Tsar Bomba, or the Tsar Bomb. This maniacal city obliterating weapon is famous for its title as the “World’s Strongest Nuclear Weapon”, which also makes it the worlds strongest weapon in general. With an explosive power equivalent to 50 megatons of TNT (That's 50,000,000,000 kg of TNT), this bomb dwarfs the nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, making it the perfect definition of overkill. Interestingly enough, or fearsome, this wasn’t even close to the bomb’s intended explosive power.. The bomb was designed to be far, far more explosive.

The story of its creation brings us to 1954, Bikini atoll. This is where the US detonated “Castle Bravo,” which stands to this day as the largest nuclear weapon detonated by the US, with an explosive power equivalent of 15 megatons of TNT. This bomb was the largest at the time, and an impressive show of force toward the rest of the world. However, the detonation of this bomb caused worldwide controversy, with it resulting in the extreme radioactive contamination of Bikini Atoll and its surrounding area, due to the creators miscalculating its explosive force as a mere 6 megatons. As a result, the detonation caused all of the personnel who were believed to be a safe distance away to be exposed to high doses of radiation. Along with  this, a Japanese fishing boat was also exposed to a lethal dose, resulting in 23 crew members experiencing acute radiation syndrome, and one of the crew members, Kuboyama Aikichi, the boat's chief radioman, passing away. In the end this incident accomplished two things: 1. implanting a fear of nuclear weapons and the radioactive fallout that follows them in the minds of the public, causing anti-nuclear sentiment, eventually leading to multiple policies which forbid countries from developing and testing nuclear weapons. But more importantly, 2. This incident changed the world’s power dynamics. The USA actively presented its strongest nuclear weapon to the public, displaying its technological superiority. This took place during the Cold War, when the USA’s and USSR’s political tensions were at its highest. After such a blatant display of force and power, the USSR could not afford to sit idly, and thus kickstarted their very own project to develop an even stronger weapon. Furthermore, after a later dispute with Eisenhower the US president at the time) during a conference in Paris over a U2 spy plane that was shot down over the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the USSR at the time, stormed out, resulting in the USSR neglecting any nuclear weapon related treaties.

The story continues, now in the Soviet Union in 1961. A group of physicists were assembled to work on the project, led by Andrey Sakharov, a renowned soviet physicist. Having worked on previous Hydrogen Bombs (Nuclear weapons which primarily use nuclear fusion to generate explosive force) in the past, he had seen the effect of detonating such weapons, with its capabilities of causing a global fallout. Knowing this, Andrey was first hesitant to develop a bomb of such high-risk. However, after receiving pressure from Krushchev, a higher power, Andrey eventually agreed to help develop the bomb. 

The initial idea behind the bomb was to make it have a force equivalent to 100 megatons of TNT During the project, designs were hastily put together, due to a time limit set by Andrey and his team by Krushchev, which was a mere 16 weeks. This led to the construction stage of the bomb commencing before the final design was even set and stone, incurring doubts of whether or not the bomb would even work. When the bomb was nearing completion, Krushchev publicly declared Russia’s removal from the treaty which banned nuclear weapon testing, causing backlash from not only other countries, but also from their own citizens . Due to this backlash, Krushchev agreed to Andrey’s request of replacing one of the uranium fission cores with lead, decreasing the explosive power of the bomb by half (50 megatons of TNT).  

In order to create a bomb of such high explosive capability, the Tsar Bomba’s used a three stage hydrogen/fusion bomb. In comparison, most hydrogen bombs have two stages, a smaller fission stage, which later activates a more powerful fusion stage. The fission stage first splits a heavy radioactive element such as uranium or plutonium to release energy. This energy is not intended to cause damage, but rather serves the purpose of supplying sufficient heat and pressure to the hydrogen, compressing the hydrogen to such an extent that nuclear fusion takes place, generating a powerful explosive blast. Now, what makes the Tsar Bomba unique is that it has an additional fission stage in its design. In the bomb’s structure, there are two fission bombs, one at each end of the cylindrical canister which holds hydrogen for the final stage. These bombs are activated simultaneously, which causes an even spread of pressure to be applied to the hydrogen canister from both sides, increasing the chance for successful fusion and thus generating more power.

When it comes to power, Tsar Bomba’s explosion is quite unfathomable. The explosion superheats the air to 100,000,000°C, instantly vaporizing anything within a 35 kilometer radius and producing a blinding light that can be seen from 1000 kilometers away. Within 1000 kilometers, all buildings are destroyed and interference in radio communication systems are detected. The mushroom cloud produced by the bomb rises to 64 kilometers, several times taller than Mount Everest. The shockwave produced by the explosion is felt all across the world and reverberates 3 times. 

However, when looking at Tsar Bomba’s extensive explosive power, realistically it cannot be translated into true practicality. The bomb itself is too large to be transported by an intercontinental ballistic missile, requiring a modified Tu-95V bomber to be transported. Dropping such a large bomb by plane in this manner is also impossibly impractical. The slow flying plane with a large bomb attached to its underside would be extremely easy to spot and shoot down, and the plane wouldn’t be able to hit any of the US’s major cities, due to lack of fuel when carrying such a cumbersome payload.The bomb itself is also simply overkill, a major design flaw. Since the explosive power does not scale linearly, a 100 megaton bomb would not do 10 times as much damage as a 10 megaton bomb. In reality,  it is calculated that 5 10 megaton bombs would do more damage than one 100 megaton bomb, while at the same time being more practical, accurate, and efficient with resources. Looking back, Tsar Bomba’s real value came in the form of propaganda, delivering a wide-spread message of the USSR’s power. The fear of a bomb that is capable of leveling multiple cities simply inspires fear of nuclear apocalypse, making countries fear the potential consequences of a conflict with the Soviet Union.

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