USSR nuclear weapons year of creation. The creation of the Soviet atomic bomb

The long and difficult work of 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."

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 USSR Council of Ministers of 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 work on the nuclear programs of the USA and Great Britain.

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 reliably and quickly demonstrate 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 made in the form of a multilayer structure, in which the transfer of the active substance, plutonium, to a supercritical state was carried out 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.

Structurally, the RDS-1 bomb consisted of a nuclear charge; explosive device and automatic charge detonation system with safety systems; the ballistic body of the aerial bomb, which housed the nuclear charge and automatic detonation.

To produce an atomic bomb charge, a plant was built in the city of Chelyabinsk-40 in the Southern Urals 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 irradiated a uranium 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 Ministry of the Armed Forces of the USSR (later the Ministry of Defense of the USSR), began in 1947, and by July 1949 it was largely completed.

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 recording of 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 were built on the experimental field, and samples of aircraft, tanks, artillery rocket launchers, and ship superstructures of various types were placed. 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.

On August 5, 1949, the government commission for testing the RDS-1 gave a conclusion on the full readiness of the test site and proposed to carry out detailed testing of the assembly and detonation operations of the product within 15 days. The test was scheduled for the last days of August. Igor Kurchatov was appointed scientific director of the trial.

In the period from August 10 to 26, 10 rehearsals were held to control the test field and the charge detonation equipment, as well as three training exercises with the launch of all equipment and four detonations of full-scale explosives with an aluminum ball from automatic detonation.

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, Kurchatov arrived at the training ground. By August 26, all preparatory work at the site was completed.

Kurchatov gave the order to test the RDS-1 on August 29 at eight o’clock in the morning local time.

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. At about 12 at night, in the assembly workshop on the site in the center of the field, the final assembly of the product began - the insertion of the main unit into it, that is, a charge of plutonium and a neutron fuse. At three in the morning on August 29, the installation of the product was completed.

By six o'clock in the morning the charge was lifted onto the test tower, it was equipped with fuses and connected to the demolition circuit.

Due to worsening weather, it was decided to move the explosion one hour earlier.

At 6.35, the operators turned on the power to the automation system. At 6.48 minutes the field machine was turned on. 20 seconds before the explosion, the main connector (switch) connecting the RDS-1 product to the automatic control system was turned on.

At exactly seven o'clock in the morning on August 29, 1949, the entire area was illuminated with a dazzling light, which signaled that the USSR had successfully completed the development and testing of its first atomic bomb charge.

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. Intelligence revealed 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 of the damaging factors of a nuclear explosion on biological objects.

The energy release of the explosion was 22 kilotons (in TNT equivalent).

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 the direct developers of the nuclear charge 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 in the world.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

The development of Soviet nuclear weapons began with the mining of radium samples in the early 1930s. In 1939, Soviet physicists Yuliy Khariton and Yakov Zeldovich calculated the chain reaction of fission of the nuclei of heavy atoms. The following year, scientists from the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology submitted applications for the creation of an atomic bomb, as well as methods for producing uranium-235. For the first time, researchers proposed using conventional explosives as a means to ignite a charge, which would create a critical mass and start a chain reaction.

However, the invention of the Kharkov physicists had its shortcomings, and therefore their application, having visited a variety of authorities, was ultimately rejected. The final word remained with the director of the Radium Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academician Vitaly Khlopin: “... the application has no real basis. Besides this, there is essentially a lot of fantastic stuff in it... Even if it were possible to implement a chain reaction, the energy that will be released would be better used to power engines, for example, airplanes.”

The appeals of scientists on the eve of the Great Patriotic War to the People's Commissar of Defense Sergei Timoshenko were also unsuccessful. As a result, the invention project was buried on a shelf labeled “top secret.”

• Vladimir Semyonovich Spinel
• Wikimedia Commons

In 1990, journalists asked one of the authors of the bomb project, Vladimir Spinel: “If your proposals in 1939-1940 were appreciated at the government level and you were given support, when would the USSR be able to have atomic weapons?”

“I think that with the capabilities that Igor Kurchatov later had, we would have received it in 1945,” Spinel replied.

However, it was Kurchatov who managed to use in his developments successful American schemes for creating a plutonium bomb, obtained by Soviet intelligence.

Atomic race

With the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, nuclear research was temporarily stopped. The main scientific institutes of the two capitals were evacuated to remote regions.

