often) with RN202 (however, the latter identification is partly justified, since AN602 was a modification of RN202). Moreover, as a result, the AN602 retroactively acquired the “hybrid” designation RDS-202 (which neither it nor the RN202 ever carried). The product received the name “Tsar Bomba” as the most powerful and destructive weapon in history.
Development
There is a widespread myth that the “Tsar Bomba” was designed on the instructions of N.S. Khrushchev and in record short time- allegedly the entire development and production took 112 days. In fact, work on RN202/AN602 was carried out for more than seven years - from the autumn of 1954 to the autumn of 1961 (with a two-year break in 1959-1960). Moreover, in 1954-1958. work on the 100-megaton bomb was carried out by NII-1011.
It is worth noting that the above information about the start date of work is in partial contradiction with official history Institute (now it is the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics / RFNC-VNIIEF). According to it, the order to create the corresponding research institute in the system of the Ministry of Medium Engineering of the USSR was signed only on April 5, 1955, and work at NII-1011 began a few months later. But in any case, only the final stage of development of AN602 (already in KB-11 - now the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics / RFNC-VNIIEF) in the summer-autumn of 1961 (and by no means the entire project as a whole !) really took 112 days. However, AN602 was not simply a renamed RN202. A number of design changes were made to the design of the bomb - as a result of which, for example, its alignment noticeably changed. AN602 had a three-stage design: the nuclear charge of the first stage (calculated contribution to the explosion power - 1.5 megatons) launched a thermonuclear reaction in the second stage (contribution to the explosion power - 50 megatons), and it, in turn, initiated the nuclear “Jekyll reaction” Haida" (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.
Test location on the map.
The original version of the bomb was rejected because it was extremely high level radioactive contamination that it was expected to cause - 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 yield of the explosion by almost half (to 51.5 megatons).
The first work on “topic 242” began immediately after negotiations between I.V. Kurchatov and A.N. Tupolev (took place in the fall of 1954), who appointed his deputy for weapons systems, A.V. Nadashkevich, as the head of the topic. The strength analysis carried out showed that the suspension of such a large concentrated load would require serious changes in the power circuit of the original aircraft, in the design of the bomb bay and in the suspension and release devices. In the first half of 1955, the dimensional and weight drawings of the AN602, as well as the layout drawing of its placement, were agreed upon. As expected, the mass of the bomb was 15% of the take-off mass of the carrier, but it dimensions required the removal of the fuselage fuel tanks. Developed for the AN602 suspension, the new beam holder BD7-95-242 (BD-242) was similar in design to the BD-206, but significantly more load-bearing. It had three bomber castles Der5-6 with a carrying capacity of 9 tons each. The BD-242 was attached directly to the power longitudinal beams that edged the bomb bay. The problem of controlling the release of a bomb was also successfully solved - electrical automation ensured exclusively synchronous opening of all three locks (the need for this was dictated by security conditions).
On March 17, 1956, a joint resolution of the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers No. 357-228ss was issued, according to which OKB-156 was to begin converting the Tu-95 into a carrier nuclear bombs high power. This work was carried out at the LII MAP (Zhukovsky) from May to September 1956. Then the Tu-95V was accepted by the customer and handed over for flight tests, which were carried out (including dropping a mock-up of the “superbomb”) under the leadership of Colonel S.M. Kulikov until 1959 and passed without any special comments. In October 1959, “Kuzka’s Mother” was delivered to the training ground by a Dnepropetrovsk crew.
Tests
The carrier of the “superbomb” was created, but its actual tests were postponed for political reasons: Khrushchev was going to the USA, and there was a pause in the Cold War. The Tu-95B was transported to the airfield in Uzin, where it was used as a training aircraft and was no longer listed as fighting machine. However, in 1961, with the beginning of a new revolution cold war, testing the “superbomb” has again become relevant. On the Tu-95V, all connectors in the automatic release system were urgently replaced and the bomb bay doors were removed - real bomb by weight (26.5 tons, including weight parachute system- 0.8 t) and the dimensions turned out to be slightly larger than the mock-up (in particular, now its vertical dimension exceeded the dimensions of the bomb bay in height). The plane was also covered with special reflective white paint.
