Biographies Characteristics Analysis

The creator of the thermonuclear bomb in the USSR. A

On August 12, 1953, at 7:30 am, the first Soviet hydrogen bomb was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site, which had the service name "Product RDS‑6c". It was the fourth Soviet test of a nuclear weapon.

The beginning of the first work on the thermonuclear program in the USSR dates back to 1945. Then information was received about the research being conducted in the United States on the thermonuclear problem. They were initiated by the American physicist Edward Teller in 1942. Teller's concept of thermonuclear weapons was taken as the basis, which received the name "pipe" in the circles of Soviet nuclear scientists - a cylindrical container with liquid deuterium, which was supposed to be heated by the explosion of an initiating device such as a conventional atomic bomb. Only in 1950, the Americans found that the "pipe" was unpromising, and they continued to develop other designs. But by this time, Soviet physicists had already independently developed another concept of thermonuclear weapons, which soon - in 1953 - led to success.

Andrei Sakharov came up with an alternative scheme for the hydrogen bomb. The bomb was based on the idea of ​​"puff" and the use of lithium-6 deuteride. Developed in KB-11 (today it is the city of Sarov, former Arzamas-16, Nizhny Novgorod region), the RDS-6s thermonuclear charge was a spherical system of layers of uranium and thermonuclear fuel surrounded by a chemical explosive.

Academician Sakharov - deputy and dissidentMay 21 marks the 90th anniversary of the birth of the Soviet physicist, politician, dissident, one of the creators of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, Nobel Peace Prize winner Academician Andrei Sakharov. He died in 1989 at the age of 68, seven of which Andrei Dmitrievich spent in exile.

To increase the energy release of the charge, tritium was used in its design. The main task in creating such a weapon was to use the energy released during the explosion of an atomic bomb to heat and set fire to heavy hydrogen - deuterium, to carry out thermonuclear reactions with the release of energy that can support themselves. To increase the proportion of "burnt" deuterium, Sakharov proposed to surround the deuterium with a shell of ordinary natural uranium, which was supposed to slow down the expansion and, most importantly, significantly increase the density of deuterium. The phenomenon of ionization compression of thermonuclear fuel, which became the basis of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb, is still called "saccharization".

According to the results of work on the first hydrogen bomb, Andrei Sakharov received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor and laureate of the Stalin Prize.

"Product RDS-6s" was made in the form of a transportable bomb weighing 7 tons, which was placed in the bomb hatch of the Tu-16 bomber. For comparison, the bomb created by the Americans weighed 54 tons and was the size of a three-story house.

To assess the destructive effects of the new bomb, a city was built at the Semipalatinsk test site from industrial and administrative buildings. In total, there were 190 different structures on the field. In this test, for the first time, vacuum intakes of radiochemical samples were used, which automatically opened under the action of a shock wave. In total, 500 different measuring, recording and filming devices installed in underground casemates and solid ground structures were prepared for testing the RDS-6s. Aviation and technical support of tests - measurement of the pressure of the shock wave on the aircraft in the air at the time of the explosion of the product, air sampling from the radioactive cloud, aerial photography of the area was carried out by a special flight unit. The bomb was detonated remotely, by giving a signal from the remote control, which was located in the bunker.

It was decided to make an explosion on a steel tower 40 meters high, the charge was located at a height of 30 meters. The radioactive soil from previous tests was removed to a safe distance, special facilities were rebuilt in their own places on old foundations, a bunker was built 5 meters from the tower to install equipment developed at the Institute of Chemical Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which registers thermonuclear processes.

Military equipment of all types of troops was installed on the field. During the tests, all experimental structures within a radius of up to four kilometers were destroyed. The explosion of a hydrogen bomb could completely destroy a city 8 kilometers across. The environmental consequences of the explosion were horrendous: the first explosion accounted for 82% of strontium-90 and 75% of caesium-137.

The power of the bomb reached 400 kilotons, 20 times more than the first atomic bombs in the USA and the USSR.

Destruction of the last nuclear charge in Semipalatinsk. ReferenceOn May 31, 1995, the last nuclear charge was destroyed at the former Semipalatinsk test site. The Semipalatinsk test site was created in 1948 specifically for testing the first Soviet nuclear device. The landfill was located in northeastern Kazakhstan.

The work on the creation of the hydrogen bomb was the world's first intellectual "battle of wits" on a truly global scale. The creation of the hydrogen bomb initiated the emergence of completely new scientific areas - the physics of high-temperature plasma, the physics of ultrahigh energy densities, and the physics of anomalous pressures. For the first time in the history of mankind, mathematical modeling was used on a large scale.

