fiber optic explosion
On March 1, 1954, the United States tested its first hydrogen bomb. The testing ground was the Pacific islands (archipelago) Bikini. America’s main nuclear testing site by that time was Enewetak Atoll, but the new type of bombs were much more powerful than the old ones, so scientists feared that their tests, called Castle, would destroy the infrastructure created on Enewetak. The United States never regretted these measures, as the new weapon turned out to be much more destructive than planned when it was created.
Bravo Castle explosion (“Kale” test series, explosion codenamed “Bravo”, abbreviation for the letter “B”) It should have released 5 megatons of energy. The device, called the shrimp (“shrimp” due to the external similarity of the structure under the body with this crustacean), was located near Namu Island, and the rest of the atoll was filled with measuring instruments and cameras aimed at the bomb. The large size of Bikini Atoll, a long oval chain of small islands with a maximum diameter of about 36 km, guaranteed the safety of the most sensitive devices located on the opposite side of the test area.
But the engineers were wrong, and the real explosion turned out to be three times more powerful than planned. In one second, a fireball larger than 7 km in diameter grew, in which almost no device could survive, and the resulting crater had a diameter of 2 km and a depth of 76 m.
Many of the instruments that were supposed to help study the reaction were vaporized or irreversibly damaged by the explosion, and even buildings on the far side of the atoll were damaged.
In addition, a unique phenomenon arose – a nuclear explosion was transmitted “over the wire” against the will. Light guides were placed inside the bomb leading to a shelter 2.3 km away; There was measuring equipment that could determine how good the reaction was by analyzing the transmitted flash. But it was not possible to find out: the power transmitted through the channels heated the solid material and it was produced. secondary fireball inside shelter.
The secondary explosion had a yield of approximately 1 kiloton. He destroyed all the tools and ripped the 20-ton door off its hinges. The exact nature of this effect remained unclear for decades; scientists merely recorded the extent of destruction and tried to find out exactly how the energy of the explosion was transmitted: through X-rays, complex shock wave along the light guide or something else.
Radioactive contamination was much more serious, resulting both from the bomb’s unexpectedly high power and from the fact that the tests were carried out in high winds. A radioactive cloud covered the islands of Rongelap and Rongerik, 100 km from the explosion, and its inhabitants were unlikely to have survived if they had not been evacuated beforehand. The crew of the Japanese fishing vessel Daigo Fukuryu Maru, located 130 km from the test site, received dangerous doses of radiation, and in the 1960s-1980s most residents of the Marshall Islands received compensation for damage from the US government. their health.
The results of the tests sparked a wave of protests against nuclear weapons around the world and showed how unpredictable they have become in the hands of humanity.
How is the hydrogen bomb different from the atomic bomb?
Nuclear weapons are based on radioactive isotopes of uranium or plutonium. The nuclei of its atoms are capable of fission, releasing tremendous energy and causing neighboring nuclei to split. In 1945, during the Manhattan Project, scientists managed to achieve a rapid chain fission reaction that resulted in an atomic explosion.
Theoretically an atomic explosion could be as powerful as desired, but in practice uranium- or plutonium-based bombs have a ten or two kiloton limit.
Physical theories predicted that much more energy could be obtained through fusion reactions (the fusion of the nuclei of light elements and their transformation into heavy ones). However, the nuclei have a positive electric charge and repel each other, so their connection requires very large pressure, which cannot be achieved by ordinary methods. It turns out that the core of future hydrogen bombs will be ordinary atomic bombs, which during the explosion will heat hydrogen and compress it to a critical temperature.
The energy of the explosion of atomic and hydrogen fragments is summed up, but a hydrogen bomb can be made as powerful as desired, so the USSR and the USA first tried to outdo each other by creating such a device.
Who was the first?
The first SHRIMP hydrogen bomb had a mass of 10 tonnes and a length of 4.5 m, which made it possible to install it inside a bomber, thus the experimental SHRIMP became a pre-production model of the Mark 21, produced in quantities of 275 units. .
But this was not the first hydrogen explosive; before that, a hydrogen explosion had occurred during testing by Ivy Mike. (test series “Ivy”, explosion with codename “Mike”, meaning “letter M”) November 1, 1952. Its energy was just over 10 megatons, but the point was that most of this energy was released due to the fusion reaction rather than fission. This is what formally distinguishes nuclear weapons from thermonuclear weapons.
At the same time, Ivy Mike’s experimental device definitely cannot be called a bomb. Its fuel was liquid deuterium (heavy hydrogen), which required bulky cryogenic setups and a complex piping system.
The “bomb”, the size of a house, weighed 73 tons and consumed 3 thousand kilowatts of energy. It was absolutely impossible to launch by air or rocket and was therefore unsuitable for the weapon role.
Also on August 12, 1953, the USSR tested the RDS-6 bomb (“Private jet engine” is a codename used to protect privacy) It has a power of 400 kilotons, which could easily fit into a bomber. The USSR announced that it had created the first practical thermonuclear weapon, which meant that it had managed to surpass Ivy Mike. But the Soviet government was cunning.
Firstly, RDS-6s were not thermonuclear bombs. The explosion received most of its energy from an atomic explosion, and the fusion of hydrogen atoms in it was used to create a flux of neutrons that enhanced the fission reaction of uranium. The natural limit for this design was approximately 1 megaton; this was much less than real hydrogen bombs would allow.
Second, RDS-6s Obviously not suitable for mass productionand this is what distinguishes a weapon from an experimental device. The bomb required 1200 g of tritium, which was slightly less than the annual production in the USSR in those years. Considering that the shelf life of RDS-6s did not exceed six months, it was impossible to accumulate a significant arsenal of such devices. They would have to bomb directly from the factory once a year.
The first Soviet SHRIMP analogue with a yield of 3 megatons was called RDS-37 and was first tested on November 22, 1955, 20 months after the American device. From this moment on, real hydrogen bombs appeared in the USSR.
It is important to note that such searches for priorities are important only for scientists, journalists and politicians. From a military perspective, there is no insurmountable line between an atomic bomb and a thermonuclear bomb: both are highly destructive. A much more important role is played by the number of accumulated charges, means of delivery, tactics of use and the ability to use these weapons to gain advantage over areas, and not for meaningless bombings.