Flash of the Tsar Bomba explosion
Khrushchev announced the upcoming tests of a 50-megaton bomb in his report on October 17, 1961 at the XXII Congress of the CPSU.
The bomb tests took place on October 30, 1961. The prepared Tu-95B with a real bomb on board, piloted by a crew consisting of: ship commander A. E. Durnovtsev, navigator I. N. Kleshch, flight engineer V. Ya. Brui, took off from Olenya airfield and headed for Novaya Zemlya. The Tu-16A laboratory aircraft also took part in the tests.
Mushroom after explosion
2 hours after takeoff, the bomb was dropped from a height of 10,500 meters by parachute system on a conditional target within the Sukhoi Nos nuclear test site (73.85, 54.573°51′N 54°30′E / 73.85° N 54.5°E (G) (O)). The bomb was detonated barometrically 188 seconds after being dropped at an altitude of 4200 m above sea level (4000 m above the target) (however, there are other data on the height of the explosion - in particular, the numbers 3700 m above the target (3900 m above sea level) and 4500 m). The carrier plane managed to fly a distance of 39 kilometers, and the laboratory plane - 53.5 kilometers. The power of the explosion significantly exceeded the calculated one (51.5 megatons) and ranged from 57 to 58.6 megatons in TNT equivalent. There is also information that according to initial data, the explosion power of AN602 was significantly overestimated and was estimated at up to 75 megatons.
There is video footage of the aircraft carrying this bomb landing after the test; the plane was on fire; upon inspection after landing, it was clear that some of the protruding aluminum parts had melted and become deformed.
Test results
The explosion of AN602 was classified as a low air explosion of extremely high power. The results were impressive:
The fireball of the explosion reached a radius of approximately 4.6 kilometers. Theoretically, it could have grown to the surface of the earth, but this was prevented by the reflected shock wave, which crushed and threw the ball off the ground.
The radiation could potentially cause third-degree burns up to 100 kilometers away.
Ionization of the atmosphere caused radio interference even hundreds of kilometers from the test site for about 40 minutes
The tangible seismic wave resulting from the explosion circled the globe three times.
Witnesses felt the impact and were able to describe the explosion thousands of kilometers away from its center.
The nuclear mushroom of the explosion rose to a height of 67 kilometers; the diameter of its two-tier “hat” reached (at the top tier) 95 kilometers
The sound wave generated by the explosion reached Dikson Island at a distance of about 800 kilometers. However, sources do not report any destruction or damage to structures even in the urban-type village of Amderma and the village of Belushya Guba located much closer (280 km) to the test site.
Consequences of the test
The main goal that was set and achieved by this test was to demonstrate the Soviet Union's possession of weapons of unlimited power mass destruction- TNT equivalent of the most powerful thermonuclear bomb of those tested by that time in the USA was almost four times less than that of AN602.
diameter of total destruction, plotted on a map of Paris for clarity
An extremely important scientific result was the experimental verification of the principles of calculation and design of multistage thermonuclear charges. It has been experimentally proven that the maximum thermal power nuclear charge, in principle, is not limited by anything. So, in the tested bomb, to increase the explosion power by another 50 megatons, it was enough to make the third stage of the bomb (which was the shell of the second stage) not from lead, but from uranium-238, as was standard. Replacing the shell material and reducing the explosion power were due only to the desire to reduce the amount of radioactive fallout to an acceptable level, and not to the desire to reduce the weight of the bomb, as is sometimes believed. However, the weight of AN602 did decrease from this, but only slightly - the uranium shell should have weighed about 2800 kg, the lead shell of the same volume - based on the lower density of lead - about 1700 kg. The achieved lightening of just over one ton is barely noticeable given the total weight of the AN602 of at least 24 tons (even if we take the most conservative estimate) and did not affect the state of affairs with its transportation.
It cannot be argued that “the explosion was one of the cleanest atmospheric gases in history.” nuclear tests" - the first stage of the bomb was a uranium charge with a capacity of 1.5 megatons, which in itself ensured a large number of radioactive fallout. Nevertheless, it can be considered that for a nuclear explosive device of such power, AN602 was indeed quite clean - more than 97% of the explosion power was provided by the thermonuclear fusion reaction, which practically did not create radioactive contamination.