Work on the "RDS-6s product" created a scientific and technical reserve, which was then used in the development of an incomparably more advanced hydrogen bomb of a fundamentally new type - a hydrogen bomb of a two-stage design.

The Sakharov-designed hydrogen bomb not only became a serious counterargument in the political confrontation between the USA and the USSR, but also caused the rapid development of Soviet cosmonautics in those years. It was after successful nuclear tests that OKB Korolev received an important government task to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile to deliver the created charge to the target. Subsequently, the rocket, called the "seven", launched the first artificial satellite of the Earth into space, and it was on it that the first cosmonaut of the planet, Yuri Gagarin, launched.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

On August 12, 1953, the world's first hydrogen bomb was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site. It was the fourth Soviet test of a nuclear weapon. The power of the bomb, which had the secret code “RDS-6 s product,” reached 400 kilotons, 20 times more than the first atomic bombs in the USA and the USSR. After the test, Kurchatov turned to the 32-year-old Sakharov with a deep bow: “Thank you, the savior of Russia!”

Which is better - Bee Line or MTS? One of the most pressing issues of Russian everyday life. Half a century ago, in a narrow circle of nuclear physicists, the question was equally acute: which is better - an atomic bomb or a hydrogen bomb, which is also thermonuclear? The atomic bomb, which the Americans made in 1945, and we made in 1949, is built on the principle of releasing colossal energy by splitting heavy nuclei of uranium or artificial plutonium. A thermonuclear bomb is built on a different principle: energy is released by the fusion of light isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium. Materials based on light elements do not have a critical mass, which was a major design challenge in the atomic bomb. In addition, the synthesis of deuterium and tritium releases 4.2 times more energy than the fission of nuclei of the same mass of uranium-235. In short, the hydrogen bomb is a much more powerful weapon than the atomic bomb.

In those years, the destructive power of the hydrogen bomb did not scare away any of the scientists. The world entered the era of the Cold War, McCarthyism was raging in the United States, and another wave of revelations rose in the USSR. Only Pyotr Kapitsa allowed himself demarches, who did not even appear at the solemn meeting at the Academy of Sciences on the occasion of Stalin's 70th birthday. The question of his expulsion from the ranks of the academy was discussed, but the situation was saved by the president of the Academy of Sciences, Sergei Vavilov, who noted that the first to be expelled was the classical writer Sholokhov, who skimps on all meetings without exception.

In creating the atomic bomb, as you know, intelligence data helped scientists. But our agents almost ruined the hydrogen bomb. The information obtained from the famous Klaus Fuchs led to a dead end for both Americans and Soviet physicists. The group under the command of Zeldovich lost 6 years to check the erroneous data. Intelligence provided the opinion of the famous Niels Bohr about the unreality of the "superbomb". But the USSR had its own ideas, to prove the prospects of which to Stalin and Beria, who were "chasing" the atomic bomb with might and main, was not easy and risky. This circumstance must not be forgotten in fruitless and stupid disputes about who worked harder on nuclear weapons - Soviet intelligence or Soviet science.

The work on the hydrogen bomb was the first intellectual race in human history. To create an atomic bomb, it was important, first of all, to solve engineering problems, to launch large-scale work in mines and combines. The hydrogen bomb, on the other hand, led to the emergence of new scientific areas - the physics of high-temperature plasma, the physics of ultrahigh energy densities, and the physics of anomalous pressures. For the first time I had to resort to the help of mathematical modeling. Lagging behind the United States in the field of computers (von Neumann's devices were already in use overseas), our scientists compensated with ingenious computational methods on primitive adding machines.

In a word, it was the world's first battle of wits. And the USSR won this battle. Andrei Sakharov, an ordinary employee of the Zeldovich group, came up with an alternative scheme for the hydrogen bomb. Back in 1949, he proposed the original idea of ​​the so-called "puff", where cheap uranium-238 was used as an effective nuclear material, which was considered as garbage in the production of weapons-grade uranium. But if this "waste" is bombarded by fusion neutrons, which are 10 times more energy-intensive than fission neutrons, then uranium-238 begins to fission and the cost of producing each kiloton decreases many times over. The phenomenon of ionization compression of thermonuclear fuel, which became the basis of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb, is still called "saccharization". Vitaly Ginzburg proposed lithium deuteride as a fuel.

