The Untold Story of the World's Biggest Nuclear Bomb (thebulletin.org) 122
"In the early hours of October 30, 1961, a bomber took off from an airstrip in northern Russia and began its flight through cloudy skies over the frigid Arctic island of Novaya Zemlya," writes the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Slashdot reader DanDrollette (who is also the deputy editor of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) shares their report on "The secret history of the world's largest nuclear detonation, coming to light after 60 years."
Slung below the plane's belly was a nuclear bomb the size of a small school bus — the largest and most powerful bomb ever created.
At 11:32 a.m., the bombardier released the weapon. As the bomb fell, an enormous parachute unfurled to slow its descent, giving the pilot time to retreat to a safe distance. A minute or so later, the bomb detonated. A cameraman watching from the island recalled:
A fire-red ball of enormous size rose and grew. It grew larger and larger, and when it reached enormous size, it went up. Behind it, like a funnel, the whole earth seemed to be drawn in. The sight was fantastic, unreal, and the fireball looked like some other planet. It was an unearthly spectacle...!
Within ten minutes, it had reached a height of 42 miles and a diameter of some 60 miles. One civilian witness remarked that it was "as if the Earth was killed." Decades later, the weapon would be given the name it is most commonly known by today: Tsar Bomba, meaning "emperor bomb...." at 50 megatons, it was more than 3,300 times as powerful as the atomic bomb that killed at least 70,000 people in Hiroshima, and more than 40 times as powerful as the largest nuclear bomb in the US arsenal today. Its single test represents about one tenth of the total yield of all nuclear weapons ever tested by all nations...
Within two years, though, the Soviet Union and the United States would sign and ratify the Limited Test Ban Treaty, prohibiting atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, and the 50-megaton bomb would fall into relative obscurity.
Drollette notes that "The United States dismissed the gigantic Tsar Bomba as a stunt, but behind the scenes it was working to build a 'superbomb' of its own."
The article argues there a lesson for our times in the 1961 episode, calling it "a potent example of how nationalism, fear, and high-technology can combine in a fashion that is ultimately dangerous, wasteful, and pointless."
At 11:32 a.m., the bombardier released the weapon. As the bomb fell, an enormous parachute unfurled to slow its descent, giving the pilot time to retreat to a safe distance. A minute or so later, the bomb detonated. A cameraman watching from the island recalled:
A fire-red ball of enormous size rose and grew. It grew larger and larger, and when it reached enormous size, it went up. Behind it, like a funnel, the whole earth seemed to be drawn in. The sight was fantastic, unreal, and the fireball looked like some other planet. It was an unearthly spectacle...!
Within ten minutes, it had reached a height of 42 miles and a diameter of some 60 miles. One civilian witness remarked that it was "as if the Earth was killed." Decades later, the weapon would be given the name it is most commonly known by today: Tsar Bomba, meaning "emperor bomb...." at 50 megatons, it was more than 3,300 times as powerful as the atomic bomb that killed at least 70,000 people in Hiroshima, and more than 40 times as powerful as the largest nuclear bomb in the US arsenal today. Its single test represents about one tenth of the total yield of all nuclear weapons ever tested by all nations...
Within two years, though, the Soviet Union and the United States would sign and ratify the Limited Test Ban Treaty, prohibiting atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, and the 50-megaton bomb would fall into relative obscurity.
Drollette notes that "The United States dismissed the gigantic Tsar Bomba as a stunt, but behind the scenes it was working to build a 'superbomb' of its own."
The article argues there a lesson for our times in the 1961 episode, calling it "a potent example of how nationalism, fear, and high-technology can combine in a fashion that is ultimately dangerous, wasteful, and pointless."
Dangerous fanatics (Score:1, Flamebait)
On both sides. The people behind this crap belong into closed metal institutions, nowhere else.
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1961 most of you weren't born, and a lot of them are now either dead or very old.
Re:Dangerous fanatics (Score:5, Interesting)
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JFK handled Bay of Pigs brilliantly, after all! Astute observation.
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The Bay of Pigs was conceived under the Eisenhower administration. JFK did not want to support it, but the CIA had already made promises. That is why the US Navy ships sat off the coast of Cuba and did nothing.
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Naturally I referred to JFK's failure to support the Bay of Pigs invasion.
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The book, "The Brilliant Disaster" by Jim Rasenberger is a fascinating and insightful account of the Bay of Pigs disaster & why it happened.