There is also a discussion about ways to politically apply the technology of creating super-powerful nuclear warheads served as the beginning of ideological differences between Khrushchev N.S. and Sakharov A.D., since Nikita Sergeevich did not accept Andrei Dmitrievich’s project to place several dozen super-powerful nuclear warheads, with a capacity of 200 or even 500 megatons, along the American maritime boundaries, which made it possible to sober up neoconservative circles without being drawn into a ruinous arms race
Rumors and hoaxes related to AN602
The test results of AN602 became the subject of a number of other rumors and hoaxes. Thus, it was sometimes claimed that the power of the bomb explosion reached 120 megatons. This was probably due to the “overlay” of information about the excess of the actual power of the explosion over the calculated one by about 20% (in fact, by 14-17%) on the initial design power of the bomb (100 megatons, more precisely, 101.5 megatons). The newspaper Pravda added fuel to the fire of such rumors, on the pages of which it was officially stated that “She<АН602>- yesterday atomic weapons. Now even more powerful charges have been created.” In fact, more powerful thermonuclear munitions - e.g. combat unit for the UR-500 ICBM (GRAU index 8K82; the well-known Proton launch vehicle is its modification) with a capacity of 150 megatons, although actually developed, remained on the drawing boards.
IN different time Rumors also circulated that the power of the bomb was reduced by 2 times compared to the planned one, as scientists feared the occurrence of a self-sustaining thermonuclear reaction in the atmosphere. It is interesting that similar concerns (only about the possibility of a self-sustaining nuclear fission reaction occurring in the atmosphere) had already been expressed earlier - in preparation for testing the first atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project. Then these fears reached the point that one of the over-excited scientists was not only removed from the tests, but also sent to the care of doctors.
Science fiction writers and physicists also expressed fears (generated mainly by the science fiction of those years - this topic often appeared in the books of Alexander Kazantsev, for example, in his book “Phaetians” it was stated that in this way the hypothetical planet Phaethon perished, from which an asteroid belt remained), that the explosion could initiate a thermonuclear reaction in sea water, containing some deuterium, and thus cause an explosion of the oceans that will split the planet into pieces.
Similar concerns, albeit in a humorous form, were expressed by the hero of science fiction writer Yuri Tupitsyn’s books, star pilot Klim Zhdan:
“Coming back to Earth, I always worry. Is she there? Did scientists, carried away by yet another promising experiment, turn it into a cloud? cosmic dust or a plasma nebula?
At first it was planned to create a bomb weighing 40 tons. But the designers of the Tu-95 (which was supposed to deliver the bomb to the crash site) rejected this idea immediately. An airplane with such a load simply would not be able to fly to the test site. The target mass of the "superbomb" was reduced.
Nevertheless, large dimensions and the enormous power of the bomb (originally planned to be eight meters long, two meters in diameter and weighing 26 tons) required significant modifications to the Tu-95. The result was, in fact, a new, and not just a modified version of the old aircraft, designated Tu-95-202 (Tu-95V). The Tu-95-202 aircraft was equipped with two additional control panels: one to control the automation of the “product”, the other to control its heating system. The problem of suspending the aerial bomb turned out to be very difficult, since due to its dimensions it did not fit into the bomb bay of the aircraft. For its suspension, a special device was designed that ensured the lifting of the “product” to the fuselage and securing it to three synchronously controlled locks.
All electrical connectors on the plane were replaced, and the wings and fuselage were covered with reflective paint.
To ensure the safety of the carrier aircraft, Moscow parachute equipment designers developed a special system of six parachutes (the area of the largest was 1.6 thousand square meters). They were thrown out of the rear part of the bomb body one after another and slowed down the descent of the bomb, so that the plane had time to move to a safe distance by the time of the explosion.
By 1959, the carrier of the superbomb was created, but due to some warming of relations between the USSR and the USA, it did not come to practical tests. The Tu-95-202 was first used as a training aircraft at an airfield in the city of Engels, and then was written off as unnecessary.
