B.S. Gorobets
The documents on the «Atomic project of the USSR», recently
published, make clarify the history of the creation of thermonuclear
weapon in the USSR and the USA, the basic physico-technical
ideas born and realized here by Ya.B. Zel’dovich, Yu.B. Khariton,
I.Ya. Pomeranchuk, I.I. Gurevich, I.E. Tamm, A.D. Sakharov,
V.L. Ginzburg and there by Edward Teller and Klaus Fuks, the intelligence
factor, and the role of L.P. Beria, the Soviet state chief
of the project, having been hushed up for a long time. First ideas
were put forward in the U.S. in 1942, and in the USSR in 1945.
Approximately until 1948, the American and Soviet physicists
struggled over the model calculations of the «pipe»: «Classic Super
» in the United States and RDS-6T in the USSR. They almost
simultaneously came to the conclusion that the «pipe» with
deuterium and tritium was impossible to set fire from the buttend
due to the explosion of a nuclear bomb of fission because
of insurmountable loss of energy to radiation. Then the Americans
have created a great unit «Mike», inside of which placed the
bomb, which had in its core a cryostat with deuterium and tritium.
«Mike» was tested in November, 1, 1952, its TNT equivalent
having been of approximately 10 MT. It actually was the world’s
first thermonuclear explosion. Soviet thermonuclear bomb was
based primarily on the ideas of A.D. Sakharov and V.L. Ginzburg.
It was compact bomb, in which the inner charge served as a plutonium
bomb, having as its outer layer hydrides of lithium-6 and
tritium. The jacket in both models, the American and Soviet, was
made of uranium-238. The first test of the Soviet model of RDS-
6s («Sloika») was held on August 12, 1953. Power of the explosion
was 400 kt TNT. This bomb was transferred to the armament
of Soviet strategic aviation.
Key words: atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb, thermonuclear
weapons, Ya.B. Zeldovich, Yu.B. Khariton, I.Ya. Pomeranchuk,
I.I. Gurevich, I.E. Tamm, A.D. Sakharov, V.L. Ginzburg, L.P. Beria,
Edward Teller, Klaus Fuks.
Contacts: Email: bgorobets@rambler.ru
Pp. 65-75. |
