Ivy Mike - first atmospheric test of a hydrogen bomb, US spent on atollle Eniwetok 1 November 1952 of the year.
65 years ago, the Soviet Union exploded its first thermonuclear bomb. As arranged this weapon, that it can and can not do? 12 on August 1953, the Soviet Union detonated the first "practical" thermonuclear bomb. We will tell about the history of its creation and we shall understand, justice Is, that such ammunition is almost does not pollute the environment, but can destroy the world.
The idea of a thermonuclear weapon, wherein the atomic nuclei coalesce, and do not split, in the bomb, appeared not later 1941 of the year. She came up with the physicists Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller. Around the same time, they have become members of the Manhattan Project and helped to create a bomb, dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Construct a thermonuclear warhead was much harder.
understand about, how difficult nuclear fusion bomb, possible and by the fact, for a long time that the operating NPP routine, a working and practical fusion power station - is still science fiction.
To nuclei fused with each other, they should be heated to millions of degrees. circuit device, which would allow it to do, Americans have patented in 1946 year (project informally called Super), but remember it is only after three years, when successfully tested a nuclear bomb in the USSR.
US President Harry S. Truman announced, that the Soviet breakthrough necessary to answer the "so-called hydrogen, or superbomboj ".
TO 1951 the Americans have collected the device and tested the code-named "George". The design is a torus - simply put, bagel - with heavy hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium. Chose them because, Such nuclei fuse easier, than ordinary hydrogen nucleus. It served as a nuclear bomb fuse. Explosion squeezed deuterium and tritium, are merged, given the flux of fast neutrons and lit the lining of uranium. In a conventional atomic bomb, he does not share: there is only slow neutrons, who can not get to share a stable isotope of uranium. Although the energy of nuclear fusion had about 10% of the total energy of the explosion, "George", "Ignition" of uranium-238 will raise the power of the explosion is twice the usual, to 225 kilotonn.
Due to additional uranium explosion turned out twice as powerful, than with a conventional atomic bomb. But fusion had only 10% the released energy: tests showed, that hydrogen nuclei are compressed strongly enough.
Then the mathematician Stanislaw Ulam suggested a different approach - a two-stage nuclear fuse. His idea was that, to put in the "hydrogen" device area plutonium rod. The explosion of the first fuse "set fire" plutonium, two shock waves and two X-ray flux encountered - pressure and temperature were jumping sufficiently, began to fusion. The new device is tested at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Ocean 1952 year - the explosive power of the bomb was ten megatons of TNT.
Nevertheless, this device is not suitable for use as military weapons.
For hydrogen nuclei merged, the distance between them should be minimal, however deuterium and tritium is cooled to a liquid state, to near absolute zero. It required a huge cryogenic plant. The second fusion device, in fact increased modification of "George", vesylo 70 tons - the plane is not resettable.
The Soviet approach
The Soviet Union began to develop a thermonuclear bomb later: The first scheme was proposed by the Soviet developers only 1949 year. It was supposed to use lithium deuteride. it is a metal, solid substance, it is not necessary to liquefy, and therefore bulky refrigerator, in American variant, no longer needed. No less important is the fact, that lithium-6 in the bombardment of neutrons from the explosion gave helium and tritium, which further facilitates future nuclear fusion.
Bomb RDS-6s was ready to 1953 year. Unlike American and modern thermonuclear devices plutonium rod in it was not. This scheme is known as "Puff": lithium layers interspersed uranium deuteride. 12 August RDS-6s experienced in Semipalatinsk.
The power of the explosion was 400 kilotons of TNT - in 25 times less than, than in the second movement of Americans. But RDS-6s can be reset from the air. The same bomb going to use on intercontinental ballistic missiles. And in 1955 , the Soviet Union improved its fusion brainchild, equipping its plutonium core.
Today, almost all thermonuclear devices - apparently, even North Korea - is a cross between the early Soviet and American models. They all use lithium deuteride as a fuel and ignited his two-stage nuclear detonator.
As we know from leaks, even the most advanced US thermonuclear warhead W88 is similar to the RDS-6c: lithium layers interspersed uranium deuteride.
The difference is, that modern thermonuclear warheads - it's not mnogomegatonnye monsters like "King of Bombs", and the capacity of the system of hundreds of kilotons, as the RDS-6s. Megaton warheads in the arsenals of no one, since dozens of less powerful charges more valuable than a single strong militarily: This allows you to hit more targets.
Technicians working with the American thermonuclear warhead W80
What can not thermonuclear bomb
Hydrogen - the element is extremely common, it is sufficient and in the atmosphere.
At one time there was talk, that a sufficiently powerful thermonuclear explosion can trigger a chain reaction and all the air on our planet will burn. But it is a myth.
Not that gas, but insufficiently dense liquid hydrogen, began to fusion. It needs to be compressed and heated by a nuclear explosion, c desirable to different sides, as is the two-stage fuse. In the atmosphere of such conditions have, therefore self-sustaining nuclear fusion reaction there impossible.
This is not the only misconception about thermonuclear weapons. often say, that the explosion "cleaner" nuclear: breakwater, at the junction "fragment" of hydrogen nuclei - dangerous short-lived nuclei atoms, giving contamination, - there is less, than the fission of uranium.
Delusion is based on the, that the thermonuclear explosion of a large part of the energy supposedly liberated through nuclear fusion. It is not true. Yes, "Tsar Bomb" was the, but only because, that its uranium "shirt" test was replaced by lead. Modern two-stage fuses lead to considerable radioactive contamination.
Zone potential total defeat "Tsar Bomb", applied to the map of Paris. Red circle - a zone of total destruction (radius 35 km). Yellow circle - the size of the fireball (radius 3,5 km).
true, a grain of truth in the myth of "clean" bomb is still there. Get the best American thermonuclear warhead W88. When it burst at the optimum height above the city heavily damaged area almost coincides with the zone of radiation poisoning, dangerous to life. Who died of radiation sickness would be vanishingly small: people will die from the explosion, rather than radiation.
Another myth says, that thermonuclear weapons capable of destroying the entire human civilization, and even life on Earth. It is also virtually impossible. the explosion energy is distributed in three dimensions, so the growth of the power of the munition is a thousand times the radius of the harmful effect of increasing total ten times - megaton warhead has a radius of destruction just ten times more, than tactical, kilotonnaya.
66 million years ago an asteroid collision led to the disappearance of the majority of land animals and plants. Shot capacity was about 100 million megatons - it 10 thousand. times larger than the total capacity of all thermonuclear arsenals Earth. 790 thousand. years ago an asteroid collided with the planet, strike was a capacity of one million megatons, but no trace of even a moderate extinction (including our genus Homo) after it did not happen. And life in general, and a man much stronger, what they seem.
The truth about the thermonuclear weapons is not so popular, as myths. Today it is: thermonuclear warhead arsenals compact medium power provide delicate strategic balance, because of which no one can freely ironing other countries with nuclear weapons. Fear of thermonuclear response - more than sufficient deterrent.
