The first Soviet charge for atomic bomb.
This event was preceded by long and difficult work by physicists. The beginning of work on nuclear fission in the USSR can be considered the 1920s. Since the 1930s, nuclear physics has become one of the main directions of domestic physical science, and in October 1940, for the first time in the USSR, a group of Soviet scientists made a proposal to use atomic energy for weapons purposes, submitting an application to the Invention Department of the Red Army "On the use of uranium as a explosive and toxic substances."
The war that began in June 1941 and the evacuation of scientific institutes dealing with problems of nuclear physics interrupted work on the creation of atomic weapons in the country. But already in the autumn of 1941, the USSR began to receive intelligence information about secret intensive scientific research in Great Britain and the USA. research work, aimed at developing methods for using atomic energy for military purposes and creating explosives of enormous destructive power.
This information forced, despite the war, to resume work on uranium in the USSR. On September 28, 1942, the secret decree of the State Defense Committee No. 2352ss “On the organization of work on uranium” was signed, according to which research on the use of atomic energy was resumed.
In February 1943, Igor Kurchatov was appointed scientific director of work on the atomic problem. In Moscow, headed by Kurchatov, Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences was created (now the National Research Center Kurchatov Institute), which began to study atomic energy.
Initially, the general management of the atomic problem was carried out by the Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee (GKO) of the USSR, Vyacheslav Molotov. But on August 20, 1945 (a few days after the US atomic bombing of Japanese cities), the State Defense Committee decided to create a Special Committee, headed by Lavrentiy Beria. He became the curator of the Soviet atomic project.
At the same time, the First Main Directorate under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (later the Ministry of Medium Engineering of the USSR, now the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom) was created for the direct management of research, design, engineering organizations and industrial enterprises involved in the Soviet nuclear project. Boris Vannikov, who had previously been the People's Commissar of Ammunition, became the head of the PGU.
In April 1946, the design bureau KB-11 (now the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - VNIIEF) was created at Laboratory No. 2 - one of the most secret enterprises for the development of domestic nuclear weapons, the chief designer of which was Yuli Khariton. Plant No. 550 of the People's Commissariat of Ammunition, which produced artillery shell casings, was chosen as the base for the deployment of KB-11.
The top-secret facility was located 75 kilometers from the city of Arzamas (Gorky region, now Nizhny Novgorod region) on the territory of the former Sarov Monastery.
KB-11 was tasked with creating an atomic bomb in two versions. In the first of them, the working substance should be plutonium, in the second - uranium-235. In mid-1948, work on the uranium option was stopped due to its relatively low efficiency compared to the cost of nuclear materials.
The first domestic atomic bomb had the official designation RDS-1. It was deciphered in different ways: “Russia does it itself,” “The Motherland gives it to Stalin,” etc. But in the official decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR dated June 21, 1946, it was encrypted as “Special jet engine (“S”).
The creation of the first Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1 was carried out taking into account the available materials according to the scheme of the US plutonium bomb tested in 1945. These materials were provided by Soviet foreign intelligence. An important source of information was Klaus Fuchs, a German physicist who participated in the work on nuclear programs USA and UK.
Intelligence materials on the American plutonium charge for an atomic bomb made it possible to reduce the time needed to create the first Soviet charge, although many of the technical solutions of the American prototype were not the best. Even at the initial stages, Soviet specialists could offer the best solutions for both the charge as a whole and its individual components. Therefore, the first atomic bomb charge tested by the USSR was more primitive and less effective than the original version of the charge proposed by Soviet scientists in early 1949. But in order to be guaranteed and in short time To show that the USSR also possesses atomic weapons, it was decided to use a charge created according to the American design in the first test.
The charge for the RDS-1 atomic bomb was a multilayer structure in which the active substance, plutonium, was transferred to a supercritical state by compressing it through a converging spherical detonation wave in the explosive.
RDS-1 was an aircraft atomic bomb weighing 4.7 tons, with a diameter of 1.5 meters and a length of 3.3 meters. It was developed in relation to the Tu-4 aircraft, the bomb bay of which allowed the placement of a “product” with a diameter of no more than 1.5 meters. Plutonium was used as fissile material in the bomb.
To produce an atomic bomb charge in the city of Chelyabinsk-40 at Southern Urals a plant was built under the conditional number 817 (now the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Mayak Production Association). The plant consisted of the first Soviet industrial reactor for producing plutonium, a radiochemical plant for separating plutonium from uranium irradiated in the reactor, and a plant for producing products from metallic plutonium.
The reactor at Plant 817 was brought to full capacity in June 1948, and a year later the plant received the required amount of plutonium to make the first charge for an atomic bomb.
The site for the test site where it was planned to test the charge was chosen in the Irtysh steppe, approximately 170 kilometers west of Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan. A plain with a diameter of approximately 20 kilometers, surrounded from the south, west and north by low mountains, was allocated for the test site. In the east of this space there were small hills.
Construction of the training ground, called training ground No. 2 of the USSR Ministry of Armed Forces (later the USSR Ministry of Defense), began in 1947, and was largely completed by July 1949.
For testing at the test site, an experimental site with a diameter of 10 kilometers was prepared, divided into sectors. It was equipped with special facilities to ensure testing, observation and registration physical research. In the center of the experimental field, a metal lattice tower 37.5 meters high was mounted, designed to install the RDS-1 charge. At a distance of one kilometer from the center, an underground building was built for equipment that recorded light, neutron and gamma fluxes of a nuclear explosion. To study the impact of a nuclear explosion, sections of metro tunnels, fragments of airfield runways, and samples of aircraft, tanks, and artillery were placed on the experimental field. rocket launchers, ship superstructures of various types. To ensure the operation of the physical sector, 44 structures were built at the test site and a cable network with a length of 560 kilometers was laid.
In June-July 1949, two groups of KB-11 workers with auxiliary equipment and household supplies were sent to the test site, and on July 24 a group of specialists arrived there, which was supposed to be directly involved in preparing the atomic bomb for testing.
On August 5, 1949, the government commission for testing the RDS-1 gave a conclusion on full readiness polygon.
On August 21, a plutonium charge and four neutron fuses were delivered to the test site by a special train, one of which was to be used to detonate a warhead.
On August 24, 1949, Kurchatov arrived at the training ground. By August 26, all preparatory work at the site was completed. The head of the experiment, Kurchatov, gave the order to test the RDS-1 on August 29 at eight o'clock in the morning local time and to carry out preparatory operations starting at eight o'clock in the morning on August 27.
On the morning of August 27, assembly of the combat product began near the central tower. On the afternoon of August 28, demolition workers carried out a final full inspection of the tower, prepared the automation for detonation and checked the demolition cable line.
At four o'clock in the afternoon on August 28, a plutonium charge and neutron fuses for it were delivered to the workshop near the tower. The final installation of the charge was completed by three o'clock in the morning on August 29. At four o'clock in the morning, installers rolled the product out of the assembly shop along a rail track and installed it in the tower's freight elevator cage, and then lifted the charge to the top of the tower. By six o'clock the charge was equipped with fuses and connected to the blasting circuit. Then the evacuation of all people from the test field began.
Due to the worsening weather, Kurchatov decided to postpone the explosion from 8.00 to 7.00.
At 6.35, the operators turned on the power to the automation system. 12 minutes before the explosion the field machine was turned on. 20 seconds before the explosion, the operator turned on the main connector (switch) connecting the product to the automatic control system. From that moment on, all operations were performed by an automatic device. Six seconds before the explosion, the main mechanism of the machine turned on the power of the product and some of the field instruments, and one second turned on all the other instruments and issued an explosion signal.