Work on the atomic and hydrogen bombs proceeded in parallel. Even before the atomic bomb tests in 1949, Vavilov and Khariton informed Beria about the "sloika". After the infamous directive of President Truman at the beginning of 1950, at a meeting of the Special Committee chaired by Beria, it was decided to speed up work on the Sakharov design with a TNT equivalent of 1 megaton and a test period in 1954.

On November 1, 1952, at Elugelub Atoll, the United States tested the Mike thermonuclear device with an energy release of 10 megatons, 500 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. However, "Mike" was not a bomb - a giant structure the size of a two-story house. But the power of the explosion was amazing. The neutron flux was so great that two new elements, einsteinium and fermium, were discovered.

All forces were thrown at the hydrogen bomb. The work was not slowed down either by the death of Stalin or by the arrest of Beria. Finally, on August 12, 1953, the world's first hydrogen bomb was tested in Semipalatinsk. The environmental consequences were horrendous. The share of the first explosion for the entire time of nuclear tests in Semipalatinsk accounts for 82% of strontium-90 and 75% of cesium-137. But then no one thought about radioactive contamination, as well as about ecology in general.

The first hydrogen bomb was the reason for the rapid development of Soviet cosmonautics. After the nuclear tests, the Korolyov Design Bureau was given the task of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile for this charge. This rocket, called the "seven", launched the first artificial satellite of the Earth into space, and the first cosmonaut of the planet, Yuri Gagarin, launched on it.

On November 6, 1955, the test of a hydrogen bomb dropped from a Tu-16 aircraft was carried out for the first time. In the United States, the drop of the hydrogen bomb did not take place until May 21, 1956. But it turned out that Andrei Sakharov's first bomb was also a dead end, and it was never tested again. Even earlier, on March 1, 1954, near Bikini Atoll, the United States blew up a charge of unheard of power - 15 megatons. It was based on the idea of ​​Teller and Ulam about the compression of a thermonuclear assembly not by mechanical energy and a neutron flux, but by the radiation of the first explosion, the so-called initiator. After the ordeal, which turned into casualties among the civilian population, Igor Tamm demanded that his colleagues abandon all previous ideas, even the national pride of “sloika” and find a fundamentally new way: “Everything that we have done so far is of no use to anyone. We are unemployed. I am sure that in a few months we will reach the goal.”

And already in the spring of 1954, Soviet physicists came up with the idea of ​​an explosive initiator. The authorship of the idea belongs to Zeldovich and Sakharov. On November 22, 1955, a Tu-16 dropped a bomb with a design capacity of 3.6 megatons over the Semipalatinsk test site. During these tests, there were dead, the radius of destruction reached 350 km, Semipalatinsk suffered.

At the end of the 30s of the last century, the regularities of fission and decay were already discovered in Europe, and the hydrogen bomb turned from science fiction into reality. The history of the development of nuclear energy is interesting and still represents an exciting competition between the scientific potential of the countries: Nazi Germany, the USSR and the USA. The most powerful bomb that any state dreamed of owning was not only a weapon, but also a powerful political tool. The country that had it in its arsenal actually became omnipotent and could dictate its own rules.

The hydrogen bomb has its own history of creation, which is based on physical laws, namely the thermonuclear process. Initially, it was incorrectly called atomic, and illiteracy was to blame. In the scientist Bethe, who later became a Nobel Prize winner, worked on an artificial source of energy - the fission of uranium. This time was the peak of the scientific activity of many physicists, and among them there was such an opinion that scientific secrets should not exist at all, since initially the laws of science are international.

Theoretically, the hydrogen bomb had been invented, but now, with the help of designers, it had to acquire technical forms. It only remained to pack it in a certain shell and test it for power. There are two scientists whose names will forever be associated with the creation of this powerful weapon: in the USA it is Edward Teller, and in the USSR it is Andrey Sakharov.

In the United States, a physicist began to study the thermonuclear problem as early as 1942. By order of Harry Truman, then the President of the United States, the country's best scientists worked on this problem, they created a fundamentally new weapon of destruction. Moreover, the government's order was for a bomb with a capacity of at least a million tons of TNT. The hydrogen bomb was created by Teller and showed humanity in Hiroshima and Nagasaki its limitless, but destructive abilities.

A bomb was dropped on Hiroshima that weighed 4.5 tons and contained 100 kg of uranium. This explosion corresponded to almost 12,500 tons of TNT. The Japanese city of Nagasaki was destroyed by a plutonium bomb of the same mass, but equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT.