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Sort of an interesting FP branch, though I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of JFK's competence, or even if he led the response to an actual crisis (rather than a manufactured and politically motivated "crisis" of some sort). [And I'm old enough to remember when JFK was regarded by "everyone" as some sort of martyred saint.]
But mostly I agree with the plea of ignorance, though in court "ignorance of the law is no excuse". Too bad we human beings have never had much in the way of international law or
Re:Dangerous fanatics (Score:5, Informative)
A book I read claimed that there were thousands of atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons. Seemed unlikely to me, but I couldn't find a definitive answer in my websearches. Best result was the Wikipedia estimate of several thousand tests in total, but it didn't say how many were atmospheric and how many were underground.
This site [armscontrol.org] says 528/1528 for atmospheric and underground, respectively.
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Thanks. That meshes pretty well with the data I had been able to find and sounds more authoritative.
By the way, I'm pretty sure they are excluding a lot of physics experiments that were relevant to nuclear weaponry. Dual use technologies, so to speak. (I guess "they" in this context means "all of the sources I've been able to find.)
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"Where would Hitler have used his first nuclear bomb?"
Most definitively London. The nearest adversary to the west (confirmed ballistic capability), plus the battle of England had him pissed off sure enough. A deployment against Russia would not have made much of a dent. Even Japan had to take two bombs to stop fighting.
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I don't think so, especially after that front was mostly stabilized. And after D-Day, I'm not sure London was an important target. Then again, it's kind of meaningless to try to predict what a madman would do. If his behavior was predictable we wouldn't consider him mad.
Still, I think he would have used it against Russia, especially if he felt reasonably sure of getting Stalin. But unless he was sure of Stalin's location, the site of maximum effect from one bomb is unclear. For example, he could have finish
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The allies did a good deal to sabotage the nazi attempts. Notably the sabotage of the Norwegian heavy water site sticks out, Operation Gunnerside reads like something out of James Bond: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Interesting link, but I actually think the Nazis did much more to sabotage their own research by persecuting so many of the intellectual leaders, especially the Jews. Innovation depends upon tolerating, even encouraging, nonconformist thinking, and that's not how the Nazis did things.
However history is always contingent and timing is the most important thing. My own belief is that if Hitler had delayed his attack on Russia until the following spring, then the entire war might well have gone the other way. (
Re: Dangerous fanatics (Score:3)
I've talked to nuclear bomber pilots. They claimed the Cuban missile crisis was a tiny sandpit fight compared to other near-misses from nuclear war.
Hard to verify, but the most obvious crisis was the US dropping four hydrogen bombs in North Carolina by accident. The failure of a 50c part avoided an explosion.
If those bombs had gone off, do you think the US would have investigated or fired on Russia in "retaliation"? The latter seems more likely, you need to make fast decisions and the US public would have d
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From what I've read, it was the fact that the one switch *worked* (not failed) that prevented the nuclear explosion. There does seem to be some dispute, however, as to whether that was the only thing that prevented explosion.
BTW, it was two bombs, not four.
Re: Dangerous fanatics (Score:2)
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One was dropped by our forces right outside of the city I live in, over in Mars Bluff, SC. The warhead wasn't armed, but it still left a sizeable crater. There's a historical marker at the road near where it is... that has fallen into disrepair and partially grown over. Why, it's almost as if the government doesn't really want the publicity.
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If the USSR had unquestionable first strike capability, if there was nothing the US could do in defense, there would be no question.
Eh, I dunno.
Despite being "at war" for the last ... well, however long we've been "at war", we haven't used any more nukes.
I don't think it's a given that a nuke-armed country will resort to that easily, even if they can. Despite decades of propaganda to the contrary, I doubt the Soviets are any more or less evil than we are.
Then again, if we didn't have them, we'd have been le
Re: Dangerous fanatics (Score:2)
Re: Dangerous fanatics (Score:2)
Re: Dangerous fanatics (Score:1)
Didnt Russia just occupy half of Germany for 40+ years? I would say thats western Europe.
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Isn't the USA still occupying Japanese soil?
Occupy? No. Just because we have troops stationed in a nation does not equal occupation. We've even pulled out of nations when asked
https://www.mildenhall.af.mil/... [af.mil]
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
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I doubt the Soviets are any more or less evil than we are.
You seriously believe that a country where political opposition gets you poisoned or sent to the gulag is equivalent in it's evil? Sure.
