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DEFENCE PHYSICS
Independent Military Review. April 06, 2007. By Victor Alekseev
On September 28, 1942, the USSR State Defense Committee issued a decree binding the Academy of Sciences "to renew works on study the feasibility of using atomic energy obtained via nuclear fission of uranium, and submit the Committee a report to on possibility of producing a uranium bomb or uranium fuel". Thus, the nuclear weapons complex commemorates its 65th anniversary. And it is significant that the fourteenth volume of the Encyclopedia "Russia's Arms and Technologies", dedicated to the atomic industry, has been published just now.
FANTASTIC SPURT
Probably, it is the first time when this uneasy subject appeared in print at great length, and without classification labels. More than 40 leading enterprises are listed in the Volume. Their basic activities are described in 10 sections of the book, and all aspects of production are covered: design, manufacture and maintenance of nuclear munitions, disposition of nuclear material, etc.
The book opens with historical records related to main achievements of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center, and with a photo gallery of its designs: the first USSR's atomic bomb tested on August 29, 1949 at the Semipalatinsk test site; the first series-produced tactical atomic bomb; the first thermonuclear bomb; warheads for ballistic missiles. However, pages of the Volume describe also conventional weapons designed in cooperation with the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - VNIIEF. For example, the Center designed a tandem shaped-charge projectile for the anti-tank guided missile "Ataka".
The country was lying in ruins after the Second World War, but the international climate forced the government to invest huge money into the atomic industry instead of restoring that has been destroyed, and improving the welfare of the community. Nevertheless, this investment resulted not only in creation of the "nuclear shield", but also in huge technological leaps in various spheres. New scientific directions and schools appeared, as well as new branches in industry. In-depth fundamental investigations resulted in new knowledge. First of all, this knowledge was used in the sphere of defense.
Consider, as an instance, electric and neutron initiation systems for nuclear charges. First bombs contained electric detonators those initiated explosion of some conventional blasting agent. This resulted in compression of nuclear material causing nuclear chain reaction. An external pulsed neutron source can be placed outside the fission charge which allows making safe the storage of nuclear munitions. The source is reliable and can be fully operational during a long period; it can stand extreme temperature gradients and heavy mechanical loads. Such pulsed neutron source is tolerant even to high-level radiation.
The first system for neutron initiation of fission charges was successively tested in 1954. Since that time, the size of pulsed neutron sources decreased by an order of two - in other words, they became several hundred times smaller! Miniature pulsed sources were designed for all types of missiles, projectiles, and other strategic and tactical means of destruction. Actually, these sources are small accelerators of deuterons - ions of the heavy hydrogen isotope, which bombard a target containing atoms of tritium - the superheavy hydrogen isotope. The neutron flux from such a source is as high as the flux from a nuclear reactor.
The initiation system for fission charges is the most complicated component of nuclear munitions. The second complicated element is the safety system. Thus, it was quite difficult to solve the problem of avoiding nuclear explosion in the case when a guided air missile misses its target and falls onto home territory. Nuclear missiles for the air defense missile system S-200 were equipped with such warheads. Two thirds of all USSR's nuclear weapons deployed to Cuba during the Caribbean Crisis were KS-7 missiles - tactical cruise missiles FKR-1. Actually, those were pilotless bombers with a nuclear charge designed in Mikoyan Design Bureau.
Designers had to overpass many troubles when designing missiles for very specific anti-submarine systems "Vikhr", "Vyuga", "Vodopad". The missile had to pass the liquid-gas interface twice, including high-speed water impact, and operate at various depths. It was the first time when a shock protection system has been created for a nuclear charge that avoided usage of deceleration parachutes.
Talking of parachutes, the descent system designed for the superheavy thermonuclear bomb now is used for landing descent modules of spacecraft.
WORKING ATOM
670 pages of the Volume contain information about everything that is related to the nuclear sphere. Not only munitions and delivery vehicles are covered, but also nuclear reactors for submarines, uranium enrichment and complicated plutonium metallurgy, production and utilization, radiation safety facilities and protection methods for objects of special importance. But the most interesting things are highest-level breath-taking technologies. For example, the super-power mobile laser equipment. It is able to cut steel pipes from the distance of 100 meters, even through a wall of fire, which makes it unexpendable when bringing fires on oil-gas fields under control.
The products for civil applications include thermionic and thermoelectric nuclear power systems. The thermionic power systems are used as power supply sources for spacecraft. More than 30 such systems were used in orbits at different time. The maintenance-free nuclear thermoelectric system NS YaTEU-100/3000 ("Yelena") with direct transformation of thermal energy into electric energy and using the residual heat for industrial heating is able to warm and illuminate a whole village in the permafrost area. The reactor operates 25 years without reload and does not pollute the environment, i.e. it is ecologically friendly.
A huge section of the Volume is dedicated to reactors. There are described the first uranium-graphite reactor "A", the research reactor "AI", industrial reactors "I" for tritium and plutonium recovery, nuclear power plants for combat ships. One reactor is placed in deep underground. As it was stated in the declassified decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on February 26, 1950, it should be "within solid rock at a depth of 200 - 230 meters". The place was allocated at 50 km below Krasnoyarsk on the right bank of Yenisei River. At the present time, the town of Zheleznogorsk is there, and the facility producing plutonium dioxide and recovered uranium is placed under the shoots of Sayan Mountains, and is able to operate even during a nuclear war.
There is a big section covering nuclear test sites. While there is a lot of information about the test site near Semipalatinsk, the Northern test site (Novaya Zemlya), which is the central test site of the Russian Federation, is less known. It has been established in 1954 on the archipelago of Novaya Zemlya for testing naval nuclear weapons such as "Object-700". One year later, the nuclear torpedo T-5 has been tested in the bay Chyornaya Guba. In total, there were made130 nuclear explosions in various media. The book contains memoirs of Gavriil Kudryavtsev who was a Chief of the test site when the well-known 60-megaton "super bomb" was tested in 1961.
The memoirs, describing underground nuclear explosions on Novaya Zemlya in tunnels under mountains near Matochkin Shar, are of great interest as well. A dosimetry reconnaissance group went to the tunnel just after the explosion, and a group of testers in special protective suites followed them. The rock was partially caved, the suspended dust was dense, in some places people had to crawl in order to reach sensors of gamma rays, the radiation intensity was rising fast...
Like all previous volumes of the Encyclopedia, the 14th volume is rich with illustrations. It is the first time when a number of objects and products can be seen on illustrations. People reading the book feel pride in their country. Not because of warheads and missiles, but because of understanding that the Russian science stays at the forward line, and there are knowledge and technologies we do not feel ashamed of, facing the XXI Century.
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