At exactly seven o'clock on August 29, 1949, the entire area was illuminated with a blinding light, which signaled that the USSR had successfully completed the development and testing of its first atomic bomb charge.
The charge power was 22 kilotons of TNT.
20 minutes after the explosion, two tanks equipped with lead protection were sent to the center of the field to conduct radiation reconnaissance and inspect the center of the field. Reconnaissance determined that all structures in the center of the field had been demolished. At the site of the tower, a crater gaped; the soil in the center of the field melted, and a continuous crust of slag formed. Civil buildings and industrial structures were completely or partially destroyed.
The equipment used in the experiment made it possible to carry out optical observations and measurements of heat flow, shock wave parameters, characteristics of neutron and gamma radiation, determine the level of radioactive contamination of the area in the area of the explosion and along the trail of the explosion cloud, and study the impact damaging factors nuclear explosion on biological objects.
For the successful development and testing of a charge for an atomic bomb, several closed decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated October 29, 1949 awarded orders and medals of the USSR to a large group of leading researchers, designers, and technologists; many were awarded the title of Stalin Prize laureates, and more than 30 people received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
As a result of the successful test of the RDS-1, the USSR abolished the American monopoly on the possession of atomic weapons, becoming the second nuclear power peace.
Under what conditions and with what efforts did the country, which survived the most terrible war of the twentieth century, create its atomic shield?
Almost seven decades ago, on October 29, 1949, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued four top-secret decrees awarding 845 people the titles of Heroes of Socialist Labor, the Order of Lenin, the Red Banner of Labor and the Badge of Honor. In none of them was it said in relation to any of the recipients what exactly he was awarded for: the standard wording “for exceptional services to the state while performing a special task” appeared everywhere. Even for the Soviet Union, accustomed to secrecy, this was a rare occurrence. Meanwhile, the recipients themselves knew very well, of course, what kind of “exceptional merits” were meant. All 845 people were, to a greater or lesser extent, directly connected with the creation of the first nuclear bomb of the USSR.
It was not strange for the awardees that both the project itself and its success were shrouded in a thick veil of secrecy. After all, they all knew well that they owe their success to a large extent to courage and professionalism Soviet intelligence officers, which for eight years supplied scientists and engineers with top-secret information from abroad. And such a high assessment that the creators of the Soviet atomic bomb deserved was not exaggerated. As one of the creators of the bomb, academician Yuli Khariton, recalled, at the presentation ceremony Stalin suddenly said: “If we had been one to a year and a half late, we would probably have tried this charge on ourselves.” And this is not an exaggeration...
Atomic bomb sample... 1940
The Soviet Union came to the idea of creating a bomb that uses the energy of a nuclear chain reaction almost simultaneously with Germany and the United States. The first officially considered project of this type of weapon was presented in 1940 by a group of scientists from the Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology under the leadership of Friedrich Lange. It was in this project that for the first time in the USSR, a scheme for detonating conventional explosives, which later became classic for all nuclear weapons, was proposed, due to which two subcritical masses of uranium are almost instantly formed into a supercritical one.
The project received negative reviews and was not considered further. But the work on which it was based continued, and not only in Kharkov. Atomic topics in pre-war USSR At least four large institutes were engaged in this work - in Leningrad, Kharkov and Moscow, and the work was supervised by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, Vyacheslav Molotov. Soon after the presentation of Lange's project, in January 1941, the Soviet government made a logical decision to classify domestic atomic research. It was clear that they could really lead to the creation of a new type of powerful technology, and such information should not be scattered, especially since it was at that time that the first intelligence data on the American atomic project was received - and Moscow did not want to risk its own.
The natural course of events was interrupted by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. But, despite the fact that all Soviet industry and science were very quickly transferred to a military footing and began to provide the army with the most urgent developments and inventions, strength and means were also found to continue the atomic project. Although not right away. The resumption of research must be counted from the resolution of the State Defense Committee of February 11, 1943, which stipulated the beginning practical work to create an atomic bomb.
Project "Enormoz"
By this time, Soviet foreign intelligence was already working hard to obtain information on the Enormoz project - this is how the American atomic project was called in operational documents. The first meaningful data indicating that the West was seriously engaged in the creation of uranium weapons came from the London station in September 1941. And at the end of the same year, a message comes from the same source that America and Great Britain agreed to coordinate the efforts of their scientists in the field of atomic energy research. In war conditions, this could only be interpreted in one way: the Allies are working to create atomic weapons. And in February 1942, intelligence received documentary evidence that Germany was actively doing the same thing.
As the efforts of Soviet scientists working on own plans, intelligence work to obtain information about American and English nuclear projects also intensified. In December 1942, it became finally clear that the United States was clearly ahead of Britain in this area, and the main efforts were focused on obtaining data from overseas. In fact, every step of the participants in the “Manhattan Project,” as the work on creating the atomic bomb in the United States was called, was tightly controlled by Soviet intelligence. Suffice it to say that the most detailed information about the structure of the first real atomic bomb was received in Moscow less than two weeks after it was assembled in America.
That is why the boastful message of the new US President Harry Truman, who decided to stun Stalin at the Potsdam Conference with a statement that America had a new weapon of unprecedented destructive power, did not cause the reaction that the American was counting on. The Soviet leader listened calmly, nodded, and said nothing. Foreigners were sure that Stalin simply did not understand anything. In fact, the leader of the USSR sensibly appreciated Truman’s words and that same day in the evening demanded that Soviet specialists speed up work on creating their own atomic bomb as much as possible. But it was no longer possible to overtake America. Less than a month later, the first atomic mushroom grew over Hiroshima, and three days later - over Nagasaki. And over the Soviet Union hung the shadow of a new, nuclear war, and not with anyone, but with former allies.
Time forward!
Now, seventy years later, no one is surprised that Soviet Union received the much-needed reserve of time to create his own superbomb, despite the sharply deteriorating relations with ex-partners in the anti-Hitler coalition. After all, already on March 5, 1946, six months after the first atomic bombings, Winston Churchill’s famous Fulton speech was made, which marked the beginning of the Cold War. But, according to the plans of Washington and its allies, it was supposed to develop into a hot one later - at the end of 1949. After all, as it was hoped overseas, the USSR was not supposed to receive its own atomic weapons before the mid-1950s, which means there was nowhere to rush.
Atomic bomb tests. Photo: U.S. Air Force/AR
From high today It seems surprising that there is a coincidence between the date of the start of the new world war - more precisely, one of the dates of one of the main plans, Fleetwood - and the date of the test of the first Soviet nuclear bomb: 1949. But in reality everything is natural. The foreign policy situation was heating up quickly, the former allies were speaking more and more harshly to each other. And in 1948, it became absolutely clear that Moscow and Washington, apparently, would no longer be able to come to an agreement with each other. From here you need to count down the time until the start new war: a year is the deadline during which countries that have recently emerged from a colossal war can fully prepare for a new one, moreover, with a state that bore the brunt of the Victory on its shoulders. Even the nuclear monopoly did not give the United States the opportunity to shorten the preparation for war.
Foreign “accents” of the Soviet atomic bomb
We all understood this perfectly well. Since 1945, all work related to the atomic project has sharply intensified. During the first two post-war years, the USSR, tormented by the war and having lost a considerable part of its industrial potential, managed to create a colossal nuclear industry from scratch. Future nuclear centers emerged, such as Chelyabinsk-40, Arzamas-16, Obninsk, and large scientific institutes and production facilities emerged.