The future Soviet academician A. Sakharov in 1948, based on his research, presented the design of a hydrogen bomb under the name RDS-6. His research went along two branches: the first was called "puff" (RDS-6s), and its feature was an atomic charge, which was surrounded by layers of heavy and light elements. The second branch is the "pipe" or (RDS-6t), in which the plutonium bomb was in liquid deuterium. Subsequently, a very important discovery was made, which proved that the direction of the "pipe" is a dead end.

The principle of operation of a hydrogen bomb is as follows: first, a charge explodes inside the HB shell, which is the initiator of a thermonuclear reaction, as a result, a neutron flash occurs. In this case, the process is accompanied by the release of high temperature, which is needed for further neutrons begin to bombard the insert from lithium deuteride, and it, in turn, under the direct action of neutrons, is split into two elements: tritium and helium. The used atomic fuse forms the components necessary for the synthesis to proceed in the already activated bomb. Here is such a difficult principle of operation of a hydrogen bomb. After this preliminary action, a thermonuclear reaction begins directly in a mixture of deuterium and tritium. At this time, the temperature in the bomb increases more and more, and more and more hydrogen is involved in the fusion. If you follow the time of these reactions, then the speed of their action can be characterized as instantaneous.

Subsequently, scientists began to use not the fusion of nuclei, but their fission. The fission of one ton of uranium creates energy equivalent to 18 Mt. This bomb has tremendous power. The most powerful bomb created by mankind belonged to the USSR. She even got into the Guinness Book of Records. Its blast wave was equal to 57 (approximately) megatons of TNT substance. It was blown up in 1961 in the area of ​​the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.

| 10/23/2014 at 01:08

Who actually created the hydrogen bomb instead of Sakharov.

Oleg Lavrentiev, creator of the hydrogen bomb

Oleg Lavrentiev was born in 1926 in Pskov and was probably a child prodigy. In any case, having read the book "Introduction to Nuclear Physics" in the 7th grade, he immediately caught fire with "the blue dream of working in the field of nuclear energy." But the war began. Oleg volunteered for the front. He met the victory in the Baltic states, but further studies again had to be postponed - the soldier had to continue military service in South Sakhalin, just liberated from the Japanese, in the small town of Poronaysk.

In the unit there was a library with technical literature and university textbooks, and Oleg, on his sergeant's allowance, subscribed to the journal "Advances in Physical Sciences".

The idea of ​​a hydrogen bomb and controlled thermonuclear fusion first came to him in 1948, when the command of the unit, which distinguished a capable sergeant, instructed him to prepare a lecture on the atomic problem for the personnel.

Having a few free days for preparation, I rethought all the accumulated material and found a solution to the issues that I had been struggling with for more than one year, - says Oleg Alexandrovich. - In 1949, in one year, I completed the 8th, 9th and 10th grades of the evening school for working youth and received a matriculation certificate. In January 1950, the American president, speaking before Congress, called on US scientists to complete work on the hydrogen bomb as soon as possible. And I knew how to make a bomb.

Having access only to a school physics textbook, he alone, with the help of only his brains, did what huge teams of highly paid high-browed scientists struggled with, with unlimited means and opportunities on both sides of the ocean.

Having no contact with the scientific world, the soldier, in full agreement with the norms of life at that time, wrote a letter to Stalin. "I know the secret of the hydrogen bomb!" . And soon the command of the unit received an order from Moscow to create working conditions for Sergeant Lavrentiev. He was given a guarded room at the headquarters of the unit, where he wrote his first articles. In July 1950, he sent them by secret mail to the department of heavy engineering of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

Lavrentiev described the principle of operation of a hydrogen bomb, where solid lithium deuteride was used as a fuel. This choice made it possible to make a compact charge - quite "on the shoulder" of the aircraft. Note that the first American hydrogen bomb "Mike", tested two years later, in 1952, contained liquid deuterium as a fuel, was as high as a house and weighed 82 tons.

The main question was how to isolate the ionized gas heated to hundreds of millions of degrees, that is, the plasma, from the cold walls of the reactor. No material can withstand such heat. The sergeant proposed a revolutionary solution at that time - a force field could act as a shell for high-temperature plasma. The first option is electric.