The head of strategic intelligence, Lavrentiy Beria, was aware of the developments of Western physicists in the field of nuclear weapons. For the first time, the Soviet leadership learned about the possibility of creating a superweapon from the “father” of the American atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, who visited the Soviet Union in September 1939. In the early 1940s, both politicians and scientists realized the reality of obtaining a nuclear bomb, and also that its appearance in the enemy's arsenal would jeopardize the security of other powers.

In 1941, the Soviet government received the first intelligence data from the USA and Great Britain, where active work on creating superweapons had already begun. The main informant was the Soviet “atomic spy” Klaus Fuchs, a physicist from Germany involved in work on the nuclear programs of the United States and Great Britain.

• Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, physicist Pyotr Kapitsa
• RIA News
• V. Noskov

Academician Pyotr Kapitsa, speaking on October 12, 1941 at an anti-fascist meeting of scientists, said: “One of the important means of modern warfare is explosives. Science indicates the fundamental possibilities of increasing explosive force by 1.5-2 times... Theoretical calculations show that if a modern powerful bomb can, for example, destroy an entire block, then an atomic bomb of even a small size, if feasible, could easily destroy a large metropolitan city with several million people. My personal opinion is that the technical difficulties standing in the way of using intra-atomic energy are still very great. This matter is still doubtful, but it is very likely that there are great opportunities here.”

In September 1942, the Soviet government adopted a decree “On the organization of work on uranium.” In the spring of the following year, Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences was created to produce the first Soviet bomb. Finally, on February 11, 1943, Stalin signed the GKO decision on the program of work to create an atomic bomb. At first, the deputy chairman of the State Defense Committee, Vyacheslav Molotov, was entrusted with leading the important task. It was he who had to find a scientific director for the new laboratory.

Molotov himself, in an entry dated July 9, 1971, recalls his decision as follows: “We have been working on this topic since 1943. I was instructed to answer for them, to find a person who could create the atomic bomb. The security officers gave me a list of reliable physicists that I could rely on, and I chose. He called Kapitsa, the academician, to his place. He said that we are not ready for this and that the atomic bomb is not a weapon of this war, but a matter of the future. They asked Joffe - he also reacted somewhat unclearly to this. In short, I had the youngest and still unknown Kurchatov, he was not allowed to move. I called him, we talked, he made a good impression on me. But he said he still has a lot of uncertainty. Then I decided to give him our intelligence materials - the intelligence officers had done a very important job. Kurchatov sat in the Kremlin for several days, with me, over these materials.”

Over the next couple of weeks, Kurchatov thoroughly studied the data received by intelligence and drew up an expert opinion: “The materials are of enormous, invaluable importance for our state and science... The totality of information indicates the technical possibility of solving the entire uranium problem in a much shorter time than our scientists think who are not familiar with the progress of work on this problem abroad.”

In mid-March, Igor Kurchatov took over as scientific director of Laboratory No. 2. In April 1946, it was decided to create the KB-11 design bureau for the needs of this laboratory. The top-secret facility was located on the territory of the former Sarov Monastery, several tens of kilometers from Arzamas.

• Igor Kurchatov (right) with a group of employees of the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology
• RIA News

KB-11 specialists were supposed to create an atomic bomb using plutonium as a working substance. At the same time, in the process of creating the first nuclear weapon in the USSR, domestic scientists relied on the designs of the US plutonium bomb, which was successfully tested in 1945. However, since the production of plutonium in the Soviet Union had not yet been carried out, physicists at the initial stage used uranium mined in Czechoslovakian mines, as well as in the territories of East Germany, Kazakhstan and Kolyma.

The first Soviet atomic bomb was named RDS-1 ("Special Jet Engine"). A group of specialists led by Kurchatov managed to load a sufficient amount of uranium into it and start a chain reaction in the reactor on June 10, 1948. The next step was to use plutonium.

“This is atomic lightning”

In the plutonium "Fat Man", dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, American scientists placed 10 kilograms of radioactive metal. The USSR managed to accumulate this amount of substance by June 1949. The head of the experiment, Kurchatov, informed the curator of the atomic project, Lavrenty Beria, about his readiness to test the RDS-1 on August 29.

A part of the Kazakh steppe with an area of ​​about 20 kilometers was chosen as a testing ground. In its central part, specialists built a metal tower almost 40 meters high. It was on it that the RDS-1 was installed, the mass of which was 4.7 tons.