Not so long ago, a common point of view on the Soviet atomic project was this: they say, if not for intelligence, USSR scientists would not have been able to create any atomic bomb. In reality, everything was far from being as clear as the revisionists tried to show national history. In fact, the data obtained by Soviet intelligence about the American atomic project allowed our scientists to avoid many mistakes that their American colleagues who had gone ahead inevitably had to make (whom, let us recall, the war did not seriously interfere with their work: the enemy did not invade US territory, and the country did not lose a few months half of the industry). In addition, intelligence data undoubtedly helped Soviet specialists evaluate the most advantageous designs and technical solutions that made it possible to assemble their own, more advanced atomic bomb.
And if we talk about the degree of foreign influence on the Soviet nuclear project, then, rather, we need to remember the several hundred German nuclear specialists who worked at two secret facilities near Sukhumi - in the prototype of the future Sukhumi Institute of Physics and Technology. They really helped greatly to advance work on the “product” - the first atomic bomb of the USSR, so much so that many of them were awarded Soviet orders by the same secret decrees of October 29, 1949. Most of these specialists went back to Germany five years later, settling mostly in the GDR (although there were also some who went to the West).
Objectively speaking, the first Soviet atomic bomb had, so to speak, more than one “accent.” After all, it was born as a result of a colossal cooperation of efforts of many people - both those who worked on the project of their own free will, and those who were involved in the work as prisoners of war or interned specialists. But the country, which at all costs needed to quickly obtain weapons that would equalize its chances with the ex-allies who were rapidly turning into mortal enemies, had no time for sentimentality.
Russia does it itself!
In the documents relating to the creation of the first nuclear bomb of the USSR, the term “product”, which later became popular, had not yet been encountered. Much more often it was officially called a “special jet engine,” or RDS for short. Although, of course, there was nothing reactive in the work on this design: the whole point was only in the strictest requirements of secrecy.
WITH light hand academician Yuli Khariton, the unofficial decoding “Russia does it itself” very quickly became attached to the abbreviation RDS. There was a considerable amount of irony in this, since everyone knew how much the information obtained by intelligence had given our nuclear scientists, but also a large share of truth. After all, if the design of the first Soviet nuclear bomb was very similar to the American one (simply because the most optimal one was chosen, and the laws of physics and mathematics do not have national characteristics), then, say, the ballistic body and electronic filling of the first bomb were a purely domestic development.
When work on the Soviet atomic project had progressed far enough, the USSR leadership formulated tactical and technical requirements for the first atomic bombs. It was decided to simultaneously develop two types: an implosion-type plutonium bomb and a cannon-type uranium bomb, similar to that used by the Americans. The first received the RDS-1 index, the second, respectively, RDS-2.
According to the plan, RDS-1 was to be submitted for state tests by explosion in January 1948. But these deadlines could not be met: problems arose with the production and processing of the required amount of weapons-grade plutonium for its equipment. It was received only a year and a half later, in August 1949, and immediately went to Arzamas-16, where the first Soviet atomic bomb was almost ready. Within a few days, specialists from the future VNIIEF completed the assembly of the “product”, and it went to the Semipalatinsk test site for testing.
The first rivet of Russia's nuclear shield
First nuclear bomb The USSR was blown up at seven o'clock in the morning on August 29, 1949. Almost a month passed before overseas people recovered from the shock caused by intelligence reports about the successful testing of our own “big stick” in our country. Only on September 23, Harry Truman, who had not so long ago boastfully informed Stalin about America’s successes in creating atomic weapons, made a statement that the same type of weapons was now available in the USSR.
Presentation of a multimedia installation in honor of the 65th anniversary of the creation of the first Soviet atomic bomb. Photo: Geodakyan Artem / TASS
Oddly enough, Moscow was in no hurry to confirm the Americans’ statements. On the contrary, TASS actually came out with a refutation of the American statement, arguing that the whole point is the colossal scale of construction in the USSR, which also involves the use of blasting operations using the latest technologies. True, at the end of the Tassov statement there was a more than transparent hint about possessing its own nuclear weapons. The agency reminded everyone interested that back on November 6, 1947, USSR Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov stated that no secret of the atomic bomb had existed for a long time.
And this was twice true. By 1947, no information about atomic weapons was any longer a secret for the USSR, and by the end of the summer of 1949, it was no longer a secret to anyone that the Soviet Union had restored strategic parity with its main rival, the United States. A parity that has persisted for six decades. Parity, which helps to maintain nuclear shield Russia and which began on the eve of the Great Patriotic War.
If you try to look at the events of the second half of the 40s through the eyes of Soviet leaders, then for them the situation in the world looked like this: the USA has weapons of unprecedented destructive power, but the USSR does not yet; The United States emerged from the war with enormous military-economic potential, and the USSR is forced to heal its wounds; the US refusal to continue economic assistance to the USSR, obstacles to the spread of Soviet influence, political demarches of Western leaders - is nothing more than undeclared war, the goal of which is to weaken the Soviet Union and minimize its role in Europe and the world (including through an arms race, and in the future, possibly through open military means).
Today, when documents from the first period of the Cold War have been published in the United States, the thesis about the desire of the American leadership to exhaust the USSR in the arms race, weaken it and even destroy it with an atomic bomb is finding new confirmation. Thus, documents about the possible application of nuclear strikes for the USSR (plans “Pincers”, “Dropshot”, etc.); The position of one of the ministers in the administration of Truman W. Foster is known, who justified the doubling of US military spending by the fact that this “will deprive the Russian people of a third of their already very meager consumer goods.” The opinion of G. Truman himself, who declared after the test of the American atomic bomb that he now had a “good club” for the Russian guys, is no secret either.
The military-industrial complex played a priority role in the post-war economy of the USSR. did not rule out the idea that the country might again, as in 1941, find itself unprepared for big war, - now with the United States and its allies. Along with the modernization of the ground forces (the creation of new tanks, artillery pieces, the release in 1947 of an assault rifle invented by the designer Kalashnikov - the world famous AK-47), new MIG jet fighters were mastered, new ones were laid warships. However, the main emphasis was placed on the speedy elimination of the US nuclear monopoly - the creation of its own atomic bomb and means of delivering nuclear weapons to the territory of a potential enemy. At that time, the United States already had plans to launch atomic strikes on 20, 50, and then more Soviet cities. L. Beria, who was appointed chairman of a special (nuclear) committee in the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, was appointed to supervise the Soviet nuclear project by the government. Enormous technical, financial and human resources, including prison labor, were placed at his disposal. Through the incredible efforts of Soviet scientists and designers, thanks to the work of hundreds of thousands of people, in 1948 the first ballistic missile R-1, and in 1949 an atomic bomb was tested.
It should be noted that work in this area was significantly accelerated by Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence. The creation of a rocket and an atomic bomb in the USSR could have been completed later if Soviet scientists had not used in their developments information on the production of German V-missiles obtained in the Soviet zone of occupation of Germany, and had not compared their nuclear research with data on the American nuclear power plant. project received from the Soviet intelligence network in the West (including from members of the so-called “Cambridge Five”). The achievements of the USSR in the field of nuclear and missile technologies, made possible thanks to such scientists as Kurchatov, Korolev, Keldysh and others, made it possible not only to create the country's nuclear missile shield, but also to use newest discoveries for peaceful purposes. Already in 1954, the first in the world was launched in Obninsk nuclear power plant, and research was actively carried out on launching an artificial Earth satellite into space, which was crowned with success in 1957.
TAMING THE CORE
September 24, 1918- Organization in Petrograd of the State X-ray and Radiological Institute, which included the physics and technology department headed by Professor A.F. Ioffe.