However, in 1961, with the beginning of a new round of the Cold War, testing of the “superbomb” again became relevant. After the adoption of a decree of the USSR Government on the resumption of nuclear charge testing in July 1961, emergency work began at KB-11 (now the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics, RFNC-VNIIEF), which in 1960 was entrusted with the further development of a superbomb , where it was given the designation “product 602”. In the design of the superbomb itself and its charge, big number serious innovations. Initially, the charge power was 100 megatons of TNT equivalent. On the initiative of Andrei Sakharov, the charge power was halved.
The carrier aircraft was returned to service after being written off. All connectors in the automatic reset system were urgently replaced, and the cargo compartment doors were removed because The real bomb turned out to be slightly larger in size and weight than the mock-up (the length of the bomb was 8.5 meters, its weight was 24 tons, the parachute system was 800 kilograms).
Particular attention was paid to the special training of the carrier aircraft crew. No one could give the pilots a guarantee of a safe return after dropping the bomb. Experts feared that after the explosion an uncontrolled thermonuclear reaction in the atmosphere.
Nikita Khrushchev announced the upcoming bomb tests in his report on October 17, 1961 at the XXII Congress of the CPSU. The tests were supervised by the State Commission.
On October 30, 1961, a Tu-95B with a bomb on board took off from the Olenya airfield in Murmansk region, headed for a training ground located on the archipelago New Earth in Northern Arctic Ocean. Next, a Tu-16 laboratory aircraft took off to record the explosion phenomena and flew as a wingman behind the carrier aircraft. The entire course of the flight and the explosion itself were filmed from the Tu-95V, from the accompanying Tu-16 and from various points on the ground.
At 11:33 a.m., at the command of the barometric sensor, a bomb dropped from 10,500 meters exploded at an altitude of 4,000 meters. The fireball during the explosion exceeded a radius of four kilometers; it was prevented from reaching the surface of the earth by a powerful reflected shock wave, which threw the fireball off the ground.
The huge cloud formed as a result of the explosion reached a height of 67 kilometers, and the diameter of the dome of hot products was 20 kilometers.
The explosion was so strong that the seismic wave in earth's crust, generated by the shock wave, circled the Earth three times. The flash was visible at a distance of more than 1000 kilometers. In an abandoned village located 400 kilometers from the epicenter, trees were torn out, windows were broken and roofs of houses were demolished.
The shock wave threw the carrier aircraft, which by that time was 45 kilometers from the release point, to an altitude of 8000 meters, and for some time after the explosion the Tu-95B was uncontrollable. The crew received some dose of radiation. Due to ionization, communication with the Tu-95V and Tu-16 was lost for 40 minutes. All this time no one knew what happened to the planes and crews. After some time, both planes returned to base; marks were visible on the fuselage of the Tu-95V.
Unlike the American test hydrogen bomb"Castro Bravo", the explosion of the "Tsar Bomba" on Novaya Zemlya turned out to be relatively "clean". The test participants arrived at the point where the thermonuclear explosion occurred within two hours; radiation level in this place great danger I had no idea. This affected design features Soviet bomb, and also that the explosion occurred at a fairly large distance from the surface.
Based on the results of aircraft and ground measurements, the energy release of the explosion was estimated at 50 megatons of TNT equivalent, which coincided with the calculated value.
The test on October 30, 1961 showed that developments in nuclear weapons could quickly cross a critical limit. The main goal that was set and achieved by this test was to demonstrate the possibility of the USSR creating unlimited thermonuclear charges. This event played a key role in establishing nuclear parity in peace and preventing the use of atomic weapons.
The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources
On October 30, 1961, the most powerful bomb in the world was tested - the thermonuclear “Tsar Bomba”, later called “Kuzka’s Mother,” was dropped at the “Dry Nose” test site. Today we remember this and other explosions of enormous destructive power.
Humanity spends enormous amounts of money and enormous efforts to create weapons that are as effective as possible in destroying their own kind. And, as science and history show, it succeeds in this. About what will happen to our planet if suddenly a fire erupts on Earth nuclear war, many films have been made and dozens of books have been written. But the most terrible thing is still the dry description of the tests of weapons of mass destruction, reports formulated in terse clerical military language.
The incredibly powerful projectile was developed under the leadership of Kurchatov himself. As a result of seven years of work, the most powerful explosive device in the history of mankind was created. According to various sources, the bomb had from 57 to 58.6 megatons of TNT equivalent. For comparison, the explosion of the Fat Man atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki was equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT. Many people know how much trouble she has caused.