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Edward Teller had a design for a 10,000 Megaton nuclear (fusion) weapon. Enough to destroy France in one go.
Re:Dangerous fanatics (Score:5, Funny)
That monster!
How many people could have been saved from learning French if only he had the guts to use it!
Those people are relatively sane... (Score:1)
Wait until these weapons make it into the hands of people who really don't care about MAD, and believe that they will be martyrs, if they strike first. MAD worked because the US and Russia valued their own people. Now, we have nations that really don't care, and nations actively trying to get the bomb so they can strike at a neighbor, even if the victory is Pyrrhic.
You think life is scary when two sane countries had the bomb, wait until you get third world nations who are backers of terrorism and internat
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These weapons are already in hands of people who don't care about MAD.... but you can circumvent MAD as well for example:
Step 1: Put nukes into Poland/Ukraine whatever other flunkie/patsy country close to Russia
Step 2: Launch those nukes
Step 3: Watch from a safe distance as those little countries are annihilated along with Russia
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You think Russia wouldn't know the origin of those nukes? Good luck with that.
Re: Dangerous fanatics (Score:2)
Except you're an idiot who understands nothing about the causes of conflict or how to win. You talk big but think little.
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Well, you sure told him/her.
What you told them, I don't know, but you sure told them.
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Does it matter?
Does anything matter?
Does breathing matter?
These are the questions I struggle with, daily.
Phallic (Score:1)
Reminds me of this braggart. [npr.org]
Yep. All the obvious conclusions are true. (Score:3)
Nuclear war, bad. ... and so on.
Nuclear waste, bad.
Collateral damage, bad.
Bomb that big, unneeded.
But if it were bested today, I'd be fascinated, and I'd be glued to the inevitable documentaries.
Re: Yep. All the obvious conclusions are true. (Score:2)
The radiation still kills. The global elevated risk of cancer from surface nuclear testing is sufficient to kill people every year.
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The radiation still kills. The global elevated risk of cancer from surface nuclear testing is sufficient to kill people every year.
Citation? The closest I could find was something like this from wikipedia
In 2005 the UN predicted a further 4,000 people might eventually die as a result of radiation exposure from Chernobyl.
nationalism? (Score:2)
Wasn't the USSR a socialist state and its ideology purely international?
Actually, the communists always condemned nationalism - basically from day one.
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There was a schism among the Soviets about how international they should be. Trotsky v. Stalin, read about it yourself.
In the end, the Soviets rejected Trotsky's ambitions and focused their efforts on expanding a chokehold on like-minded states where revolution had paid off - or could be made to pay off. The Iron Curtain wasn't just a Western talking point.
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It wasn't about nationalism but about the world revolution now, or a delayed and gradual one.
Google: "socialism in a single country"
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The Stalinist model still believed in the strength of the Politburo (something Trotsky believed need to be pared down, if not eliminated). The Warsaw Pact still swayed heavily under the strength of Moscow's control. There was a hint of nationalism to everything the Russians did as the USSR, even if the end goal was something that reached far beyond their borders.
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Yes, it was about the (massive) state bureaucratic apparatus too.
But Stalin introduced elements of Russian patriotism only after the German invasion (for pragmatic reasons) - that wasn't by any means nationalism.
The Soviet Union was an imperialistic country, but it was said only temporarily, till the final victory of socialism, solely for the greater good of humanity.
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That's the difference between theory and practice. Or as a German joke said "Die Theorie ist Marx. Die Praxis ist murks." (the theory is Marx. In practice, it's a cock-up)
Re:nationalism? (Score:4, Insightful)
That reminds me of an old East German joke:
"What would happen if the desert became communist?"
"Nothing for a while, and then there would be a sand shortage."
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Ironically, capitalism has produced the sand shortage. It is in large part responsible for the chip shortage...
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It's kinda worrying that a lot of the old Soviet jokes work in our world now. Here's another one:
What was succession in Tsarist times? When grandfather was succeeded by grandson.
What is succession in Soviet times? When grandfather is succeeded by grandfather.
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As if. The chip shortage is global and capitalism isn't. Capitalism didn't cause Covid. Capitalism isn't the cause of poor planning.
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Erh... well, Capitalism, along with its JIT manufactoring craze to cut costs, kinda is the cause of poor planning.
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Sure, poor planning doesn't occur in under other forms of governance. Got it. No, just because you morons hate capitalism doesn't mean you get to blame random shit on it.