December 15, 1918- Creation of the State Optical Institute (GOI) in Petrograd, headed by Academician D.S. Rozhdestvensky.
end 1918 of the year - Creation of the Central Chemical Laboratory in Moscow, since 1931 transformed into the Physico-Chemical Institute, headed by Academician A.N. Bach.
January 21, 1920- The first meeting of the Atomic Commission, in which A.F. took part. Ioffe, D.S. Rozhdestvensky, A.N. Krylov and other outstanding scientists.
April 15, 1921- Creation of a Radium Laboratory at the Academy of Sciences, headed by V.G. Khlopin.
end 1921- Development and implementation of I.Ya. Bashilov technologies for processing uranium ore from the Tyuyamuyun deposit to produce radium and uranium preparations on a factory scale.
January 1, 1922- Transformation of the State Radiological and Radiological Institute into three independent research institutions:
X-ray and Radiological Institute headed by M.I. Nemenov;
Physico-Technical Institute (LPTI) headed by A.F. Ioffe;
Radium Institute headed by V.I. Vernadsky.
March 1, 1923- Adoption of the resolution State Council Labor and Defense on the extraction and accounting of radium.
1928 - Creation of the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology (UPTI) in Kharkov, headed by I.V. Obreimov.
1931 - Creation of the Institute in Leningrad chemical physics led by N.N. Semenov.
1931 - Creation on the basis of the Institute of Applied Mineralogy of the State Research Institute of Rare Metals (Giredmet) headed by V.I. Glebova.
1932 - D.D. Ivanenko put forward a hypothesis about the structure of nuclei from protons and neutrons.
1933 - Creation of the Commission for the Study of the Atomic Nucleus of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which included A.F. Ioffe (chairman), S.E. Frish, I.V. Kurchatov, A.I. Leypunsky and A.V. Mysovsky.
1934 - P.A. Cherenkov discovered something new optical phenomenon(Cherenkov-Vavilov radiation).
1934 - Obtaining A.I. Brodsky (Institute of Physical Chemistry, Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR) of the first heavy water in the USSR.
December 28, 1934- Creation of the Institute of Physical Problems in Moscow, headed by P.L. Kapitsa.
1935 - I.V. Kurchatov, together with his collaborators, discovered nuclear isomerism.
1937 - Obtaining a beam of accelerated protons at the Radium Institute at the first cyclotron in Europe.
summer 1938- Formulation by the director of the Radium Institute V.G. Khlopin's proposals for developing the problem of the atomic nucleus in the institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the third five-year plan.
end 1938- Formulation by the director of the Physical Institute S.I. Vavilov’s proposals for organizing work at the institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences on the study of the atomic nucleus.
November 25, 1938- Resolution of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences on the organization of work in the USSR Academy of Sciences on the study of the atomic nucleus and the creation of a permanent Commission on the atomic nucleus at the Physics and Mathematics Department of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The commission included S.I. Vavilov (chairman), A.F. Ioffe, I.M. Frank, A.I. Alikhanov, I.V. Kurchatov and V.I. Wexler. In June 1940, V.G. was added to the Commission. Khlopin and I.I. Gurevich.
March 7, 1939- Proposal by M.G. Pervukhin on the concentration of research work on the atomic nucleus at the Physico-Technical Institute in Kharkov.
July 30, 1940- Creation of a Commission on the Uranium Problem to coordinate and generally manage the research work of the USSR Academy of Sciences on the uranium problem. The commission included V.G. Khlopin (chairman), V.I. Vernadsky (deputy chairman), A.F. Ioffe (deputy chairman), A.E. Fersman, S.I. Vavilov, P.P. Lazarev, A.N. Frumkin, L.I. Mandelstam, G.M. Krzhizhanovsky, P.L. Kapitsa, I.V. Kurchatov, D.I. Shcherbakov, A.P. Vinogradov and Yu.B. Khariton.
September 5, 1940- Suggestions from A.E. Fersman on speeding up exploration and production of uranium ores.
October 15, 1940- The Commission on the Problem of Uranium prepared a plan for scientific research and geological exploration for 1940-1941. The main objectives were:
Research into the possibilities of implementing a chain reaction using natural uranium;
Clarification of the physical data necessary for assessing the development of a chain reaction on uranium-235;
Study of various isotope separation methods and assessment of their applicability for the separation of uranium isotopes;
Studying the possibilities of producing volatile organic compounds of uranium;
Study of the state of the uranium raw material base and creation of a uranium fund.
November 30, 1940- Report by A.E. Fersman on the results of searching for uranium ore deposits in Central Asia.
October 1941- Obtaining the first intelligence information about work on a uranium project in the UK.
summer 1942- Proposal by G.M. Flerov on the creation of a nuclear explosive device.
September 28, 1942- Order of the State Defense Committee “On the organization of work on uranium”, which marked the beginning of the development of work on atomic energy in the USSR. The order ordered the creation of a Special Laboratory of the Atomic Nucleus (Laboratory No. 2) at the USSR Academy of Sciences to coordinate work on the atomic project.
November 27, 1942- Memo by I.V. Kurchatova V.M. Molotov, which contained an analysis of intelligence materials on the development of the atomic project in Great Britain and proposals for the creation of atomic weapons in the USSR.
February 11, 1943- The order of the State Defense Committee on the organization of work on uranium designated M.G. as the head of work on the uranium problem. Pervukhin and S.V. Kaftanova. The scientific leadership of the problem was entrusted to I.V. Kurchatova.
March 10, 1943- Appointment of I.V. Kurchatov, head of Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now the Russian Research Center Kurchatov Institute, Moscow), the scientific center of the atomic project.
1943 - Systematic analysis of I.V. Kurchatov of intelligence materials of the NKVD of the USSR on the development of nuclear projects in the USA and Great Britain and his development of proposals to M.G. Pervukhin about the development of work on the nuclear project in the USSR.
November 1944- Beginning of development of technology for producing uranium metal.
November 21, 1944- Sending a group of Soviet specialists to Bulgaria to analyze the state of uranium ore deposits.
December 8, 1944- The decision of the State Defense Committee to transfer the mining and processing of uranium ores to the jurisdiction of the NKVD of the USSR and the organization of a special department for these purposes.
late 1944- Creation of NII-9 (now VNIINM named after A.A. Bochvar, Moscow) in the NKVD system for the development of technologies for the production of metallic uranium, its special compounds and metallic plutonium (director V.B. Shevchenko).
May 9, 1945- Sending a group of Soviet specialists to Germany led by A.P. Zavenyagin for the search and acceptance of materials on the uranium problem in Germany. The main result of the group’s activities was the discovery and removal to the USSR of about one hundred tons of uranium concentrates.
August 6, 1945- First military use of the atomic bomb by the United States of America. Air bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
August 9, 1945- Second military use of the atomic bomb by the United States of America. Air bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.
August 20, 1945- By decree of the State Defense Committee, a Special Committee was created under the State Defense Committee to manage all work on the use of atomic energy. Chairman - L.P. Beria, members of the Special Committee - G.M. Malenkov, N.A. Voznesensky, B.L. Vannikov, A.P. Zavenyagin, I.V. Kurchatov, P.L. Kapitsa, M.G. Pervukhin and V.A. Makhnev. A Technical Council was created under the Special Committee. Chairman - B.L. Vannikov, members of the Technical Council - A.I. Alikhanov, I.N. Voznesensky, A.P. Zavenyagin, A.F. Ioffe, P.L. Kapitsa, I.K. Kikoin, I.V. Kurchatov, V.A. Makhnev, Yu.B. Khariton and V.G. Khlopin. The following were created under the Technical Council: the Commission on the Electromagnetic Separation of Uranium (headed by A.F. Ioffe), the Commission on the Production of Heavy Water (headed by P.L. Kapitsa), the Commission on the Study of Plutonium (headed by V.G. Khlopin), Commission for Chemical Analytical Research (headed by A.P. Vinogradov), Section on Occupational Safety and Health (headed by V.V. Parin).