"Tsar Bomba" served as a demonstration of the strength of the USSR to the Western community
The explosion resulted in a fireball with a radius of about 4.6 kilometers. The light radiation was so powerful that it could cause third-degree burns at a distance of about 100 kilometers from the explosion site. The seismic wave resulting from the tests circled the globe three times. The nuclear mushroom rose to a height of 67 kilometers, and the diameter of its “cap” was 95 kilometers.
This is not the sun. This is a flash from the explosion of the Tsar Bomba
Tests of the "Mother of All Bombs"
Until 2007, American high-explosive aerial bomb, affectionately known as the Mother Of All Bombs by the US military, was considered the largest non-nuclear bomb in the world. The length of the projectile is more than 9 meters, its weight is 9.5 tons. Moreover most of This weight falls precisely on the explosive. The force of the explosion was 11 tons of TNT. That is, two “Moms” are enough to smash an average metropolis into dust. However, it is encouraging that bombs of this type have not yet been used in military operations. But one of the “Moms” was sent to Iraq just in case. Apparently, in the belief that the peacekeepers cannot do without weighty arguments.
The "Mother of All Bombs" was the most powerful non-nuclear weapon until the "Daddy of All Bombs" appeared.
According to the official description of the munition, “the force of the MOAB explosion is sufficient to destroy tanks and people on the surface within a few hundred meters and demoralize troops in the surrounding area who survived the explosion.”
Explosion during testing of the “Daddy of All Bombs”
This is our answer to the Americans - the development of an aviation vacuum bomb increased power, unofficially dubbed “The Daddy of All Bombs.” The ammunition was created in 2007 and now this particular bomb is considered the most powerful non-nuclear projectile in the world.
Bomb test reports say that the Papa's kill area is so large that it can reduce the cost of producing the munition by reducing precision requirements. Indeed, what's the point of a targeted hit if it blows everything around within a radius of 200 meters? And even at a distance of more than two kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion, a person will be knocked off his feet by the shock wave. After all, the power of “Dad” is four times greater than that of “Mom” - the force of the explosion vacuum bomb is 44 tons of TNT equivalent. As a separate achievement, the testers argue that the projectile is environmentally friendly. “Test results of the created aviation ammunition have shown that its effectiveness and capabilities are comparable to nuclear weapons, at the same time, I want to especially emphasize this, the effect of this ammunition does not pollute at all environment compared to nuclear weapons,” the acting report said. Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Alexander Rukshin.
"Daddy of all bombs" is about four times more powerful than "Mom"
"Baby" and "Fat Man": Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The names of these two Japanese cities have long become synonymous with a large-scale disaster. The US military actually tested atomic bombs in public, dropping shells on Hiroshima on August 6 and on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Most of the victims of the explosions were not military personnel at all, but civilians. Children, women, old people - their bodies instantly turned into coal. Only silhouettes remained on the walls - this is how light radiation acted. Birds flying nearby burned in the air.
"Mushrooms" nuclear explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The number of victims has not yet been accurately determined: many did not die immediately, but later, as a result of developing radiation sickness. "Little" with an estimated yield of 13 to 18 kilotons of TNT, dropped on Hiroshima, killed between 90 and 166 thousand people. In Nagasaki, “Fat Man” with a capacity of 21 kilotons of TNT ended the lives of 60 to 90 thousand people.
“Fat Man” and “Little Boy” are exhibited in the museum - as a reminder of destructive power nuclear weapons
This was the first and so far only time that nuclear weapons were used in military action.
The fall of the Tunguska meteorite: the most powerful miraculous explosion
The Podkamennaya Tunguska River was of no interest to anyone until June 17, 1908. On this day, at about seven o'clock in the morning, a huge fireball flashed over the territory of the Yenisei basin and exploded over the taiga near Tunguska. Now everyone knows about this river, and versions of what exploded over the taiga have since been published to suit every taste: from an alien invasion to a manifestation of the power of angry gods. However, the main and generally accepted cause of the explosion is still the fall of a meteorite.
