Posted on 08/22/2020 3:35:03 PM PDT by texas booster
The documentary film was released and posted on August 20 on the YouTube channel of Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation in connection with the celebration of 75 years of nuclear industry.
The film, edited in classic Soviet-style propaganda, shows all preparation procedures. First the transportation of the giant bomb by rail to the Olenya airbase near Olenegorsk on the Kola Peninsula. The Tu-95 aircraft take-off and flight across the Barents Sea to the detonation site near the Matochkin Strait at Novaya Zemlya. Then the release of the bomb attached to a parachute to slow the fall so the plane could get in safer distance from the blast. Videos from several directions and distances show the apocalypse looking detonation and following mushroom cloud.
The bomb, officially named RDS-220 and later nick-named Tsar Bomba, was the largest nuclear weapon ever constructed.
With a yield of 50 megatons (50 million tons), equal to around 3,800 Hiroshima bombs, the weapon was set off over Novaya Zemlya on October 30, 1961.
It was Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev who in July 1961 ordered the development of the doomsday-size bomb at a time amid rising political tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Khrushchev wanted a 100 megaton weapon and to achieve such size, the engineers added a third stage on the thermonuclear warhead. Normal hydrogen bombs comprise two stages. Understanding the extreme radiation releases, the engineers, and among them Andrei Sakharov, decided to reduce the actual yield of 100 megatons to around half.
The film shows how the modified Tu-95 bomber plane was coated with a special white reflective paint to protect it from the heat caused by thermal radiation from the explosion. Measurement equipment was attached all over and a second plane flew beside, filming and monitoring radiation samples.
(Excerpt) Read more at thebarentsobserver.com ...
The bomb was detonated 4,000 meters above the ground. As seen in the film, the fireball flash lasted far longer than seen on any other nuclear weapon test videos. The flash dome itself reached 20 km, while the ring of absolute destruction had a radius of 35 kilometers
After 40 seconds, the dome of the fire reached 30 km and thereafter developed into a mushroom cloud which soared to a height of 60-65 kilometers with a diameter of 90 km. In the military town Severny, center for the nuclear weapons test around the Matochkin Strait, most buildings were destroyed. The town was 55 kilometers from ground zero.
Bookmarking
The Tsar Bomba is probably the triggering device for what they have now!
That was a pretty well made video.
No. Tsar Bomba was a propaganda stunt, never a practical weapon. (The Proton space booster, which is currently the heaviest-lift rocket the Russians have, was the ICBM designed for the Tsar Bomba!) At full yield, it would have been a suicide mission for a bomber crew.
I thought I had read that they reduced the yield because they couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t catch the atmosphere on fire if left at 100MT.
Bump for later
There’s no such thing as overkill for a spider.
Remember, this is the Russian company to whom the Obama/Biden administration gave 20 percent of our uranium supply.
Nuke ping...
It was on my list of things to post about the video.
I must say - my Dad could have identified almost all of that instrumentation that the Soviets used.
He grew up in the days of analog devices and understood their readings better and with more accuracy than my digital devices.
Why did the communists name one of their most destructive weapons after the guy they overthrew to take control of the country?
It would be like the democrats naming an aircraft carrier after Richard Nixon.
WTF is a “clean Hydrogen bomb?”
Per the video, there was almost no measurable radiation a day after the test.
That must make the Tsar Bomba a good thing ... Or, maybe not a bad thing, or ... ?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.