August 30, 1945- By the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the First Main Directorate (PGU) was formed under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Head of PSU - B.L. Vannikov, deputy chief - A.P. Zavenyagin, P.Ya. Antropov, N.A. Borisov, A.G. Kasatkin and P.Ya. Meshik, members of the PSU board - A.N. Komarovsky, G.P. Korsakov and S.E. Egorov.
September 1945- Start of joint work on exploration of uranium deposits and uranium mining in East Germany.
October 8, 1945- Decision of the Technical Council of the Special Committee on the creation of Laboratory No. 3 (now ITEP, Moscow) for the development of heavy water reactors (director - A.I. Alikhanov).
October 17, 1945- Agreement with the Government of Bulgaria on the exploration and production of uranium ores.
November 23, 1945- Agreement with Czechoslovakia on the extraction and supply of uranium ore from the Jachimov deposit.
January 29, 1946- Decision of the UN General Assembly on the creation of the UN Atomic Energy Commission.
March 1946- Start of development of two variants of industrial reactors ( chief designer vertical diagram of the reactor - N.A. Dollezhal, chief designer of the horizontal reactor circuit - B.M. Sholkovich).
March 21, 1946- Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the establishment of special prizes for scientific discoveries and technical achievements in the use of atomic energy.
April 9, 1946- Decree of the USSR Government on the creation of KB-11 (Arzamas-16, now RFNC-VNIIEF, Sarov), a center for the development of atomic weapons (director - P.M. Zernov, chief designer and scientific director - Yu.B. Khariton).
April 1946- Decree of the USSR Government on the creation of nuclear explosion diagnostic tools at the Institute of Chemical Physics (scientific supervisor of the work - M.A. Sadovsky).
June 19, 1946- The Soviet Union submitted proposals to the UN Atomic Energy Commission for an international convention “On the Prohibition of the Production and Use of Atomic Weapons.”
June 21, 1946- Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the plan for the deployment of KB-11 work on the creation of two versions of an atomic bomb based on plutonium and uranium-235. The decree ordered the development and submission for State testing of an aerial bomb based on plutonium by March 1, 1948, and an aerial bomb based on uranium-235 by January 1, 1949.
1946 - Creation at the Radium Institute of technology for processing irradiated reactor fuel and separating plutonium from it (scientific supervisor V.G. Khlopin).
April 21, 1947- Decree of the USSR Government on the creation of a test site (Mountain Station, Training Site No. 2, Semipalatinsk Test Site) for testing an atomic bomb (the head of the test site is P.M. Rozhanovich, the scientific supervisor is M.A. Sadovsky).
September 15, 1947- Agreement with the Polish government on exploration and production of uranium ores.
1947 - Beginning of the formation of KB-11 units.
June 10, 1948- Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on supplementing the work plan of KB-11. This Resolution obligated KB-11 to carry out, before January 1, 1949, theoretical and experimental verification of data on the possibility of creating new types of atomic bombs:
RDS-3 - an atomic bomb based on the principle of implosion of a “solid” design using a combination of Pu-239 and U-235 materials;
RDS-4 - an atomic bomb based on the principle of implosion of an improved design using Pu-239;
RDS-5 is an atomic bomb based on the principle of implosion of an improved design using a combination of Pu-239 and U-235 materials.
After the abandonment of the creation of the RDS-2 cannon-type atomic bomb based on U-235, the indices of these nuclear charges were changed. The same decree obliged KB-11 to carry out theoretical and experimental verification of data on the possibility of creating the RDS-6 hydrogen bomb by June 1, 1949.
June 10, 1948- The resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On strengthening KB-11 with leading design personnel” was approved by K.I. Shchelkina as first deputy chief designer, V.I. Alferov and N.L. Dukhova - deputy chief designer.
June 15, 1948- The industrial reactor - object "A" of plant No. 817 - has been brought to its design capacity.
August 15, 1948- Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the development of issues on the possibilities of creating means to counter nuclear weapons based on the use of flows of neutral and charged high-energy particles (Institute of Chemical Physics, Institute of Physics, Laboratory No. 2).
March 3, 1949- Decree of the USSR Government on the creation of the first serial plant for the production of atomic weapons (now EMZ Avangard, Sarov).
April 1949- Launch of the first research reactor using natural uranium and heavy water (Thermal Engineering Laboratory of the USSR Academy of Sciences, ITEP).
August 29, 1949- test of the first atomic bomb RDS-1. (7 a.m. local time, 4 a.m. Moscow time).
October 28, 1949- L.P. Beria reported to I.V. Stalin about the results of testing the first atomic bomb.
In the Soviet Union, already since 1918, research on nuclear physics was carried out, preparing the test of the first atomic bomb in the USSR. In Leningrad, at the Radium Institute, in 1937, a cyclotron was launched, the first in Europe. "In what year was the first atomic bomb test in the USSR?" - you ask. You will find out the answer very soon.
In 1938, on November 25, a commission on the atomic nucleus was created by decree of the Academy of Sciences. It included Sergei Vavilov, Abram Alikhanov, Abram Iofe, and others. They were joined two years later by Isai Gurevich and Vitaly Khlopin. By that time, nuclear research had already been carried out in more than 10 scientific institutes. In the same year, the USSR Academy of Sciences established the Commission on Heavy Water, which later became known as the Commission on Isotopes. After reading this article, you will learn how further preparation and testing of the first atomic bomb was carried out in the USSR.
Construction of a cyclotron in Leningrad, discovery of new uranium ores
In September 1939, construction of a cyclotron began in Leningrad. In April 1940, it was decided to create a pilot plant that would produce 15 kg of heavy water per year. However, due to the war that began at that time, these plans were not implemented. In May of the same year, Yu. Khariton, Ya. Zeldovich, N. Semenov proposed their theory of the development of a nuclear chain reaction in uranium. At the same time, work began to discover new uranium ores. These were the first steps that led to the creation and testing of an atomic bomb in the USSR several years later.
Physicists' idea of a future atomic bomb
Many physicists in the period from the late 30s to the early 40s already had a rough idea of what it would look like. The idea was to concentrate quickly enough in one place a certain amount (more than a critical mass) of material fissile under the influence of neutrons. After this, an avalanche-like increase in the number of atomic decays should begin in it. That is, it will be a chain reaction, as a result of which a huge charge of energy will be released and a powerful explosion will occur.
Problems encountered in creating the atomic bomb
The first problem was to obtain fissile material in sufficient volume. In nature, the only substance of this kind that could be found is an isotope of uranium with a mass number of 235 (that is, the total number of neutrons and protons in the nucleus), otherwise uranium-235. The content of this isotope in natural uranium is no more than 0.71% (uranium-238 - 99.2%). Moreover, the content of natural substances in the ore is at best 1%. Therefore, the isolation of uranium-235 was a rather difficult task.
As it soon became clear, an alternative to uranium is plutonium-239. It is almost never found in nature (it is 100 times less abundant than uranium-235). It can be obtained in acceptable concentrations in nuclear reactors by irradiating uranium-238 with neutrons. Building a reactor for this also presented significant difficulties.
The third problem was that it was not easy to collect the required amount of fissile material in one place. In the process of bringing subcritical parts closer together, even very quickly, fission reactions begin to occur in them. The energy released in this case may not allow the bulk of the atoms to participate in the fission process. Without having time to react, they will fly apart.
