Excellent writeup by Alex Wellerstein on Andrei Sakharov and the Soviet Union's first thermonuclear test– RDS-37.

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Excellent writeup by Alex Wellerstein on Andrei Sakharov and the Soviet Union's first thermonuclear test– RDS-37.
CONELRAD was established by President Harry S. Truman in 1951. The emergency broadcast system had two goals. Primarily it was intended to control civilian radio transmitters (so enemy bombers couldn’t use them for navigation), and secondarily to provide essential civil defense information to American citizens in case of a Soviet nuclear attack. For the purpose of shutting down local and national radio stations these were required to ‘listen’ to CONELRAD 24/7 (this could be automated by radio equipment) and immediately go ‘off air’ once the prearranged signal was broadcast – CONELRAD would switch on and off for 5 seconds twice and then broadcast a continuous tone for 15 seconds. AM stations were expected to stay off air, but key FM and television stations were to broadcast special announcements on 640 or 1240 kHz in turn, according to a ‘round robin’ system. It was hoped that this would confuse enemy bombers and prevent them from using the stations as homing beacons (although it’s unlikely the Soviets depended on local broadcast for navigation). Once the enemy bombers were sufficiently confused, the key FM stations would transmit important information to the panic-stricken citizens.
Seattle Civil Defense Manual
Seattle Civil Defense M anual circa 1951 explaining how exactly to survive
Specifics include how to build your own personal bomb shelter, tips for the aftermath of a blast (“wait at least one hour to give lingering radiation some chance to die down!”), which areas/landmarks would be hit first (no harshing on Tacoma and Everett!), how it kills you, and more. The pamphlet is rounded out with a long list of “subversive organizations” from the House Un-American Activities Committee. I don’t see France on the list.
http://www.vintageseattle.org/2008/03/17/surviving-the-atom-bomb-in-seattle/
edit: Hah, every time I copy/pasted from that site I got some weird links for penis growth ads
Wow, I have to get off my ass and post more in this blog.
Today, July 16, marks the 68th anniversary of the Trinity test and birth of nuclear weapons and the atomic age. For many, this is nothing to celebrate as with Trinity came a new period of warfare, paranoia and fear that has affected pretty much every single person on the planet in some shape or form.
That said, Trinity was the culmination of a massive and admirable feat of production, engineering, and science by many hundreds of thousands of people over a long period of time the research of which has been used for some truly great things.
For better or worse, history and mankind was changed with Trinity and nuclear weapons, so if not worth outright celebrating, Trinity's anniversary is at least worth solemn observance.
And a videoclip!
Upshot-Knothole Grable, a nuclear shell delivered by artillery. This was the first and only time the US ever used this device and it is one of the few times that the US has detonated a gun-type bomb (the same kind as Little Boy).
It's probably obvious why this kind of weaponry never took off. The blast in the video is a 14kT yield and was fired ~2 miles away. While they were out of distance of physical harm, a slight change in wind could rain fallout all over those at the cannon.
The Soviet bomb program went into high gear after the war under Igor Kurchatov's vigorous leadership. His colleagues called him “the Beard.”
What a clever nickname.
Klaus Fuchs' documents on the explosive lens/plutonium core of the Fat Man bomb. These would eventually fall into the hands of the SU who developed nuclear weapons of their own in 1949.
The Soviet Union became a nuclear state in 1949 with it's first test codenamed "Lighting Joe", the RDS-1 bomb. It was very similar to the Fat Man as Soviet spies at the time had successfully stolen the design.
As a result of using the Fat Man's design, it was a Plutonium core and had a yield of 22kt.
The SU very quickly moved on to Thermonuclear weapons development by their 4th nuclear test in 1953 with the RDS-6 bombs. These weren't "true" fusion devices however, since they obtained most of their yield from fission reactions.
Some design notes:
The RDS-6s used a U-235 fissile core surrounded by alternating layers of fusion fuel (lithium-6 deuteride spiked with tritium), and fusion tamper (natural uranium) inside a high explosive implosion system. The small U-235 fission bomb acted as the trigger (about 40 kt). The total yield was 400 Kt, and 15-20% of the energy was released by fusion, and 90% due directly or indirectly to the fusion reaction.
Lots more here: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/Sovwpnprog.html
The photograph was shot by a Rapatronic camera built by EG&G. Since each camera could record only one exposure on a sheet of film, banks of four to 10 cameras were set up to take sequences of photographs. The average exposure time was three millionths of a second. The cameras were last used at the Test Site in 1962.