He did not know that his message was very quickly sent for review to the then Candidate of Sciences, and later Academician and three times Hero of Socialist Labor A. Sakharov, who already in August commented on the idea of ​​controlled thermonuclear fusion: “... I believe that the author puts a very an important and not hopeless problem... I consider it necessary to discuss in detail the draft of Comrade. Lavrentiev. Regardless of the results of the discussion, it is necessary to note the creative initiative of the author right now.”

On March 5, 1953, Stalin dies, on June 26, Beria is arrested and soon shot, and on August 12, 1953, a thermonuclear charge using lithium deuteride is successfully tested in the USSR. Participants in the creation of new weapons receive state awards, titles and prizes, but Lavrentyev, for a reason completely incomprehensible to him, loses a lot overnight.

At the university, they not only stopped giving me an increased scholarship, but also “turned out” the tuition fee for the past year, in fact, leaving me without a livelihood, - says Oleg Aleksandrovich. - I made my way to an appointment with the new dean and, in complete confusion, I heard: “Your benefactor has died. What do you want?"

At the same time, in LIPAN (the only place in the country where controlled thermonuclear fusion was then practiced), my admission was withdrawn, and I lost my permanent pass to the laboratory, where, according to an earlier agreement, I had to undergo undergraduate practice, and subsequently work. If the scholarship was later restored, then I never received admission to the institute.
In other words, they were simply removed from the secret fiefdom. Pushed back, fenced off from him with secrecy. Naive Russian scientist! He could not even imagine that this could be so.

In the spring of 1956, a young specialist arrived in Kharkov with a report on the theory of electromagnetic traps, which he wanted to show to the director of the institute, K. Sinelnikov. Oleg did not know that even before his arrival in Kharkov, Kirill Dmitrievich had already been called by one of the LIPANites, warning that a “scandalist” and “author of confused ideas” were coming to see him. They also called the head of the theoretical department of the institute, Alexander Akhiezer, recommending that Lavrentiev’s work be “hacked to death”. But Kharkiv residents were in no hurry with their assessments. The influence of the powerful Moscow-Arzamas scientific clique could not spread over one and a half thousand kilometers. However, they took an active part - they called, spread rumors, discredited the scientist. How to protect your feeder!
Application for opening
Oleg Alexandrovich found out by chance that he was the first to propose to hold the plasma by the field, having stumbled in 1968 (! 15 years later) in one of the books on the memoirs of I. Tamm (Head Sakharov). His last name was not, only an indistinct phrase about "one military man from the Far East",

The cat smells, (Tamm) whose meat she ate! Tamm and Sakharov understood perfectly well what was happening. What Lavrentiev came up with is the key that opens access to the implementation of the hydrogen bomb in practice. Everything else, the whole theory, has long been known to absolutely everyone, since it was described even in ordinary textbooks. And not only the "brilliant" Sakharov could bring the idea to a material embodiment, but also any techie who has unlimited access to material state resources.

Sakharov became famous for the fact that, under the influence of his beloved wife and her puppeteers, he began to actively destroy the Empire that had nurtured him with his "human rights" activities. the great "humanist" Sakharov at one time suggested to the US president in ~ 1970 (who was then, Nixon, sort of?) to launch a preventive nuclear strike on the USSR because he ... interferes with emigration from the "damned scoop". A. Sakharov, having waited for Gorbachev's "pegestgoyka", treacherously called from high tribunes to break the USSR into 30-40 "small, but civilized" states. It was then that human rights activists created the myth of the "father of the hydrogen bomb."

It's one thing when a well-known human rights activist and dissident is just an unsuccessful scientist who can only "develop creatively." And it is a completely different matter when the "father of the hydrogen bomb" becomes the "father of Russian democracy".
And the human rights activists, at the suggestion of overseas masters of psychological warfare, began to artificially inflate Sakharov's scientific merits, like a frog through a straw.

On August 12, 1953, at 7:30 am, the first Soviet hydrogen bomb was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site, which had the service name "Product RDS‑6c". It was the fourth Soviet test of a nuclear weapon.

The beginning of the first work on the thermonuclear program in the USSR dates back to 1945. Then information was received about the research being conducted in the United States on the thermonuclear problem. They were initiated by the American physicist Edward Teller in 1942. Teller's concept of thermonuclear weapons was taken as the basis, which received the name "pipe" in the circles of Soviet nuclear scientists - a cylindrical container with liquid deuterium, which was supposed to be heated by the explosion of an initiating device such as a conventional atomic bomb. Only in 1950, the Americans found that the "pipe" was unpromising, and they continued to develop other designs. But by this time, Soviet physicists had already independently developed another concept of thermonuclear weapons, which soon - in 1953 - led to success.