Invention of V. Maslov and V. Spinel
V. Maslov and V. Spinel from the Physico-Technical Institute of Kharkov in 1940 applied for the invention of ammunition based on the use of a chain reaction that triggers the spontaneous fission of uranium-235, its supercritical mass, which is created from several subcritical ones, separated by an explosive, impenetrable for neutrons and destroyed by explosion. The operability of such a charge raises great doubts, but nevertheless, a certificate for this invention was nevertheless obtained. However, this happened only in 1946.
American cannon scheme
For the first bombs, the Americans intended to use a cannon design, which used a real cannon barrel. With its help, one part of the fissile material (subcritical) was shot into another. But it was soon discovered that such a scheme was not suitable for plutonium due to the fact that the approach speed was insufficient.
Construction of a cyclotron in Moscow
In 1941, on April 15, the Council of People's Commissars decided to begin construction of a powerful cyclotron in Moscow. However, after the Great Patriotic War, almost all work in the field of nuclear physics, designed to bring closer the first test of an atomic bomb in the USSR, was stopped. Many nuclear physicists found themselves at the front. Others were reoriented to more pressing areas, as it seemed then.
Gathering information about the nuclear issue
Since 1939, the 1st Directorate of the NKVD and the GRU of the Red Army have been collecting information regarding the nuclear problem. In 1940, in October, the first message was received from D. Cairncross, which spoke of plans to create an atomic bomb. This question was reviewed by the British Science Committee, on which Cairncross worked. In the summer of 1941, a bomb project called “Tube Alloys” was approved. At the beginning of the war, England was one of the world leaders in nuclear development. This situation arose largely thanks to the help of German scientists who fled to this country when Hitler came to power.
K. Fuchs, a member of the KKE, was one of them. He went in the fall of 1941 to the Soviet embassy, where he reported that he had important information about powerful weapon, created in England. S. Kramer and R. Kuchinskaya (radio operator Sonya) were assigned to communicate with him. The first radiograms sent to Moscow contained information about a special method for separating uranium isotopes, gas diffusion, as well as about a plant being built for this purpose in Wales. After six transmissions, communication with Fuchs was lost.
The test of the atomic bomb in the USSR, the date of which is widely known today, was also prepared by other intelligence officers. Thus, in the United States, Semenov (Twain) at the end of 1943 reported that E. Fermi in Chicago managed to carry out the first chain reaction. The source of this information was the physicist Pontecorvo. At the same time, through foreign intelligence, closed works of Western scientists concerning atomic energy, dated 1940-1942, were received from England. The information contained in them confirmed that great progress had been made in creating the atomic bomb.
The wife of Konenkov (pictured below), a famous sculptor, worked with others on reconnaissance. She became close to Einstein and Oppenheimer, the greatest physicists, and provided for a long time influence on them. L. Zarubina, another resident in the USA, was part of the circle of people of Oppenheimer and L. Szilard. With the help of these women, the USSR managed to introduce agents into Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, and the Chicago Laboratory - the largest nuclear research centers in America. Information on the atomic bomb in the United States was transmitted to Soviet intelligence in 1944 by the Rosenbergs, D. Greenglass, B. Pontecorvo, S. Sake, T. Hall, and K. Fuchs.
In 1944, at the beginning of February, L. Beria, People's Commissar of the NKVD, held a meeting of intelligence leaders. It was decided to coordinate the collection of information regarding atomic problem, which came through the GRU of the Red Army and the NKVD. For this purpose, department “C” was created. In 1945, on September 27, it was organized. P. Sudoplatov, GB Commissioner, headed this department.
Fuchs transmitted in January 1945 a description of the design of the atomic bomb. Intelligence, among other things, also obtained materials on the separation of uranium isotopes by electromagnetic methods, data on the operation of the first reactors, instructions for the production of plutonium and uranium bombs, data on the size of the critical mass of plutonium and uranium, on the design of explosive lenses, on plutonium-240, on the sequence and the timing of bomb assembly and production operations. The information also concerned the method of setting the bomb initiator into action and the construction of special plants for isotope separation. Diary entries were also obtained, which contained information about the first test explosion of a bomb in the United States in July 1945.
The information received through these channels accelerated and facilitated the task assigned to Soviet scientists. Western experts believed that the USSR could create a bomb only in 1954-1955. However, they were wrong. The first test of an atomic bomb in the USSR took place in 1949, in August.
New stages in the creation of the atomic bomb
In April 1942, M. Pervukhin, People's Commissar of the Chemical Industry, was acquainted, by order of Stalin, with materials relating to the work on the atomic bomb carried out abroad. To evaluate the information presented in the report, Pervukhin proposed creating a group of specialists. It included, on the recommendation of Ioffe, young scientists Kikoin, Alikhanov and Kurchatov.
In 1942, on November 27, the GKO decree “On Uranium Mining” was issued. It provided for the creation of a special institute, as well as the start of work on the processing and extraction of raw materials, and geological exploration. All this was supposed to be carried out so that the first atomic bomb was tested in the USSR as soon as possible. The year 1943 was marked by the fact that NKCM began mining and processing uranium ore in Tajikistan, at the Tabarsh mine. The plan was 4 tons of uranium salts per year.
The previously mobilized scientists were recalled from the front at this time. In the same year, 1943, on February 11, Laboratory No. 2 of the Academy of Sciences was organized. Kurchatov was appointed its head. She was supposed to coordinate the work on creating an atomic bomb.
In 1944, Soviet intelligence received a reference book that contained valuable information about the availability of uranium-graphite reactors and the determination of reactor parameters. However, the uranium needed to load even a small experimental nuclear reactor was not yet available in our country. In 1944, on September 28, the USSR government obliged NKCM to hand over uranium salts and uranium to the state fund. Laboratory No. 2 was entrusted with the task of storing them.
Works carried out in Bulgaria
A large group of specialists, led by V. Kravchenko, head of the 4th special department of the NKVD, in November 1944, went to study the results of geological exploration in liberated Bulgaria. In the same year, on December 8, the State Defense Committee decided to transfer the processing and extraction of uranium ores from the NKMC to the 9th Directorate of the Main Directorate of the Main State MP of the NKVD. In March 1945, S. Egorov was appointed head of the mining and metallurgical department of the 9th Directorate. At the same time, in January, NII-9 was organized to study uranium deposits, solve problems of obtaining plutonium and metallic uranium, and processing raw materials. By that time, about one and a half tons of uranium ore were arriving from Bulgaria per week.
Construction of a diffusion plant
Since 1945, since March, after information was received from the United States through the NKGB channels about the design of a bomb built on the principle of implosion (that is, compression of fissile material by exploding a conventional explosive), work began on a scheme that had significant advantages over the cannon one. In April 1945, V. Makhanev wrote a note to Beria. It said that in 1947 it was planned to launch a diffusion plant to produce uranium-235, located at Laboratory No. 2. The productivity of this plant was supposed to be approximately 25 kg of uranium per year. This should have been enough for two bombs. The American one actually needed 65 kg of uranium-235.
Involving German scientists in research
On May 5, 1945, during the battle for Berlin, property belonging to the Society's Physics Institute was discovered. On May 9, a special commission headed by A. Zavenyagin was sent to Germany. Her task was to find the scientists who worked there on the atomic bomb and to collect materials on the uranium problem. A significant group of German scientists were taken to the USSR together with their families. These included Nobel laureates N. Riehl and G. Hertz, professors Geib, M. von Ardene, P. Thyssen, G. Pose, M. Volmer, R. Deppel and others.