The images shows the growing fireball, taken about one millisecond after detonation. There are two striking features about this picture - the spikes projecting from the bottom of the fireball, and the ghostly mottling of the fireball surface. The peculiar spikes are extensions of the fireball surface along ropes or cables that stretch from the shot cab (the housing for the test device at the top of the tower) to the ground. This novel phenomenon was named a "rope trick" by Dr. John Malik who investigated it. The effect had been observed in earlier tests when spikes were seen extending along cables that moored the shot towers to the ground. During Snapper Malik conducted experiments using different kinds of cables and ropes, and with different surface treatments. Consequently the spikes in this picture may be due to either mooring cables, or Malik's own test ropes. The cause of the "rope trick" is the absorption of thermal radiation from the fireball by the rope. The fireball is still extremely hot (surface temperature around 20,000 degrees K at this point, some three and a half times hotter than the surface of the sun; at the center it may be more than ten times hotter) and radiates a tremendous amount of energy as visible light (intensity over 100 times greater than the sun) to which air is (surprise!) completely transparent. The rope is not transparent however, and the section of rope extending from the fireball surface gets rapidly heated to very high temperatures. The luminous vaporized rope rapidly expands and forms a spike-shaped extension of the fireball. Malik observed that if the rope was painted black spike formation was enhanced, and if it was painted with reflective paint or wrapped in aluminum foil no spikes were observed. Cause of the surface mottling. At this point in the explosion, a true hydrodynamic shock front has just formed. Prior to this moment the growth of the fireball was due to radiative transport, i.e. thermal x-rays outran the expanding bomb debris. Now however the fireball expansion is caused by the shock front driven by hydrodynamic pressure (as in a conventional explosion, only far more intense). The glowing surface of the fireball is due to shock compression heating of the air. This means that the fireball is now growing far more slowly than before. The bomb (and shot cab) vapors were initially accelerated to very high velocities (several tens of kilometers/sec) and clumps of this material are now splashing against the back of the shock front in an irregular pattern (due to initial variations in mass distribution around the bomb core), creating the curious mottled appearance.
India Issues Kashmir nuclear war advisory
It happened in an instant. A sudden blue glow momentarily enveloped the room before evaporating. In that moment, as the Geiger counter clicked wildly, scientist Louis Slotin knew that he had received a lethal dose of gama and neutron radiation from the core of the plutonium bomb he was testing. It was 3:20 P.M. on Tuesday, 21 May 1946, at the secret Omega Site Laboratory in Pajarito Canyon, Los Alamos, New Mexico. Slotin had been instructing a colleague, Alvin C. Graves, who was to replace him at the Omega Site. Also present was S. Allan Kline, a 26-year-old graduate of the University of Chicago, who had been called over to observe the procedure. Five other colleagues were close by as Slotin, a Canadian physicist from Winnipeg who had been part of the team that created the atomic bomb, performed the action that would bring into close proximity the two halves of a beryllium-coated sphere and convert the plutonium to a critical state. With his left thumb wedged into a cavity in the top element, Slotin had moved the top half of the sphere closer to the stationary lower portion, a micro-inch at a time. In his right hand was a screwdriver, which was being used to keep the two spheres from touching. Then, in that fatal moment, the screwdriver slipped. The halves of the sphere touched and the plutonium went supercritical. The chain reaction was stopped when Slotin knocked the spheres apart, but deadly gamma and neutron radiation had flashed into the room in a blue blaze caused by the instantaneous ionization of the lab's air particles. Louis Slotin had been exposed to almost 1,000 rads of radiation, far more than a lethal dose. Kline, who had been three or four feet away from Slotin, received between 90 and 100 rads, while Graves, standing a bit closer, received an estimated 166 rads. A surge of heat "swept over the observers, felt even by those some distance from the source," writes Thomas D. Brock, a retired University of Wisconsin biologist who has done extensive research on early atomic-era accidents at Los Alamos. "In addition to the blue glow and heat, Louis Slotin experienced a sour taste in his mouth [and] an intense burning sensation in his left hand. As soon as Slotin left the building, he vomited, a common reaction from intense radiation." Another commentator suggests that it was as though Slotin had been fully exposed to an exploding atomic bomb at a distance of 4,800 feet.
Atomic Cafe is yet ANOTHER documentary on nuclear testing/the cold war. This one is a bit different than the other two in that it's really just archive footage ranging from weapons tests to commercials to the infamous Duck and Cover video.
It's a bit longer than the others but is also quite interesting. It's up on youtube for freeeee.
Radio Bikini is another documentary up on Netflix at the moment. This one focuses on the first nuclear tests The U.S. did after world war 2 on Bikini Atoll. It is primarily archive footage of the tests along with interviews from a former displaced resident of the island and a serviceman who surveyed the wreckage after the tests.
The movie is just under an hour long, so if you've got the time, check it out. It even has a bit of a reveal/shocker towards the end.
Dr Carl F. Miller's reports on Fallout and Radiological Countermeasures
In the Teller-Ulam hydrogen bomb design, high explosive compresses fission fuel in the "primary" stage. Intense X-rays from the atomic explosion move through the radiation channel, vaporizing the uranium pusher-tamper, which acts like an inside-out rocket, compressing the fusion fuel and spark plug to extreme density. The spark plug becomes a second fission bomb, heating the fusion fuel and igniting the fusion reaction. The uranium shield protects the secondary from destruction while fusion occurs; the explosion is over in microseconds.