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Who said that? Other economy forms have other problems, the one of Capitalism is the lack of redundancies and fallback strategies because that cuts into profits.
Re: nationalism? (Score:2)
No, communism is not socialism. And the ISDR was Stalimist, not Communist, whatever their pamphlets said.
Putting on my thinking cap ... (Score:2)
There's gotta be a "using nuclear weapons and a 'short bus'" metaphor here somewhere.
Was it pointless? (Score:5, Insightful)
a potent example of how nationalism, fear, and high-technology can combine in a fashion that is ultimately dangerous, wasteful, and pointless.
Doesn't seem very pointless to me. The summary even notes:
Within two years, though, the Soviet Union and the United States would sign and ratify the Limited Test Ban Treaty
You think that's just coincidence? Nope, the size and power of that bomb scared everyone shitless, including Russia itselfwhich is not prone to being scared shitless by anything.
If all we ever had were nukes with the yield of tactical nukes we'd probably already have seen them used in real wars. But that massive nuke was the capper, the nuke that showed we just shouldn't start that race after all.
Now if only China had learned a similar lesson... unfortunate they are set to massively expand the number of nuclear weapons they have deployed.
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It's almost as if rather than being an untold story, it is a commonly told story that we grew up with?
Re: Was it pointless? (Score:2)
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You're not wrong - if they used a U238 tamper they would have gotten more neutrons from the fast-fissioning of that tamper. In this test they used a tamper made of lead which did the job for reflecting the neutrons from density, but reduced the yield so that the plane carrying the damn thing could get to safe distance. Another effect: because of not having that fast-fission of the tamper, it greatly reduced the nuclear fallout from the explosion - it's estimated that 97% of the energy yield came from fusi
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I doubt US strategists were that worried about the Tsar Bomba. Huge bombs are actually pretty inefficient. Not only are they hard to deliver -- you've got have a massive, slow-moving plane to deliver a bomb that weighs 27 metric tons -- scaling up your bomb yields is simply an inefficient way of destroying more area.
The reason is simple geometry; the energy of a bomb is dissipated in a three dimensional sphere, but the *area of destruction* is the two-dimensional intersection of that sphere with the Earth'
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"It only takes two in the bunker to agree." Uh, no. It takes a lot of other things to arm and launch a nuke.
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I'm admittedly not sure if ICBMs have a published minimum range, but some back of the napkin math says the bare minimum range would be around 1000 miles. Unless you wanted a high altitude explosion. You could try aiming it near straight up, but they're not purp
Who cares what "strategists" thought, irrelevant (Score:1)
I doubt US strategists were that worried about the Tsar Bomba.
Why would that matter?
The only thing that would matter is what the leaders of various countries thought, and other politicians. Because they are the ones who chose what direction to go in, to start making diplomatic moves.
They might advise one way but the effect f that giant nuke went beyond cold advice and altered the psychological cost of nuclear weapons.
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Back then there was a kind of military-academic complex dedicated to "Thinking the unthinable" -- think tanks like RAND and research labs like MITRE -- and they had the ears of the joint chiefs and national security heads, and through those ears they directed the thinking of presidents. You don't think *politicians* came up with "mutually assured destruction"?
Knowledge is power; or at least it can be when the leaders are smart enough to understand they can't direct nuclear strategy with instinct and intui
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A huge fucking bomb, while a certain amount of cool, and a certain amount of "fuck, just how crazy is this nuclear shit?", simply wouldn't have been strategically scary.
If it had been, the Soviets would have mass produced the things.
W49s raining down from space with little to no civilian warning is a lot fucking scarier than some slow ass bomber carrying a school bus from the S
Re: Was it pointless? (Score:2)
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What country has overthrown the most democracies in the world?
Germany, probably, including one of their own.
My brain (Score:2)
This sentence from the article hurt my brain:
a 10-megaton bomb detonated at an optimal altitude might do medium damage to a distance of 9.4 miles (15 kilometers) from ground zero, but a 100-megaton bomb “only” does the same amount of damage to 20.3 miles (33 kilometers). In other words, a 100-megaton explosion is only a little more than twice as damaging as a 10-megaton bomb.
Re:My brain (Score:4, Funny)
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Aaa aaaa ahhhh hhggg ggggr lrll!
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Some things just don't change. Ever heard this story [culinarylore.com]?
The firm conducted a focus group and found that around half of the people surveyed thought that the A&W 1/3 pound burger was smaller than McDonald's 1/4 pounder!