The creation of the atomic bomb is delayed
To produce plutonium-239, it was necessary to build a nuclear reactor. Even for the experimental one, about 36 tons of uranium metal, 500 tons of graphite and 9 tons of uranium dioxide were needed. By August 1943, the graphite problem was solved. Its production began in May 1944 at the Moscow Electrode Plant. However required quantity there was no uranium in the country by the end of 1945.
Stalin wanted the first atomic bomb to be tested in the USSR as soon as possible. The year by which it was supposed to be realized was initially 1948 (until spring). However, by this time there were not even materials for its production. A new deadline was set on February 8, 1945 by government decree. The creation of the atomic bomb was postponed until March 1, 1949.
The final stages that prepared the test of the first atomic bomb in the USSR
The event, which had been sought for so long, occurred somewhat later than the re-scheduled date. The first test of an atomic bomb in the USSR took place in 1949, as planned, but not in March, but in August.
In 1948, on June 19, the first industrial reactor ("A") was launched. Plant "B" was built to separate produced plutonium from nuclear fuel. Irradiated uranium blocks were dissolved and plutonium was separated from uranium by chemical methods. Then the solution was further purified from fission products in order to reduce its radiation activity. In April 1949, Plant B began producing bomb parts from plutonium using NII-9 technology. The first research reactor operating on heavy water was launched at the same time. The development of production proceeded with numerous accidents. When eliminating their consequences, cases of overexposure of personnel were observed. However, at that time they did not pay attention to such trifles. The most important thing was to carry out the first test of an atomic bomb in the USSR (its date was 1949, August 29).
In July, a set of charge parts was ready. A group of physicists, led by Flerov, went to the plant to carry out physical measurements. A group of theorists, led by Zeldovich, was sent to process the measurement results, as well as calculate the probability of incomplete rupture and efficiency values.
Thus, the first test of an atomic bomb in the USSR was carried out in 1949. On August 5, the commission accepted a charge of plutonium and sent it to KB-11 by letter train. By this time the necessary work was almost completed. The control assembly of the charge was carried out in KB-11 on the night of August 10-11. The device was then dismantled, and its parts were packed for shipment to the landfill. As already mentioned, the first test of an atomic bomb in the USSR took place on August 29. The Soviet bomb was thus created in 2 years and 8 months.
Testing of the first atomic bomb
In the USSR in 1949, on August 29, a nuclear charge was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site. There was a device on the tower. The power of the explosion was 22 kt. The design of the charge used was the same as the “Fat Man” from the USA, and the electronic filling was developed by Soviet scientists. The multilayer structure was represented by an atomic charge. In it, using compression by a spherical converging detonation wave, plutonium was transferred to a critical state.
Some features of the first atomic bomb
5 kg of plutonium was placed in the center of the charge. The substance was established in the form of two hemispheres surrounded by a shell of uranium-238. It served to contain the core, which inflated during the chain reaction, so that as much of the plutonium as possible could react. In addition, it was used as a reflector and also a neutron moderator. The tamper was surrounded by a shell made of aluminum. It served to uniformly compress the nuclear charge by the shock wave.
For safety reasons, the installation of the unit that contained fissile material was carried out immediately before using the charge. For this purpose, there was a special through conical hole, closed with an explosive plug. And in the inner and outer cases there were holes that were closed with lids. The fission of approximately 1 kg of plutonium nuclei was responsible for the power of the explosion. The remaining 4 kg did not have time to react and were sprayed uselessly when the first test of an atomic bomb was carried out in the USSR, the date of which you now know. Many new ideas for improving charges arose during the implementation of this program. They concerned, in particular, increasing the material utilization rate, as well as reducing weight and dimensions. Compared to the first ones, the new models have become more compact, more powerful and more elegant.
So, the first test of an atomic bomb in the USSR took place in 1949, on August 29. It served as the beginning of further developments in this area, which continue to this day. The testing of the atomic bomb in the USSR (1949) became important event in the history of our country, laying the foundation for its status as a nuclear power.
In 1953, at the same Semipalatinsk test site, the first test in the history of Russia took place. Its power was already 400 kt. Compare the first tests in the USSR of an atomic bomb and a hydrogen bomb: power 22 kt and 400 kt. However, this was just the beginning.
On September 14, 1954, the first military exercises were carried out, during which an atomic bomb was used. They were called "Operation Snowball". The testing of an atomic bomb in 1954 in the USSR, according to information declassified in 1993, was carried out, among other things, with the aim of finding out how radiation affects humans. The participants in this experiment signed an agreement that they would not disclose information about the exposure for 25 years.
In the USA and USSR, work began simultaneously on atomic bomb projects. In August 1942, the secret Laboratory No. 2 began to operate in one of the buildings located in the courtyard of Kazan University. The head of this facility was Igor Kurchatov, the Russian “father” of the atomic bomb. At the same time, in August, near Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the building of a former local school, a “Metallurgical Laboratory”, also secret, began operating. It was led by Robert Oppenheimer, the “father” of the atomic bomb from America.
It took a total of three years to complete the task. The first US bomb was blown up at the test site in July 1945. Two more were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August. It took seven years for the birth of the atomic bomb in the USSR. The first explosion took place in 1949.
Igor Kurchatov: short biography
The "father" of the atomic bomb in the USSR, was born in 1903, on January 12. This event took place in the Ufa province, in today's city of Sima. Kurchatov is considered one of the founders of peaceful purposes.
He graduated with honors from the Simferopol men's gymnasium, as well as a vocational school. In 1920, Kurchatov entered the Tauride University, the physics and mathematics department. Just 3 years later, he successfully graduated from this university ahead of schedule. The “father” of the atomic bomb began working at the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology in 1930, where he headed the physics department.
The era before Kurchatov
Back in the 1930s, work related to atomic energy began in the USSR. Chemists and physicists from various scientific centers, as well as specialists from other countries, took part in all-Union conferences organized by the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Radium samples were obtained in 1932. And in 1939 the chain reaction of fission of heavy atoms was calculated. The year 1940 became a landmark year in the nuclear field: the design of an atomic bomb was created, and methods for producing uranium-235 were proposed. Conventional explosives were first proposed to be used as a fuse to initiate a chain reaction. Also in 1940, Kurchatov presented his report on the fission of heavy nuclei.
Research during the Great Patriotic War
After the Germans attacked the USSR in 1941, nuclear research was suspended. The main Leningrad and Moscow institutes that dealt with problems of nuclear physics were urgently evacuated.
Chapter strategic intelligence Beria knew that Western physicists considered atomic weapons an achievable reality. According to historical data, back in September 1939, Robert Oppenheimer, the leader of the work on creating an atomic bomb in America, came to the USSR incognito. The Soviet leadership could have learned about the possibility of obtaining these weapons from the information provided by this “father” of the atomic bomb.
In 1941, intelligence data from Great Britain and the USA began to arrive in the USSR. According to this information, intensive work has been launched in the West, the goal of which is the creation of nuclear weapons.
In the spring of 1943, Laboratory No. 2 was created to produce the first atomic bomb in the USSR. The question arose about who should be entrusted with its leadership. The list of candidates initially included about 50 names. Beria, however, chose Kurchatov. He was summoned in October 1943 to a viewing in Moscow. Today the scientific center that grew out of this laboratory bears his name - the Kurchatov Institute.
In 1946, on April 9, a decree was issued on the creation of a design bureau at Laboratory No. 2. Only at the beginning of 1947 were the first production buildings, which were located in the Mordovian Nature Reserve, ready. Some of the laboratories were located in monastery buildings.
RDS-1, the first Russian atomic bomb
They called the Soviet prototype RDS-1, which, according to one version, meant special." After some time, this abbreviation began to be deciphered somewhat differently - "Stalin's Jet Engine." In documents to ensure secrecy soviet bomb was called a "rocket engine".
