“The atomic explosion did not inspire such fear”: how the first hydrogen bomb was tested in the USSR

On November 1, 1952, the United States detonated the first prototype hydrogen bomb in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, making it the only country with such destructive technology.

However, less than a year later, on August 8, 1953, during a speech at the meeting of the Supreme Soviet, the chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Georgy Malenkov addressed the deputies.

“The government considers it necessary to inform the Supreme Council that the United States no longer has a monopoly on hydrogen bomb production,” Malenkov said.

Of course, such a statement did not go unnoticed. For example, the American newspaper The New York Times asked, “Is Malenkov telling the truth?” He published an issue where he asked his question. Then, as Andrei Sakharov, one of the creators of the hydrogen bomb, noted in his memoirs, “Malenkov’s statement may increase our unease. But we couldn’t worry anymore, we were last in line.

Meanwhile, a group of Soviet scientists was preparing to test the first hydrogen bomb. Four days later, on August 12, 1953, at 7:30 am (4:30 Moscow time) at the test site near Semipalatinsk (Kazakh SSR), the Soviet Union successfully tested the RDS-6s hydrogen bomb for the first time.

Later, one of the creators of the atomic bomb, Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences Igor Kurchatov, was appointed in charge of the tests – at six in the morning it was at the observation post that he gave the order to start the countdown. . As eyewitnesses later noted, the explosion was enormous and at times surpassed atomic bomb explosions.

“The intensity of the light was so great that I had to wear dark glasses. The ground trembled beneath us, and the sound of a rolling explosion slammed into our faces like a whip. It was difficult to stand up due to the impact of the shock wave.

The dust cloud rose to a height of 8 km. The top of the atomic mushroom reached a height of 12 km, and the diameter of the dust of the cloud column is about 6 km. Day turned into night for those watching the explosion from the west. Thousands of tons of dust rose into the air. The mass gradually went beyond the horizon. Observations on the cloud were carried out by aircraft, including those raised for sampling, ”recalled Vladimir Komelkov, one of the eyewitnesses of the explosion, a physicist and a participant in the atomic project.

A mock-up of 190 structures was built at the test site, between which samples of military equipment were placed. A feature of the Soviet bomb was that it could be dropped from the air – it was a full-fledged projectile. Physicists did just that – RDS-6s were raised and lowered on a steel pole 30 meters above the ground. As a result of the explosion, all brick buildings collapsed within a radius of 4 km, and the heat from the first flash could be felt at a distance of 25 km from the explosion, according to the memoirs of a mathematician and the future head of the USSR Academy of Sciences Mstislav Keldysh.

Soviet scientists estimated its explosive equivalent at 400 kilotons – about 20 times more powerful than the first atomic bomb.

Three days later, a physicist, employee of the Radium Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Nikolai Vlasov, arrived at the scene, where the results of the explosion made an indelible impression.

“The general impression of a terrible and gigantic destructive force has already been formed from afar. Yes, the explosion turned out to be much more powerful than the explosion of an atomic bomb. It seems that his impression overcame some psychological barriers. The traces of the first explosion of the atomic bomb are those seen recently in the last war. although they were incomparably worse, it did not inspire such a chilling fear, ”wrote Vlasov.

Only on August 20, eight days after the explosion, the newspapers Pravda and Izvestia announced that the tests had passed.

Soon, information about the USSR’s statement reached US President Dwight Eisenhower, but, reportedly, the head of state did not even change his daily routine.

According to advisers to the US Atomic Energy Commission, the USSR not only tested the bomb, but also demonstrated scientific and technical superiority.

According to the head of the IMEMO RAS Center for International Security Alexei Arbatov, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the RIAC, in 1952 the Americans only had an explosive device.

“Actually, they tested the physical principle. Using a fission-based atomic bomb as a fuse, they no longer used uranium or plutonium, but lithium deuterium. It wasn’t a weapon, and the RDS-6s were ready-made ammunition that had already been assembled and successfully tested. After us, the Americans tested their bombs very quickly, so it was a purely technical competition with no real military meaning. Moreover, by that time the USA had accumulated hundreds of atomic bombs based on the fission reaction, ”Arbatov told socialbites.ca.

According to him, unlike the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb was purely a technical product of Soviet physicists, and the tests of the hydrogen bomb in 1953 only accelerated the arms race and caused the technological development of the two countries.

“The fact is that it became possible to create compact nuclear weapons, and the use of reactions for the fusion of light elements into heavier ones made it possible to make ammunition generally less heavy, but at the same time very destructive. The hydrogen bomb theoretically created the possibility of producing weapons of unlimited power. In addition, this resulted in a multiple increase in nuclear warheads, and they needed carriers. The rocket industry also developed, medium-range missiles appeared, then intercontinental ones, ”explained Arbatov.

In an atomic bomb, energy is released during an uncontrolled chain reaction of uranium-235 or plutonium-239 fission with the formation of lighter elements.

In contrast, in a hydrogen bomb, energy is released as a result of the thermonuclear fusion of heavy hydrogen – deuterium and tritium – and the production of heavier elements. The main advantage of thermonuclear weapons is the theoretical absence of power limits, unlike atomic weapons.

Engineer Yevgeny Shmanin, an employee of the NUST MISIS Mega Science Center, noted that according to the modern foreign classification, RDS-6s are classified not as thermonuclear, but as nuclear bombs with thermonuclear amplification.

“However, it is still the first product with thermonuclear fuel suitable for practical use in its time. The main difference between the Soviet model and the American model is the use of lithium deuterium instead of heavy water or liquid deuterium. Tested by the United States at Eniwetok Atoll in 1952, it was a special design filled with liquid deuterium and was intended to test a two-stage design rather than military use, since the dimensions of the “bomb” were proportional to the dimensions. of a three-story building, ”Smanin explained.

The thermonuclear charge, made according to the Sakharov scheme, was created according to the “sloika” system (hence the system got its name – “Sakharov’s breath”) – a spherical system of layers of uranium and thermonuclear fuel surrounded by an explosive. was the main feature of the design, since it allowed the thermonuclear fuel to significantly increase its plane and reduce its diffusion, increasing the efficiency of the product.

“The impact of such weapons on the arms race is difficult to overestimate, because, as Academician Sakharov himself said: having a monopoly on thermonuclear weapons gives a huge advantage over other countries, which is a huge temptation and can plunge the world into chaos,” Shmanin concluded.