TSAR BOMBA, THE MOST POWERFUL EXPLOSIVE DEVICE

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created that was tested on a day like today in 1961.

The Tsar Bomba, in Russian Царь-бо́мба, (code name Ivan or Vanya), also known by the alphanumerical designation AN602, was a thermonuclear aerial bomb, and the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created and tested.

Tsar Bomba was developed in the Soviet Union (USSR) by a group of nuclear physicists under the leadership of Igor Kurchatov, an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union.

Tested on 30 October 1961, the scientific result of the test was the experimental verification of calculation principles and multi-stage thermonuclear charges.

The bomb was dropped by parachute from a Tu-95V aircraft, and detonated autonomously 4,000 metres above the cape Sukhoy Nos of Severny Island, Novaya Zemlya, 15 km from Mityushikha Bay, north of the Matochkin Strait.

The detonation was intended to be secret, but was detected by United States intelligence agencies, via a KC-135A aircraft (Operation SpeedLight) in the area at the time. A secret U.S. reconnaissance aircraft named Speed Light Alpha monitored the blast, coming close enough to have its antiradiation paint scorched.

The bhangmeter results and other data suggested the bomb yielded around 58 Mt, which was the accepted yield in technical literature until 1991, when Soviet scientists revealed that their instruments indicated a yield of 50 Mt. As they had the instrumental data and access to the test site, their yield figure has been accepted as more accurate.

More information: Atomic Heritage Foundation

In theory, the bomb would have had a yield in excess of 100 Mt if it had included the uranium-238 fusion tamper which figured in the design but which was omitted in the test to reduce radioactive fallout. Because only one bomb was built to completion, that capability has never been demonstrated. The remaining bomb casings are located at the Russian Atomic Weapon Museum in Sarov and the Museum of Nuclear Weapons, All-Russian Scientific Research Institute Of Technical Physics, in Snezhinsk.

In the mid-1950s, the United States had an unconditional superiority over the USSR in nuclear weapons, although thermonuclear charges had already been created in the USSR at this time. Also, there were no effective means of delivering nuclear warheads to the US, both in the 1950s and in 1961. The USSR was not therefore able to muster a possible realistic retaliatory nuclear strike against the US.

Given the Soviet Union's actual strategic disadvantage in relation to America's nuclear weapons possessions, foreign policy and propaganda considerations during the leaderships of Georgy Malenkov and Nikita Khrushchev made a response to the perceived US nuclear blackmail imperative. The creation of the Tsar Bomba represented a necessitated bluff in order to maintain the concept of nuclear deterrence.

Also on June 23, 1960, the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR was issued on the creation of a super-heavy ballistic missile N-1 (GRAU index-11A52) with a warhead weighing 75 tonnes.

The development of new designs of nuclear and thermonuclear ammunition requires testing. The operability of the device, its safety in emergency situations, and the calculated energy release during an explosion must be confirmed.

More information: The National WWII Museum

The bomb was officially known as product 602 (изделие 602) or AN602, and codenamed "Ivan". The usage of different names can be a source of confusion. The Tsar Bomba, being a modification of the RN202, is sometimes mistakenly labelled as RDS-37, RDS-202 or PH202 (product 202).

Unofficially, the bomb was known as Tsar Bomba and Kuzka's mother (Кузькина мать, Kuz'kina mat'). The name Tsar Bomba (loosely translated as Emperor of Bombs) comes from the fact that, like the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bell, it is the most powerful bomb in history. The name Kuzka's Mother was inspired by the statement of Khrushchev to then US Vice President Richard Nixon: We have funds at our disposal that will have dire consequences for you. We will show you Kuzka's mother!

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) designated the bomb (or its test) as JOE 111.

Nikita Khrushchev, the first secretary of the Communist Party, announced the upcoming tests of a 50-Mt bomb in his opening report at the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on October 17, 1961. Before the official announcement, in a casual conversation, he told an American politician about the bomb, and this information was published on September 8, 1961, in The New York Times.

The Tsar Bomba was tested on October 30, 1961.

The Tsar Bomba is the single most physically powerful device ever deployed on Earth, the most powerful nuclear bomb tested and the largest man-made explosion in history.

More information: The Bulletin

There are two problems for our species' survival
-nuclear war and environmental catastrophe
-and we're hurtling towards them. Knowingly.

Noam Chomsky