It was a device with a power of 22 kilotons. The USSR carried out its own development of atomic weapons, but the need to catch up with the United States, which had gone ahead during the war, forced domestic science to use intelligence data. The basis for the first Russian atomic bomb was the Fat Man, developed by the Americans (pictured below).
It was this that the United States dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. "Fat Man" worked on the decay of plutonium-239. The detonation scheme was implosive: the charges exploded along the perimeter of the fissile substance and created a blast wave that “compressed” the substance located in the center and caused a chain reaction. This scheme was later found to be ineffective.
The Soviet RDS-1 was made in the form of a large diameter and mass free-falling bomb. The charge of an explosive atomic device was made from plutonium. The electrical equipment, as well as the ballistic body of the RDS-1, were domestically developed. The bomb consisted of a ballistic body, a nuclear charge, an explosive device, as well as equipment for automatic charge detonation systems.
Uranium shortage
Soviet physics, taking the American plutonium bomb as a basis, was faced with a problem that had to be solved in an extremely short time: plutonium production had not yet begun in the USSR at the time of development. Therefore, captured uranium was initially used. However, the reactor required at least 150 tons of this substance. In 1945, mines in East Germany and Czechoslovakia resumed their work. Uranium deposits in the Chita region, Kolyma, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, the North Caucasus and Ukraine were discovered in 1946.
In the Urals, near the city of Kyshtym (not far from Chelyabinsk), they began to build Mayak, a radiochemical plant, and the first industrial reactor in the USSR. Kurchatov personally supervised the laying of uranium. Construction began in 1947 in three more places: two in the Middle Urals and one in the Gorky region.
Construction work proceeded at a rapid pace, but there was still not enough uranium. The first industrial reactor could not be launched even by 1948. It was only on June 7 of this year that uranium was loaded.
Nuclear reactor startup experiment
The “father” of the Soviet atomic bomb personally took over the duties of the chief operator at the control panel of the nuclear reactor. On June 7, between 11 and 12 o'clock at night, Kurchatov began an experiment to launch it. The reactor reached a power of 100 kilowatts on June 8. After this, the “father” of the Soviet atomic bomb silenced the chain reaction that had begun. The next stage of preparing the nuclear reactor lasted for two days. After cooling water was supplied, it became clear that the available uranium was not enough to carry out the experiment. The reactor reached a critical state only after loading the fifth portion of the substance. The chain reaction became possible again. This happened at 8 o'clock in the morning on June 10.
On the 17th of the same month, Kurchatov, the creator of the atomic bomb in the USSR, made an entry in the shift supervisors' journal in which he warned that the water supply should under no circumstances be stopped, otherwise an explosion would occur. On June 19, 1938 at 12:45, the commercial launch of a nuclear reactor, the first in Eurasia, took place.
Successful bomb tests
In June 1949, the USSR accumulated 10 kg of plutonium - the amount that was put into the bomb by the Americans. Kurchatov, the creator of the atomic bomb in the USSR, following Beria's decree, ordered the RDS-1 test to be scheduled for August 29.
A section of the Irtysh arid steppe, located in Kazakhstan, not far from Semipalatinsk, was set aside for a test site. In the center of this experimental field, whose diameter was about 20 km, a metal tower 37.5 meters high was constructed. RDS-1 was installed on it.
The charge used in the bomb was a multi-layer design. In it, the transfer of the active substance to a critical state was carried out by compressing it using a spherical converging detonation wave, which was formed in the explosive.
Consequences of the explosion
The tower was completely destroyed after the explosion. A funnel appeared in its place. However, the main damage was caused by the shock wave. According to the description of eyewitnesses, when a trip to the explosion site took place on August 30, the experimental field presented a terrible picture. The highway and railway bridges were thrown to a distance of 20-30 m and twisted. Cars and carriages were scattered at a distance of 50-80 m from the place where they were located; residential buildings were completely destroyed. The tanks used to test the force of the impact lay with their turrets knocked down on their sides, and the guns became a pile of twisted metal. Also, 10 Pobeda vehicles, specially brought here for testing, burned down.
A total of 5 RDS-1 bombs were manufactured. They were not transferred to the Air Force, but were stored in Arzamas-16. Today in Sarov, which was formerly Arzamas-16 (the laboratory is shown in the photo below), a mock-up of the bomb is on display. It is located in the local nuclear weapons museum.
"Fathers" of the atomic bomb
Only 12 people participated in the creation of the American atomic bomb. Nobel laureates, future and present. In addition, they were helped by a group of scientists from Great Britain, which was sent to Los Alamos in 1943.
IN Soviet times it was believed that the USSR had completely independently solved the atomic problem. Everywhere it was said that Kurchatov, the creator of the atomic bomb in the USSR, was its “father.” Although rumors of secrets stolen from Americans occasionally leaked out. And only in 1990, 50 years later, Julius Khariton - one of the main participants in the events of that time - spoke about big role intelligence in the creation Soviet project. The technical and scientific results of the Americans were obtained by Klaus Fuchs, who arrived in the English group.
Therefore, Oppenheimer can be considered the “father” of bombs that were created on both sides of the ocean. We can say that he was the creator of the first atomic bomb in the USSR. Both projects, American and Russian, were based on his ideas. It is wrong to consider Kurchatov and Oppenheimer only as outstanding organizers. We have already talked about the Soviet scientist, as well as about the contribution made by the creator of the first atomic bomb in the USSR. Oppenheimer's main achievements were scientific. It was thanks to them that he turned out to be the head of the atomic project, just like the creator of the atomic bomb in the USSR.
Brief biography of Robert Oppenheimer
This scientist was born in 1904, April 22, in New York. graduated from Harvard University in 1925. The future creator of the first atomic bomb interned for a year at the Cavendish Laboratory with Rutherford. A year later, the scientist moved to the University of Göttingen. Here, under the guidance of M. Born, he defended his doctoral dissertation. In 1928 the scientist returned to the USA. From 1929 to 1947, the “father” of the American atomic bomb taught at two universities in this country - the California Institute of Technology and the University of California.
On July 16, 1945, the first bomb was successfully tested in the United States, and soon after, Oppenheimer, along with other members of the Provisional Committee created under President Truman, was forced to select targets for future atomic bombing. Many of his colleagues by that time actively opposed the use of dangerous nuclear weapons, which were not necessary, since Japan's surrender was a foregone conclusion. Oppenheimer did not join them.
Explaining his behavior further, he said that he relied on politicians and military men who were better familiar with the real situation. In October 1945, Oppenheimer ceased to be director of the Los Alamos Laboratory. He began work in Priston, heading a local research institute. His fame in the United States, as well as outside this country, reached its culmination. New York newspapers wrote about him more and more often. President Truman presented Oppenheimer with the Medal of Merit, the highest award in America.
In addition to scientific works, he wrote several “Open Mind”, “Science and Everyday Knowledge” and others.
This scientist died in 1967, on February 18. Oppenheimer was a heavy smoker from his youth. In 1965, he was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. At the end of 1966, after an operation that did not bring results, he underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy. However, the treatment had no effect, and the scientist died on February 18.
So, Kurchatov is the “father” of the atomic bomb in the USSR, Oppenheimer is in the USA. Now you know the names of those who were the first to work on the development of nuclear weapons. Having answered the question: “Who is called the father of the atomic bomb?”, we told only about the initial stages of the history of this dangerous weapons. It continues to this day. Moreover, today new developments are actively underway in this area. The “father” of the atomic bomb, the American Robert Oppenheimer, as well as the Russian scientist Igor Kurchatov, were only pioneers in this matter.