THE ATOMIC PROJECT

Military-industrial courier. May 9-15, 2007. By Ilya Kedrov

The Publishing House "Arms and Technologies" has published the next, 14th volume of the Encyclopedia "Russia's Arms and Technologies". The Volume is called "Nuclear Weapons Complex", and the title speaks of itself. Unlike other volumes, the structure is different due to the veil of secrecy, which always surrounds the design, manufacture and tests of nuclear weapons. The book is divided into sections by activities of the nuclear weapons complex ("Development of nuclear munitions", "Production and dismantling of nuclear munitions", "Tests of nuclear munitions and test sites", etc.), and the sections are divided into chapters by designers, manufacturers and operators of nuclear weapons. In total, there are more than 40 leading enterprises covered in the volume, and descriptions of these enterprises were grouped into 10 chapters by main directions of activities. A special attention was paid to nuclear and radiation safety, ecology and safe storage of nuclear materials. The section "Tests of nuclear munitions and test sites" is of special interest. It contains information about all nuclear tests in the USSR, their chronology and objectives. The history of test sites in Semipalatinsk and Novaya Zemlya is described in detail, from their creation to current activities.

The 14th volume of the Encyclopedia provides a glimpse of high technologies and complicated fundamental research performed by enterprises and organizations of the nuclear weapons complex. Due to the fact that these institutions also worked on problems of peaceful usage of atomic energy since their establishment, the book covers dual-purpose technologies and civil designs as well.

As an introduction to basic materials, the 14th volume contains the article "The USSR' Atomic Project and the contemporaneity" by Lev Ryabov who was the Atomic Power and Industry Minister of the USSR (1986—1989), and the First Deputy Atomic Energy Minister of the Russian Federation (1993—2002). The article briefly describes the history of nuclear weapons creation in our country and defines promising directions for works in this industrial branch. At the present time, as Lev Ryabov notes, Russia has lost its dominance over the USA in the sphere of conventional weapons, and the international status of the Russian Federation depends at great extent on nuclear weapons. And the main task for the nuclear weapons complex during nearest years will be supporting the nuclear arsenal and perfecting it on the basis of new scientific and technical facilities for nuclear munitions development when nuclear tests are prohibited. In addition, it will be necessary to pay attention to prolonging the life cycle of existing munitions, and to increasing their reliability and safety.