The explosion was so strong that trees were knocked down over an area of more than two thousand square kilometers. Windows were broken in houses located hundreds of kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion. A few more days after the explosion in the area from the Atlantic to central Siberia people saw the sky and clouds glow.
Scientists have calculated the approximate power of the explosion - from 40 to 50 megatons of TNT. That is, comparable to the power of the Tsar Bomba, the most destructive man-made bomb. All that remains is to be glad that Tunguska meteorite fell in the remote taiga, far from villages and villages.
Exactly 51 years ago, Nikita Khrushchev fulfilled his promise and showed the United States and the whole world “Kuzka’s Mother” - October 30, 1961 at 11.35 Moscow time on nuclear test site On the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, the most powerful explosive device in the history of mankind was detonated. This thermonuclear aerial bomb got its name from Khrushchev’s famous promise to show America “Kuzma’s mother”, and it is also called the “Tsar Bomb”, as well as some numbers like AN602.
The power of the original version of the bomb, conceived by scientists, was 101.5 megatons. This is 10 thousand times more than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. If such a bomb were detonated over, say, New York, then New York would disappear from the face of the Earth. Its center would simply evaporate (not collapse, but evaporate), and the rest would turn into small rubble in the middle of a giant fire. What would remain of the metropolis would be a melted, smooth surface twenty kilometers in diameter, surrounded by small debris and ash. And all cities located within a radius of 700 kilometers from New York would be destroyed. Philadelphia, for example, is completely, but, say, Boston is a significant part of it.
But when the military began to estimate the scale of damage from testing an explosion of such power, even at a test site that occupied almost the entire Novaya Zemlya archipelago with an area of 82,600 sq. km, they became afraid of the consequences. And the completely destroyed training ground, and the inevitably destroyed plane along with the pilots, were not the worst of them. Scientists reluctantly agreed, and in the end it was decided to reduce the estimated total power of the explosion by almost half, to 51.5 megatons.
The bomb was dropped by a Tu-95 bomber from an altitude of 10.5 km. The power of the explosion exceeded the calculated one and ranged from 57 to 58.6 megatons. The nuclear mushroom of the explosion rose to a height of 67 km, the fireball of the explosion had a radius of 4.6 km. The shock wave circled the globe three times, and the resulting ionization of the atmosphere caused interference with radio communications within a radius of hundreds of kilometers. Witnesses felt the shock wave thousands of kilometers away, with radiation potentially causing third-degree burns up to 100 kilometers away. On the ground below the epicenter of the explosion, the temperature was so high that the stones turned to ash. The main part of the cloud was carried towards the North Pole, and for a bomb of such power, the radioactivity was quite small - 97% of the power was provided by the thermonuclear fusion reaction, which practically does not create radioactive contamination.
The main purpose of detonating this bomb was to demonstrate the USSR's possession of unlimited weapons of mass destruction. The whole world should have shuddered, and it shuddered - I don’t know about you, but this description still makes me a little uneasy.
And finally, from the “Memoirs” of one of the fathers of “Kuzka’s Mother”, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Academician Sakharov: “After testing the “big” product, I was worried that there was no good carrier for it (bombers don’t count, they are easy to shoot down) - that is, in a military sense, we were working in vain. I decided that such a carrier could be a large torpedo launched from a submarine. [...] Of course, the destruction of ports is like the surface explosion of a torpedo with a 100-megaton charge that “jumped out” of the water , and an underwater explosion, inevitably involves very large casualties.
One of the first people with whom I discussed this project was Rear Admiral F. Fomin* (formerly a combat commander, it seems, Hero of the Soviet Union). He was shocked by the “cannibalistic” nature of the project, and noted in a conversation with me that military sailors were accustomed to fighting an armed enemy in open battle, and that the very thought of such a thing is disgusting for him mass murder. I was ashamed and never discussed my project with anyone again."
* So in the text of Sakharov’s Memoirs. In fact, who was in charge then nuclear project from the Navy, Hero of the Soviet Union, Rear Admiral Fomin, name was Pyotr Fomich. And it seems to me that if scientists had given free rein, like Academician Sakharov was at that time, they would have blown up the Earth long ago. Simply because it is interesting from a scientific point of view. But this did not happen largely thanks to the military, such as Admiral Fomin. However, don’t you think it’s a paradox?
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