WEBVTT - What Was the Biggest Nuclear Weapon Ever Built?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,

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<v Speaker 1>Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Voge bomb here. On October nine,

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<v Speaker 1>one especially equipped Soviet t U nine bomber flew toward

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<v Speaker 1>a remote chain of islands in the Arctic Ocean that

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<v Speaker 1>the USS are frequently used as a site for nuclear tests,

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<v Speaker 1>accompanied by a smaller plane equipped with a movie camera

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<v Speaker 1>and instruments for monitoring air samples. But this wasn't just

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<v Speaker 1>a routine nuclear test. Attached to the underside of the

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<v Speaker 1>plane was a thermonuclear bomb that was so big it

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<v Speaker 1>wouldn't fit inside the normal interior bomb bay. The cylindrical

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<v Speaker 1>device was twenty six ft that's eight meters long and

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<v Speaker 1>weighed nearly sixty thousand pounds or twenty seven metric tons.

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<v Speaker 1>The device had the prosaic official name of Item six

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<v Speaker 1>O two, but it's gone down in history with the

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<v Speaker 1>nickname of the Czar Bomba, the Russian way of calling

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<v Speaker 1>it the Emperor of bombs, and that name was no exaggeration.

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<v Speaker 1>Czar bomba's yield is estimated to have been roughly fifty

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<v Speaker 1>seven megatons, about thirty eight hundred times the power of

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<v Speaker 1>the fifteen kiloton atomic bomb that the US used to

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<v Speaker 1>destroy Hiroshima in on that day in nineteen sixty one,

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<v Speaker 1>Czar Bombo was released on a parachute in order to

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<v Speaker 1>slow its descent and give the bomber and its crew

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<v Speaker 1>a chance to escape. When the giant bomb finally detonated

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<v Speaker 1>about thirteen thousand feet or four kilometers over its target,

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<v Speaker 1>the blast was so powerful that it destroyed everything within

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<v Speaker 1>a nearly twenty two mile or thirty five kilometer radius

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<v Speaker 1>and generated a mushroom cloud that towered nearly two hundred

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<v Speaker 1>thousand feet or sixty kilometers high. In Soviet towns a

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<v Speaker 1>hundred miles or a hundred and sixty kilometers from ground zero,

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<v Speaker 1>wooden houses were destroyed, and even brick and stone structures

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<v Speaker 1>suffered damage. After being largely forgotten for many years, Zar

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<v Speaker 1>Bombo was back in the news in August when the

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<v Speaker 1>shan State Nuclear Power Company posted on YouTube a vintage

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<v Speaker 1>film that showed an aerial view of the explosion and

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<v Speaker 1>the towering cloud it created. One of the cameramen who

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<v Speaker 1>recorded the event described the bomb as creating quote, a

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<v Speaker 1>powerful white flash over the horizon, and after a long

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<v Speaker 1>period of time, he heard a remote, indistinct and heavy

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<v Speaker 1>blow as if the Earth had been killed. The blast

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<v Speaker 1>was so powerful that its shock wave caused the tin

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<v Speaker 1>to immediately drop three thousand feet or a kilometer in altitude,

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<v Speaker 1>though the pilot regained control and got the plane back

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<v Speaker 1>to its base safely. So why did the Soviets want

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<v Speaker 1>such a humongous bomb? Czar Bomba's test was symbolic of

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<v Speaker 1>escalating tensions between the Soviets and the United States. After

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<v Speaker 1>a June nine summit in Vienna between Soviet leader Nikita

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<v Speaker 1>Khrushchev and US President John F. Kennedy went badly. Kruschev

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<v Speaker 1>apparently decided to take out his frustrations by showing off

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<v Speaker 1>Soviet military progress, including ending the informal moratorium on nuclear

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<v Speaker 1>testing that both countries had maintained since the late nineteen fifties.

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<v Speaker 1>The resumption of testing gave Soviet weapons researchers a chance

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<v Speaker 1>to try out an idea that they had had for

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<v Speaker 1>building a giant H bomb, one that was far bigger

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<v Speaker 1>than the most powerful weapon in the U s Arsenal

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<v Speaker 1>and the frightening logic of all out nuclear war. Having

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<v Speaker 1>a high yield H bomb did make some sense theoretically

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<v Speaker 1>at the time, missiles capable of striking distant countries were

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<v Speaker 1>still in their infancy, and the Soviet Union didn't have

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<v Speaker 1>many strategic bombers. The US, in contrast, had a variety

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<v Speaker 1>of aircraft that could strike from bases conveniently close to

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<v Speaker 1>Soviet territory. We spoke by email with Nikolai Sakov, a

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<v Speaker 1>Vienna based senior fellow affiliated with the James Martin Center

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<v Speaker 1>for Non Proliferation Studies at Middlebury Institute of International Studies

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<v Speaker 1>at Monterey in California. He said, hence, if you can

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<v Speaker 1>deliver only one, two or three bombs, they better be

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<v Speaker 1>very powerful. But the Soviet researchers pushed that idea to