Soviet physicist Igor Golovin describes the situation at the test site a few minutes before the start of the tests: “Everything is fine. And suddenly, amid general silence, ten minutes before the “hour”, Beria’s voice is heard: “But nothing will work out for you, Igor Vasilyevich!” - “What are you talking about, Lavrenty Pavlovich! It will definitely work!” - Kurchatov exclaims and continues to watch, only his neck turned purple and his face became gloomily concentrated.

To a prominent scientist in the field of atomic law, Abram Ioyrysh, Kurchatov’s condition seems similar to a religious experience: “Kurchatov rushed out of the casemate, ran up the earthen rampart and shouting “She!” waved his arms widely, repeating: “She, she!” - and enlightenment spread across his face. The explosion column swirled and went into the stratosphere. A shock wave was approaching the command post, clearly visible on the grass. Kurchatov rushed towards her. Flerov rushed after him, grabbed him by the hand, forcibly dragged him into the casemate and closed the door.” The author of Kurchatov’s biography, Pyotr Astashenkov, gives his hero the following words: “This is atomic lightning. Now she is in our hands..."

Immediately after the explosion, the metal tower collapsed to the ground, and in its place only a crater remained. A powerful shock wave threw highway bridges a couple of tens of meters away, and nearby cars scattered across the open spaces almost 70 meters from the explosion site.

• Nuclear mushroom of the RDS-1 ground explosion on August 29, 1949
• Archive of RFNC-VNIIEF

One day, after another test, Kurchatov was asked: “Aren’t you worried about the moral side of this invention?”

“You asked a legitimate question,” he replied. “But I think it’s addressed incorrectly.” It is better to address it not to us, but to those who unleashed these forces... What is scary is not physics, but the adventurous game, not science, but its use by scoundrels... When science makes a breakthrough and opens up the possibility of actions affecting millions of people, the need arises rethink moral norms to bring these actions under control. But nothing like that happened. Quite the contrary. Just think about it - Churchill's speech in Fulton, military bases, bombers along our borders. The intentions are very clear. Science has been turned into a tool of blackmail and the main decisive factor in politics. Do you really think that morality will stop them? And if this is the case, and this is the case, you have to talk to them in their language. Yes, I know: the weapons we created are instruments of violence, but we were forced to create them in order to avoid more disgusting violence! — the answer of the scientist is described in the book “A-bomb” by Abram Ioyrysh and nuclear physicist Igor Morokhov.

A total of five RDS-1 bombs were manufactured. All of them were stored in the closed city of Arzamas-16. Now you can see a model of the bomb in the nuclear weapons museum in Sarov (formerly Arzamas-16).

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 began, 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 issue was considered 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 weapons 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 influenced them for a long time. 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. At it, a decision was made to coordinate the collection of information related to the 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, in March, after information was received from the United States through the NKGB about a bomb design built on the principle of implosion (that is, compression of fissile material by exploding a conventional explosive), work began on a design that had significant advantages over a 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, the country did not have the required amount of uranium 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 an important event in the history of our country, marking the beginning of 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.

A democratic form of governance must be established in the USSR.

Vernadsky V.I.

The atomic bomb in the USSR was created on August 29, 1949 (the first successful launch). The project was led by academician Igor Vasilievich Kurchatov. The period of development of atomic weapons in the USSR lasted from 1942, and ended with testing on the territory of Kazakhstan. This broke the US monopoly on such weapons, because since 1945 they were the only nuclear power. The article is devoted to describing the history of the emergence of the Soviet nuclear bomb, as well as characterizing the consequences of these events for the USSR.

History of creation

In 1941, representatives of the USSR in New York conveyed information to Stalin that a meeting of physicists was being held in the United States, which was devoted to the development of nuclear weapons. Soviet scientists in the 1930s also worked on atomic research, the most famous being the splitting of the atom by scientists from Kharkov led by L. Landau. However, it never came to the point of actual use in weapons. In addition to the United States, Nazi Germany worked on this. At the end of 1941, the United States began its atomic project. Stalin found out about this at the beginning of 1942 and signed a decree on the creation of a laboratory in the USSR to create an atomic project; Academician I. Kurchatov became its leader.

There is an opinion that the work of US scientists was accelerated by the secret developments of German colleagues who came to America. In any case, in the summer of 1945, at the Potsdam Conference, the new US President G. Truman informed Stalin about the completion of work on a new weapon - the atomic bomb. Moreover, to demonstrate the work of American scientists, the US government decided to test the new weapon in combat: on August 6 and 9, bombs were dropped on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was the first time that humanity learned about a new weapon. It was this event that forced Stalin to speed up the work of his scientists. I. Kurchatov was summoned by Stalin and promised to fulfill any demands of the scientist, as long as the process proceeded as quickly as possible. Moreover, a state committee was created under the Council of People's Commissars, which oversaw the Soviet atomic project. It was headed by L. Beria.

Development has moved to three centers:

1. The design bureau of the Kirov plant, working on the creation of special equipment.
2. A diffuse plant in the Urals, which was supposed to work on the creation of enriched uranium.
3. Chemical and metallurgical centers where plutonium was studied. It was this element that was used in the first Soviet-style nuclear bomb.

In 1946, the first Soviet unified nuclear center was created. It was a secret facility Arzamas-16, located in the city of Sarov (Nizhny Novgorod region). In 1947, the first nuclear reactor was created at an enterprise near Chelyabinsk. In 1948, a secret training ground was created on the territory of Kazakhstan, near the city of Semipalatinsk-21. It was here that on August 29, 1949, the first explosion of the Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1 was organized. This event was kept completely secret, but American Pacific aviation was able to record a sharp increase in radiation levels, which was evidence of the testing of a new weapon. Already in September 1949, G. Truman announced the presence of an atomic bomb in the USSR. Officially, the USSR admitted to the presence of these weapons only in 1950.

Several main consequences of the successful development of atomic weapons by Soviet scientists can be identified:

1. Loss of the US status as a single state with atomic weapons. This not only equalized the USSR with the USA in terms of military power, but also forced the latter to think through each of their military steps, since now they had to fear for the response of the USSR leadership.
2. The presence of atomic weapons in the USSR secured its status as a superpower.
3. After the USA and the USSR were equalized in the availability of atomic weapons, the race for their quantity began. States spent huge amounts of money to outdo their competitors. Moreover, attempts began to create even more powerful weapons.
4. These events marked the start of the nuclear race. Many countries have begun to invest resources to add to the list of nuclear weapons states and ensure their security.

The emergence of atomic (nuclear) weapons was due to a mass of objective and subjective factors. Objectively, the creation of atomic weapons came thanks to the rapid development of science, which began with fundamental discoveries in the field of physics in the first half of the twentieth century. The main subjective factor was the military-political situation, when the states of the anti-Hitler coalition began a secret race to develop such powerful weapons. Today we will find out who invented the atomic bomb, how it developed in the world and the Soviet Union, and also get acquainted with its structure and the consequences of its use.

Creation of the atomic bomb

From a scientific point of view, the year 1896 was the year the atomic bomb was created. It was then that the French physicist A. Becquerel discovered the radioactivity of uranium. Subsequently, the chain reaction of uranium began to be seen as a source of enormous energy, and became the basis for the development of the most dangerous weapons in the world. However, Becquerel is rarely remembered when talking about who invented the atomic bomb.

Over the next few decades, alpha, beta and gamma rays were discovered by scientists from different parts of the Earth. At the same time, a large number of radioactive isotopes were discovered, the law of radioactive decay was formulated, and the beginnings of the study of nuclear isomerism were laid.

In the 1940s, scientists discovered the neuron and the positron and for the first time carried out the fission of the nucleus of a uranium atom, accompanied by the absorption of neurons. It was this discovery that became a turning point in history. In 1939, French physicist Frederic Joliot-Curie patented the world's first nuclear bomb, which he developed with his wife out of purely scientific interest. It was Joliot-Curie who is considered the creator of the atomic bomb, despite the fact that he was a staunch defender of world peace. In 1955, he, along with Einstein, Born and a number of other famous scientists, organized the Pugwash movement, whose members advocated peace and disarmament.

Rapidly developing, atomic weapons have become an unprecedented military-political phenomenon, which makes it possible to ensure the safety of its owner and reduce to a minimum the capabilities of other weapons systems.

How does a nuclear bomb work?

Structurally, an atomic bomb consists of a large number of components, the main ones being the body and automation. The housing is designed to protect automation and nuclear charge from mechanical, thermal, and other influences. Automation controls the timing of the explosion.

It includes:

1. Emergency explosion.
2. Cocking and safety devices.
3. Power supply.
4. Various sensors.

Transportation of atomic bombs to the site of attack is carried out using missiles (anti-aircraft, ballistic or cruise). Nuclear ammunition can be part of a landmine, torpedo, aircraft bomb and other elements. Various detonation systems are used for atomic bombs. The simplest is a device in which a projectile hitting a target, causing the formation of a supercritical mass, stimulates an explosion.

Nuclear weapons can be of large, medium and small caliber. The power of the explosion is usually expressed in TNT equivalent. Small-caliber atomic shells have a yield of several thousand tons of TNT. Medium-caliber ones already correspond to tens of thousands of tons, and the capacity of large-caliber ones reaches millions of tons.

Principle of operation

The principle of operation of a nuclear bomb is based on the use of energy released during a nuclear chain reaction. During this process, heavy particles are divided and light particles are synthesized. When an atomic bomb explodes, a huge amount of energy is released over a small area in the shortest period of time. That is why such bombs are classified as weapons of mass destruction.

There are two key areas in the area of ​​a nuclear explosion: the center and the epicenter. At the center of the explosion, the process of energy release directly occurs. The epicenter is the projection of this process onto the earth or water surface. The energy of a nuclear explosion, projected onto the ground, can lead to seismic tremors that spread over a considerable distance. These tremors cause harm to the environment only within a radius of several hundred meters from the point of explosion.

Damaging factors

Atomic weapons have the following destruction factors:

1. Radioactive contamination.
2. Light radiation.
3. Shock wave.
4. Electromagnetic pulse.
5. Penetrating radiation.

The consequences of an atomic bomb explosion are disastrous for all living things. Due to the release of a huge amount of light and heat energy, the explosion of a nuclear projectile is accompanied by a bright flash. The power of this flash is several times stronger than the sun's rays, so there is a danger of damage from light and thermal radiation within a radius of several kilometers from the point of the explosion.

Another dangerous damaging factor of atomic weapons is the radiation generated during the explosion. It lasts only a minute after the explosion, but has maximum penetrating power.

The shock wave has a very strong destructive effect. She literally wipes out everything that stands in her way. Penetrating radiation poses a danger to all living beings. In humans, it causes the development of radiation sickness. Well, an electromagnetic pulse only harms technology. Taken together, the damaging factors of an atomic explosion pose a huge danger.

First tests

Throughout the history of the atomic bomb, America showed the greatest interest in its creation. At the end of 1941, the country's leadership allocated a huge amount of money and resources to this area. Robert Oppenheimer, who is considered by many to be the creator of the atomic bomb, was appointed project manager. In fact, he was the first who was able to bring the scientists' idea to life. As a result, on July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb test took place in the desert of New Mexico. Then America decided that in order to completely end the war it needed to defeat Japan, an ally of Nazi Germany. The Pentagon quickly selected targets for the first nuclear attacks, which were supposed to become a vivid illustration of the power of American weapons.

On August 6, 1945, the US atomic bomb, cynically called "Little Boy", was dropped on the city of Hiroshima. The shot turned out to be simply perfect - the bomb exploded at an altitude of 200 meters from the ground, due to which its blast wave caused horrific damage to the city. In areas far from the center, coal stoves were overturned, leading to severe fires.

The bright flash was followed by a heat wave, which in 4 seconds managed to melt the tiles on the roofs of houses and incinerate telegraph poles. The heat wave was followed by a shock wave. The wind, which swept through the city at a speed of about 800 km/h, demolished everything in its path. Of the 76,000 buildings located in the city before the explosion, about 70,000 were completely destroyed. A few minutes after the explosion, rain began to fall from the sky, large drops of which were black. The rain fell due to the formation of a huge amount of condensation, consisting of steam and ash, in the cold layers of the atmosphere.

People who were affected by the fireball within a radius of 800 meters from the point of the explosion turned to dust. Those who were a little further from the explosion had burned skin, the remains of which were torn off by the shock wave. Black radioactive rain left incurable burns on the skin of survivors. Those who miraculously managed to escape soon began to show signs of radiation sickness: nausea, fever and attacks of weakness.

Three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, America attacked another Japanese city - Nagasaki. The second explosion had the same disastrous consequences as the first.

In a matter of seconds, two atomic bombs destroyed hundreds of thousands of people. The shock wave practically wiped Hiroshima off the face of the earth. More than half of the local residents (about 240 thousand people) died immediately from their injuries. In the city of Nagasaki, about 73 thousand people died from the explosion. Many of those who survived were subjected to severe radiation, which caused infertility, radiation sickness and cancer. As a result, some of the survivors died in terrible agony. The use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki illustrated the terrible power of these weapons.

