Soviet atomic bomb program

This second American high yield thermonuclear test stimulated Soviet efforts, and was rewarded with the discovery of radiation implosion. Sakharov worked out the theoretical basis for this process, and is credited with the discovery. This was also the world's first air-dropped fusion bomb test and the 24th Soviet test overall.

After this test the Soviet Union used radiation implosion exclusively instead of the Sloika "Layer Cake" approach. The bomb's yield was reduced from its design yield for the test by about half by replacing part of the Li-6 D fusion fuel with "a passive material" probably ordinary lithium hydride.

Air dropped by a crew commanded by F. Golovashko made Hero of the Soviet Union. The bomb exploded underneath an inversion layer, which focused the shock back toward the ground unexpectedly.

This refracted shock wave did unanticipated collateral damage, killing three people from a building collapse. This test was a near copy of the US Sedan test , a Kt subsurface cratering experiment.

Joe-1 was a 20 Kt tower shot, and study of the Chagan picture shows copious amounts of debris fallout, a sure-fire indicator of a subsurface explosion. Below is a recent photograph of this same image reversed on display at the former test range at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan where it is clearly identified as "Chagan" thanks to Andy Gillette.

On display was another image of the actual Joe-1 test unfortunately unavailable at this time. The shot location was chosen so that the crater lip would form a dam in the river during its period of high flow in the spring.

The crater formed by the Chagan explosion had a diameter of m and a depth of m. A major lake 10,, m 3 was quickly formed behind the m high upraised lip. Shortly after the explosion, earthmoving equipment was used to cut a channel through the lip so that water from the river could enter the crater. Spring melt soon filled the crater with 6. These reservoirs are known informally as Lake Chagan or Lake Balapan. A few years later, a water-control structure was built on the left bank of the river to control water levels in the reservoirs.

Both reservoirs exist today in substantially the same form and are still used to provide water for cattle in the area. Efrim P. Evidence from intelligence sources in the United Kingdom had a role to play in the decision of the Soviet State Defense Council Gosudarstvennyj komitet oborony GKO , in September , to approve resolution , which signaled the beginning of the Soviet atom bomb project. Through sources in the Manhattan Project , notably Klaus Fuchs , the Soviet intelligence obtained important information on the progress of the United States atomic bomb effort.

Intelligence reports were shown to the head of the Soviet atomic project and had a significant impact on the direction of Soviet research. For example, Soviet work on methods of uranium isotope separation was altered when it was reported, to Kurchatov's surprise, that the Americans had opted for the Gaseous diffusion method. While research on other separation methods continued throughout the war years, the emphasis was placed on replicating U.

Another important breakthrough, attributed to intelligence, was the possibility of using plutonium, instead of uranium, in a fission weapon. Extraction of plutonium in the so-called "uranium pile" allowed the bypass of the difficult process of uranium separation altogether — something that Kurchatov had learned from intelligence from the Manhattan project.

In , the Soviet intelligence obtained rough "blueprints" of the first U. Daghlian, Jr. One of the key pieces of information, which Soviet intelligence obtained from Fuchs, was a cross-section for D-T fusion. This data was available to top Soviet officials roughly three years before it was openly published in the Physical Review in However, this data was not forwarded to Vitaly Ginzburg or Andrei Sakharov until very late, practically months before publication.

Once the actual cross-section become known to Ginzburg and Sakharov, the Sloika design become a priority, which resulted in successful test in In the s, with the declassification of Soviet intelligence materials, which showed the extent and the type of the information obtained by the Soviets from US sources, a heated debate ensued in Russia and abroad as to the relative importance of espionage, as opposed to the Soviet scientists' own efforts, in the making of the Soviet bomb.

The vast majority of scholars agree that whereas the Soviet atomic project was first and foremost a product of local expertise and scientific talent, it is clear that espionage efforts contributed to the project in various ways and most certainly shortened the time needed to develop the atomic bomb.

Comparing the timelines of H-bomb development, some researchers came to a conclusion that Soviets had a gap in access to classified information regarding the H-bomb at least between late and some time in Earlier, e.

Teller accepted the fact that "classical super" scheme was infeasible by , following results obtained by various researches including Stanislaw Ulam and calculations performed by John von Neumann in late Yet the research for the Soviet analogue of "classical super" continued until December , when the researchers were reallocated to a new project working on what later became a true H-bomb design, based on radiation implosion.

It remains an open topic for research, whether the Soviet intelligence was able to obtain any specific data on Teller-Ulam design in or early Yet, Soviet officials directed the scientists to work on a new scheme, and the entire process took less than two years, commencing around January and producing a successful test in November It also took just several months before the idea of radiation implosion was conceived, and there is no documented evidence claiming priority.

It is also possible that Soviets were able to obtain a document lost by John Wheeler on a train in , which reportedly contained key information about thermonuclear weapon design. The single largest problem during the early Soviet project was the procurement of uranium ore, as the USSR had no known domestic sources at the beginning of the project. The Soviet F-1 reactor, which began operation in December , was fueled using uranium confiscated from the remains of the German atomic bomb project.

This uranium had been mined in the Belgian Congo, and had fallen into the hands of the Germans after their invasion and occupation of Belgium in Eventually large domestic sources were discovered. The uranium for the Soviet nuclear weapons program came from the following countries in the years to mine production only :.

RDS-1 , the first Soviet atomic test. On September 24, , the It is June 27, , and I have with me Glenn Schweitzer. My first question is to ask him to please say and spell his name. Cindy Kelly: It is Monday, May I am in Palo Alto at Stanford University. I have with me Siegfried Hecker, and I would like him to say his name and spell it, please. Kelly : Great. Tell us a little bit about where you were born and when and your early childhood and how you became interested in science.

My first question for him is to please say his name and spell it. Kelly : Okay. Richard wants to share some of his expertise on the history of the Manhattan Project and its legacy—which is wonderful. I'm in Palo Alto with David Holloway. Kelly: Perfect. Kapitza, a high-ranking physicist, remarked in October that the recent discovery of nuclear energy could be useful in the war against Germany and that the prospects of a uranium bomb seemed promising.

Soviet leaders learned that both the United States and Germany had embarked on efforts to build an atomic bomb. In February , the Soviets began their own program led by nuclear physicist Igor Kurchatov and political director Lavrentiy Beria.

The Soviet atomic program during the war was puny compared to the Manhattan Project, involving approximately twenty physicists and only a small number of staff. They researched the reactions necessary to produce both atomic weapons and nuclear reactors. They also began exploring ways to generate enough pure uranium and graphite, and researched uranium isotope separation methods.

Work on the program sped up quickly in , however, especially after the Soviets learned of the Trinity test. According to Truman, "I casually mentioned to Stalin that we had a new weapon of unusual destructive force.

The Russian Premier showed no special interest. All he said was he was glad to hear it and hoped we would make good use of it against the Japanese. While Stalin may have appeared uninterested, he privately told his top advisers to speed up work on the Soviet atomic program: "They simply want to raise the price.

We've got to work on Kurchatov and hurry things up. The Soviet regime immediately stepped up their program. General Boris L.