Andrei Sakharov came up with an alternative scheme for the hydrogen bomb. The bomb was based on the idea of ​​"puff" and the use of lithium-6 deuteride. Developed in KB-11 (today it is the city of Sarov, former Arzamas-16, Nizhny Novgorod region), the RDS-6s thermonuclear charge was a spherical system of layers of uranium and thermonuclear fuel surrounded by a chemical explosive.

Academician Sakharov - deputy and dissidentMay 21 marks the 90th anniversary of the birth of the Soviet physicist, politician, dissident, one of the creators of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, Nobel Peace Prize winner Academician Andrei Sakharov. He died in 1989 at the age of 68, seven of which Andrei Dmitrievich spent in exile.

To increase the energy release of the charge, tritium was used in its design. The main task in creating such a weapon was to use the energy released during the explosion of an atomic bomb to heat and set fire to heavy hydrogen - deuterium, to carry out thermonuclear reactions with the release of energy that can support themselves. To increase the proportion of "burnt" deuterium, Sakharov proposed to surround the deuterium with a shell of ordinary natural uranium, which was supposed to slow down the expansion and, most importantly, significantly increase the density of deuterium. The phenomenon of ionization compression of thermonuclear fuel, which became the basis of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb, is still called "saccharization".

According to the results of work on the first hydrogen bomb, Andrei Sakharov received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor and laureate of the Stalin Prize.

"Product RDS-6s" was made in the form of a transportable bomb weighing 7 tons, which was placed in the bomb hatch of the Tu-16 bomber. For comparison, the bomb created by the Americans weighed 54 tons and was the size of a three-story house.

To assess the destructive effects of the new bomb, a city was built at the Semipalatinsk test site from industrial and administrative buildings. In total, there were 190 different structures on the field. In this test, for the first time, vacuum intakes of radiochemical samples were used, which automatically opened under the action of a shock wave. In total, 500 different measuring, recording and filming devices installed in underground casemates and solid ground structures were prepared for testing the RDS-6s. Aviation and technical support of tests - measurement of the pressure of the shock wave on the aircraft in the air at the time of the explosion of the product, air sampling from the radioactive cloud, aerial photography of the area was carried out by a special flight unit. The bomb was detonated remotely, by giving a signal from the remote control, which was located in the bunker.

It was decided to make an explosion on a steel tower 40 meters high, the charge was located at a height of 30 meters. The radioactive soil from previous tests was removed to a safe distance, special facilities were rebuilt in their own places on old foundations, a bunker was built 5 meters from the tower to install equipment developed at the Institute of Chemical Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which registers thermonuclear processes.

Military equipment of all types of troops was installed on the field. During the tests, all experimental structures within a radius of up to four kilometers were destroyed. The explosion of a hydrogen bomb could completely destroy a city 8 kilometers across. The environmental consequences of the explosion were horrendous: the first explosion accounted for 82% of strontium-90 and 75% of caesium-137.

The power of the bomb reached 400 kilotons, 20 times more than the first atomic bombs in the USA and the USSR.

Destruction of the last nuclear charge in Semipalatinsk. ReferenceOn May 31, 1995, the last nuclear charge was destroyed at the former Semipalatinsk test site. The Semipalatinsk test site was created in 1948 specifically for testing the first Soviet nuclear device. The landfill was located in northeastern Kazakhstan.

The work on the creation of the hydrogen bomb was the world's first intellectual "battle of wits" on a truly global scale. The creation of the hydrogen bomb initiated the emergence of completely new scientific areas - the physics of high-temperature plasma, the physics of ultrahigh energy densities, and the physics of anomalous pressures. For the first time in the history of mankind, mathematical modeling was used on a large scale.

Work on the "RDS-6s product" created a scientific and technical reserve, which was then used in the development of an incomparably more advanced hydrogen bomb of a fundamentally new type - a hydrogen bomb of a two-stage design.

The Sakharov-designed hydrogen bomb not only became a serious counterargument in the political confrontation between the USA and the USSR, but also caused the rapid development of Soviet cosmonautics in those years. It was after successful nuclear tests that OKB Korolev received an important government task to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile to deliver the created charge to the target. Subsequently, the rocket, called the "seven", launched the first artificial satellite of the Earth into space, and it was on it that the first cosmonaut of the planet, Yuri Gagarin, launched.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources