In a laboratory building on the outskirts of a town in modern-day Kazakhstan,
scientist Andrei Sakharov wanted to witness the explosion of his latest project in all its might,
even refusing to put on the required dark goggles.
Designed to be a 3-megaton warhead, the RDS-37 was a two-stage radiation-implosion thermonuclear bomb
also known as a hydrogen bomb, with the RDS contraction translating to ‘Russia does it
itself,’ a daring prefix applied to atomic tests going back to their first one in August of 1949.
As the aircraft armed with the bomb flew above the town that November of 1955, Sakharov marveled at
its dazzling white paint job. According to the scientist: [QUOTE] "With its sweptback wings
and slender fuselage extending far forward, it looked like a sinister predator poised to strike."
An hour later, a speaker on the premises began the nerve-wracking countdown.
The Soviets were about to airdrop a hydrogen bomb for the first time,
and any malfunction could potentially trigger unprecedented consequences.
Not even Oppenheimer dared build such a dangerous weapon…
Russia's First Hydrogen Bomb
The Tupolev Tu-16A and its crew, under the command of Senior Test
Pilot Major Fedor Pavlovich Golovashko, took off on November 22, 1955, at 8:34am,
escorted by several MiG-17s to protect the highly valuable and dangerous weapon it was carrying.
The bomber then approached the Semipalatinsk Test Site in modern-day Kazakhstan
flying at 541 miles per hour at 39,370 feet.
Finally, after one failed attempt and a year of development, the RDS-37 weapon was airdropped.
Despite being Russia's 24th nuclear weapons test, this was the nation's
first actual thermonuclear bomb, as well as the world's first airdropped hydrogen bomb.
After being released from the Tupolev, the bomb was retarded by a parachute to allow
Major Golovashko's aircraft to fly away, finally detonating 5,085 feet above the ground. The test
resulted in a yield of 1.9 megatons, intentionally reduced from the initial 3-megaton expectation.
The flight crew recalled seeing the sky turn into a bright blue-white tone that lasted 12 seconds.
Then, precisely three minutes and 44 seconds after the drop,
the shock wave traveling at the speed of sound hit the Tu-16. Major Golovashko's aircraft experienced
accelerations of 2.5Gs and was even lifted higher, but it did not sustain any damage.
A New Weapon
A hydrogen bomb, thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon, or H-bomb
is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its enormous power
comes from a process known as nuclear fusion, an uncontrolled and self-sustaining chain reaction
in which hydrogen isotopes mix under high temperatures to form helium.
The technology allows for unprecedented destructive power,
a more compact size, lower mass, or a combination of all.
The successful results from the Soviet Union's first nuclear weapon test in August of 1949
inspired the Russian government to establish a significant, high-priority program
to develop a hydrogen bomb to counter the American threat.
Thanks to their spies within America's own hydrogen bomb program that began in the 1940s,
the Soviets knew that thermonuclear weapons were possible in theory,
but they would need further research.
The effort to develop Russia's thermonuclear weapon was led
by Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov. Known today as the Father of the H-bomb, Sakharov
played a key role in the development of Soviet thermonuclear development,
as he was the brain behind several fundamental concepts in the program.
On August 12, 1953, the Soviet Union tested the nation's first
fusion-based device on a tower in central Siberia.
With a yield of 400 kilotons, and despite being not nearly as large
as America's own thermonuclear devise launched six months before, the Russian bomb had the critical
advantage of being a usable weapon, small enough to be airdropped from an aircraft.
Then, after seeing the results from America's Bravo test in March of 1954
in which unforeseen chemical reactions led to a larger-than-planned explosion,
Sakharov's team decided to use a radiation implosion configuration.
Sakharov and his team then got to work on the RDS-37 design.
Ready To Go!
The RDS-37 device would be the largest weapon ever tested at the Semipalatinsk test site,
located in modern-day Kazakhstan. The sheer magnitude of the exercise created several
logistical difficulties, especially as the Soviets wanted to avoid nuclear fallout at all costs.
Thus, the scientists decided that the bomb would explode in mid-air.
In addition, to avoid blowing up the aircraft, the chosen Tupolev T-16 flown by World War 2 veteran
and now-test-pilot Fedor Pavlovich Golovashko was painted in bright white to reflect the thermal
radiation, and the bomb was equipped with a parachute to allow the bomber to fly away.
Confident enough in his project, Sakharov asked to ride along in the bomber during the test,
but high officials forbade it.
The RDS-37 team was ready for the first test attempt on November 20,
but bad weather forced the fully-loaded Tu-16 to abort while up in the air.
Back in the airfield, the landing runway had frozen,
and Golovashko knew that if the aircraft crashed, the world's first H-bomb could
explode and unleash a nuclear shield with potentially fatal consequences. However,
an army unit quickly cleared the runway, and the plane landed successfully.
Two days later, the Soviets were ready to give it another go.
Sakharov, who stayed at a laboratory building near the test site, recalled seeing the bomber
rise and prepared himself for the most significant accomplishment of his career.
An hour later, an on-site speaker announced the countdown to the explosion.
Success
Seven minutes after the detonation, the iconic mushroom-shaped cloud resulting from the enormous
explosion reached a peak height of 8.7 miles, with a total diameter of up to 18.6 miles.
The world learned about the first successful mid-air explosion of a formal hydrogen bomb
when Russian propaganda efforts spread footage of
the test, with the bright white mushroom cloud front and center.
Sakharov, who refused to put on a pair of dark goggles to witness it,
described the test in vivid detail:
[QUOTE] "I saw a blinding, yellow-white sphere swiftly expand, turn orange in a
fraction of a second, then turn bright red and touch the horizon, flattening out at its base.
Soon everything was obscured by rising dust which formed an enormous, swirling grey-blue cloud,
its surface streaked with fiery crimson flashes. Between the cloud and the swirling durst grew a
mushroom stem, even thicker than the one that had formed during the first thermonuclear test.
Shock waves crisscrossed the sky, emitting sporadic milky-white cones and adding to
the mushroom image. I felt heat like that from an open furnace on my face — and this was in freezing
weather, tens of miles from ground zero. The whole magical spectacle unfolded in complete silence."
That evening, the scientists, politicians, and military officers involved in the
RDS-37 development were treated to a grand dinner complete with Brandy.
Sakharov, who was asked to give the first toast of the night, happily expressed: [QUOTE] "May all
of our devices explode as successfully as today's, but always over test sites and never over cities."
Aftermath
Despite the success of the explosion, people closer to the blast suffered significant
consequences, including a collapsed Soviet trench that held an entire platoon of soldiers.
A small village nearby was also affected by the blast wave, and although initial reports
claimed that there would be no damage, it caused the collapse of a civilian inhabited building.
Ultimately, the Russians held the monopoly for deployable thermonuclear weapons for only
six months until the United States launched the Cherokee nuclear test on May 20, 1956.
Both nations continued to perform large-yield-weapons tests throughout the decade,
leading to a significant rise in global radiation levels and increased political tension.
The Semipalatinsk Test Site, where the world's first Hydrogen bomb was trialed,
was closed on August 29, 1991, by the newly-founded Republic of Kazakhstan
on the anniversary of the day the Soviet Union conducted the first nuclear test 42 years before.
Thank you for watching our video! If you enjoyed it,
please give us a like and share it with your friends. And for more history-inspired stories,
don’t forget to subscribe to this and all the Dark Documentaries channels. Stay tuned for more!