You and I already know who invented the atomic bomb, how it works and what consequences it can lead to. Now we will find out how things were with nuclear weapons in the USSR.

After the bombing of Japanese cities, J.V. Stalin realized that the creation of a Soviet atomic bomb was a matter of national security. On August 20, 1945, a committee on nuclear energy was created in the USSR, and L. Beria was appointed head of it.

It is worth noting that work in this direction has been carried out in the Soviet Union since 1918, and in 1938, a special commission on the atomic nucleus was created at the Academy of Sciences. With the outbreak of World War II, all work in this direction was frozen.

In 1943, USSR intelligence officers transferred from England materials from closed scientific works in the field of nuclear energy. These materials illustrated that the work of foreign scientists on the creation of an atomic bomb had made serious progress. At the same time, American residents contributed to the introduction of reliable Soviet agents into the main US nuclear research centers. The agents passed on information about new developments to Soviet scientists and engineers.

Technical task

When in 1945 the issue of creating a Soviet nuclear bomb became almost a priority, one of the project leaders, Yu. Khariton, drew up a plan for the development of two versions of the projectile. On June 1, 1946, the plan was signed by senior management.

According to the assignment, the designers needed to build an RDS (special jet engine) of two models:

1. RDS-1. A bomb with a plutonium charge that is detonated by spherical compression. The device was borrowed from the Americans.
2. RDS-2. A cannon bomb with two uranium charges converging in the gun barrel before reaching a critical mass.

In the history of the notorious RDS, the most common, albeit humorous, formulation was the phrase “Russia does it itself.” It was invented by Yu. Khariton’s deputy, K. Shchelkin. This phrase very accurately conveys the essence of the work, at least for RDS-2.

When America learned that the Soviet Union possessed the secrets of creating nuclear weapons, it began to desire a rapid escalation of preventive war. In the summer of 1949, the “Troyan” plan appeared, according to which on January 1, 1950 it was planned to begin military operations against the USSR. Then the date of the attack was moved to the beginning of 1957, but with the condition that all NATO countries join it.

Tests

When information about America's plans arrived through intelligence channels in the USSR, the work of Soviet scientists accelerated significantly. Western experts believed that atomic weapons would be created in the USSR no earlier than 1954-1955. In fact, the tests of the first atomic bomb in the USSR took place already in August 1949. On August 29, an RDS-1 device was blown up at a test site in Semipalatinsk. A large team of scientists took part in its creation, headed by Igor Vasilievich Kurchatov. The design of the charge belonged to the Americans, and the electronic equipment was created from scratch. The first atomic bomb in the USSR exploded with a power of 22 kt.

Due to the likelihood of a retaliatory strike, the Trojan plan, which involved a nuclear attack on 70 Soviet cities, was thwarted. The tests at Semipalatinsk marked the end of the American monopoly on the possession of atomic weapons. The invention of Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov completely destroyed the military plans of America and NATO and prevented the development of another world war. Thus began an era of peace on Earth, which exists under the threat of absolute destruction.

"Nuclear Club" of the world

Today, not only America and Russia have nuclear weapons, but also a number of other states. The collection of countries that own such weapons is conventionally called the “nuclear club.”

It includes:

1. America (since 1945).
2. USSR, and now Russia (since 1949).
3. England (since 1952).
4. France (since 1960).
5. China (since 1964).
6. India (since 1974).
7. Pakistan (since 1998).
8. Korea (since 2006).

Israel also has nuclear weapons, although the country's leadership refuses to comment on their presence. In addition, there are American nuclear weapons on the territory of NATO countries (Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada) and allies (Japan, South Korea, despite the official refusal).

Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, which owned part of the USSR's nuclear weapons, transferred their bombs to Russia after the collapse of the Union. She became the sole heir to the USSR's nuclear arsenal.

Conclusion

Today we learned who invented the atomic bomb and what it is. Summarizing the above, we can conclude that nuclear weapons today are the most powerful instrument of global politics, firmly entrenched in relations between countries. On the one hand, it is an effective means of deterrence, and on the other, a convincing argument for preventing military confrontation and strengthening peaceful relations between states. Atomic weapons are a symbol of an entire era that require especially careful handling.