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<v Speaker 1>an extreme. Originally they envisioned a one hundred megaton weapon

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<v Speaker 1>with a high level of radiation, but settled for one

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<v Speaker 1>of slightly more than half that much explosive power after

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<v Speaker 1>the USSRS political leadership expressed worries about contamination from such

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<v Speaker 1>a blast, Sokov said, as a result, fallout was very limited,

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<v Speaker 1>much more limited than one could expect. The shock wave

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<v Speaker 1>was really strong, however, its circumnavigated Earth three times. Even so,

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<v Speaker 1>Japanese authorities found the highest level of radiation and rain

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<v Speaker 1>water that they had ever detected and a quote invisible

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<v Speaker 1>cloud of radioactive ash that drifted eastward across the Pacific

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<v Speaker 1>and then crossed Canada and the Great Lakes region of

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<v Speaker 1>the US, but US scientists reassured the public that most

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<v Speaker 1>of the debris from the Czar BOMBA would stay high

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<v Speaker 1>in the stratosphere and gradually lose its radioactivity by the

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<v Speaker 1>time it fell to earth. The Soviets informed the US

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<v Speaker 1>forehand of their intention to test a fifty megaton nuclear bomb.

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<v Speaker 1>In a speech just a week before the blast, The

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<v Speaker 1>U s Deputy Secretary of Defense suggested that the bomb

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<v Speaker 1>wasn't intended to intimidate the US, but to send a

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<v Speaker 1>message to the Soviet Union's restless ally China. Whatever the case,

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<v Speaker 1>although the Czar BOMBA made headlines in the US, government,

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<v Speaker 1>officials weren't that impressed by the nightmarish display of nuclear destruction.

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<v Speaker 1>The US had concentric rings of defenses, from early warning

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<v Speaker 1>radar to fighter aircraft, and surface to air missiles that

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<v Speaker 1>all would have made it difficult for a Soviet bomber

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<v Speaker 1>to succeed in a first strike, and a device as

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<v Speaker 1>massive as the Tzar BOMBA was dangerous to the aircraft

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<v Speaker 1>that dropped it, so much so that the t U

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<v Speaker 1>crew had been given only a fifty fifty chance of survival.

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<v Speaker 1>But we also spoke via email with Robert Standish Norris,

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<v Speaker 1>a senior fellow for Nuclear policy at the Federation of

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<v Speaker 1>American Scientists. He said that the US quote looked in

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<v Speaker 1>the big bomb option and decided no. He explained that theoretically, quote,

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<v Speaker 1>there is no limit on how big a hydrogen bomb

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<v Speaker 1>can be. If ever used, zar BOMBA would clearly kill

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<v Speaker 1>a lot more people. Accuracy became an option, and if

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<v Speaker 1>you improve it by half, then you can cut the

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<v Speaker 1>yield by a factor of eight. This is what we did,

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<v Speaker 1>and the Soviets followed. We also checked in with Pavel

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<v Speaker 1>Podvig via email. He's a long time nuclear weapons analyst

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<v Speaker 1>who has worked with the United Nations and National Security

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<v Speaker 1>Studies programs at Princeton and Stanford Universities, and operates the

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<v Speaker 1>website Russian forces dot org. He said, everybody understood that

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<v Speaker 1>it's too big to be a practical weapon. From the

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<v Speaker 1>point of view of destructive power. It's even more efficient

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<v Speaker 1>to use several smaller weapons than one large one. Zara

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<v Speaker 1>BOMBA ended up being a Maccab curiosity of the nuclear age,

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<v Speaker 1>Podvig said no additional devices of this kind were built. Instead,

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<v Speaker 1>the US SAR went in a different direction. A few

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<v Speaker 1>years after the Czar bomba test, Soviet missile designers achieved

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<v Speaker 1>a major breakthrough with liquid fuel, opening the way to

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<v Speaker 1>produce strategic missiles that could be kept ready for launch

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<v Speaker 1>for extended periods and hidden in protected silos. Sokov explained,

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<v Speaker 1>about nineteen sixty four to nineteen sixty five, the Soviet

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<v Speaker 1>Union decisively turned toward an emphasis on intercontinental ballistic missiles,

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<v Speaker 1>which can carry several warheads, each of which will strike

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<v Speaker 1>a different target, which typically amounted to about sixty six

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<v Speaker 1>of its strategic force until about the mid nineteen nineties,

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<v Speaker 1>when it declined to roughly fift By the nineteen seventies,

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<v Speaker 1>only five percent of the Soviet nuclear arsenal was in

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<v Speaker 1>the form of bombs that could be dropped by aircraft.

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<v Speaker 1>Today's episode was written by Patrick J. Kaiger and produced

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<v Speaker 1>by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of

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<v Speaker 1>other topics, visit House to works dot com. Brain Stuff

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<v Speaker 1>is production of I Heart Radio. Four more pie cast

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<v Speaker 1>my Heart Radio. Visit the i Heart Radio app. Apple

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