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I am aware of that, I expect better of a scientific publication (which tfa claims to be).
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How on earth does society even function when half the population are so badly educated, what jobs do these people do?.?,?'?
Re: My brain (Score:2)
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Incorrect (Score:3)
Re: My brain (Score:2)
Force from the explosion falls with the square of the distance, as it's emitted in a sphere not a circle, but you're still correct.
Scaling (Score:2)
Flash and prompt radiation follow inverse square in free space or near an airburst. Overpressure, according to several sources, follows inverse cube.
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Flash and prompt radiation follow inverse square in free space or near an airburst.
"Free space" means in a non-absorbing medium. Inverse square is still roughly correct as long as the distance is significantly less than the "e-folding" or standard absorption length (which absorbs 1/e, or 1/2.718, of the energy). For ionizing radiation (gammas, neutrons) these lengths are less than a mile, for thermal radiation ("flash") the average clear air distance is 10-12 miles, but can be much lower, rarely higher.
For a 100 MT bomb the actual expected area of injury from 3rd degree burns is similar t
Not really "untold" (Score:5, Insightful)
The story of the Tsar Bomba has been told for the past 20 years. Its Wikipedia page is from 2002. There are 1.5 million google search results for it.
I think we can take "untold" out of the headline.
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There's even the Soviet documentary with footage of the event easily found on YouTube. Subtitles have been helpfully overlaid for those not fluent in nuclear physics in Russian.
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The documentary still does not have the new details in Alex Wellerstein's article.
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The article recounts new details about how it was developed, so yes "untold".
What Strikes Me About Nuclear Weapons (Score:2)
Is just how non-lethal they are.
Now, hear me out ...
Back in elementary school I used to hear about how "nuclear weapons could destroy the world 8 times over" or some such, and I had visions of a Soviet missle crossing the sky, landing in Kansas, and vaporizing the country from New York to LA. I had no idea the 100% kill zone was only about a mile across. I didn't realize that only a relatively small potion of Hiroshima was truly "leveled". I though a few dozen nuclear weapons would literally eradicate a na
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Back in elementary school I used to hear about how "nuclear weapons could destroy the world 8 times over" or some such, and I had visions of a Soviet missle crossing the sky, landing in Kansas, and vaporizing the country from New York to LA. I had no idea the 100% kill zone was only about a mile across. I didn't realize that only a relatively small potion of Hiroshima was truly "leveled". I though a few dozen nuclear weapons would literally eradicate a nation. Nuclear winter, the sun gets blocked out, yada yada yada.
It's not that ONE nuke will destroy everything, it's the fact that the big nuclear nations that would retaliate, likely with everything they have.
According the the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal "Transparency" Report, as of 2020 we still have just under 4,000 warheads. And that's after we got rid of a bunch due to agreements with other nations. There is no reason to think that Russia has fewer.
So it isn't "one bomb hits Kansas" and wipes everything out, it's roughly 8,000 of em go off on two continents, and contamina
Re: What Strikes Me About Nuclear Weapons (Score:2)
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The lo
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I was playing with that nuke simulator thing:
So, turns out you can nuke North London and I'll be just fine south of the river in Zone 2. Maybe that will stop them being so bloody smug about the tube.
Wankers.
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You are forgetting about the billions that would die from the collapse of society. Do you and everyone you know have the knowledge of how to feed yourself for the year after the bombs fall? How to purify water, including filtering the radioactive fallout from the explosions and the induced radioactivity from the explosions?
Those that are vaporized or even incinerated by the thermal pulse would be the lucky ones in comparison to starvation, freezing, acute radiation syndrome, and thyroid cancers.
10 gigaton (Score:2)
According to that article, Edward Teller had a design for a 10 gigaton nuke. That would be insane -- and plausible because these designs are easily scalable just by adding more fuel. The 2004 tsunami that was a mere 100 megaton energy released underwater, and that caused a tsunami across countries thousands of miles away. A few 10 GT nukes could be world ending -- especially if it was cobalt-salted. It's only a matter of time before the wrong madman gets some built. If humans want to keep from going extinc
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I thought most of the deaths from nukes was from the pressure wave rather than the radiation.
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Depends on the yield (prompt ionizing is important in very small nuclear weapons) and design (fission fraction in high yield weapons) and how they are exploded (ground burst vs air burst).
No general rule.
Go there and see (Score:2)
Reason for the name (Score:2)
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Re: Reason for the name (Score:2)