An unearthly spectacle – The untold story of the biggest nuclear bomb (2021)

[ignoramous]

> Tsar Bomba is a potent example of how nationalism, fear, and high-technology can combine in a fashion that is ultimately dangerous, wasteful, and pointless.

Yep. Some similar grandstanding by the Chinese Army in 1960s accelerated the Indian nuclear weapons programme (overriding the utter lack of political will of its then primary leaders). After, buoyed by newly acquired capabilities, in 1980s, the Indian Army conducted largest ever military exercise (Operation Brasstacks) providing much needed impetus & driving consensus in Pakistan to push forward no matter the cost, embodied in this notorious quip by their ex Prime Minister, "[Pakistan] will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own [atomic weapon]."

The untold stories of these godly bombs are the devastation they wreak without needing to be ever "used". Devil's greatest trick...

[dghughes]

>Some similar grandstanding by the Chinese Army in 1960s accelerated the Indian nuclear weapons programme (overriding the utter lack of political will of its then primary leaders).

I've read about the Indian military and how it's so disorganized. I mean really as in each branch does not even have the capability of communicating with the other branches. And that's now in 2024 I can only imagine in the 1960s.

[radicaldreamer]

Much more recently, you saw North Korea go through famine and economic development to build the bomb

[_tik_]

It was similar for China—Mao launched the nuclear bomb program after the U.S. threatened to use nuclear weapons against China.

[mikewarot]

>At his Livermore laboratory, he reported, they were working on two new weapon designs, dubbed Gnomon and Sundial. Gnomon would be 1,000 megatons and would be used like a “primary” to set off Sundial, which would be 10,000 megatons.

Project Sundial was the ultimate expression of power, a bomb so big it would detonated here in the US, to kill everyone on the planet.

I think that the "dead hand" system[1] built by the Soviets, and still operational today, might have incorporated a copy of this idea. This would nicely explain the hesitancy/restraint of the US in the Ukrainian conflict.

Nobody wants a 10+ Gigaton bomb going off.

[jjk166]

It's worth noting that the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 was about 30 Gigatons TNT equivalent. Certainly a catastrophic event that affected climate around the globe, but a far cry from "killing everyone on the planet."

[dmurray]

Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it a secret.

[snthpy]

Looking for the dead hand [1] reference. Did you forget to add it?

[russdill]

A real life swordholder.

[nuancebydefault]

Let's view earth as if we are aliens (or even normal people) visiting our moon, watching the blue planet and the behavior of its inhabitants.

So these conscious people were building several 100 Mton weapons AND detonated one of them on the surface of the planet! Knowing that it would kill and destroy life and atmosphere around it and contaminate earth. AND they were starting a program for building a Gigaton weapon??

It is just surreal that anyone would even think of doing such, let alone doing so.

[arethuza]

Actually, it's better (worse) than that - the gigaton bomb was really being developed to be a primary for a 10 gigaton bomb!

"When you merely wish to bury bombs, there is no limit to the size."

[bdamm]

We don't really know what aliens would think, so you're anthropomorphizing. If the aliens were Klingons they might find it endearing. There's zero evidence that peace without weapons is possible.

[psunavy03]

It's funny how people love to imagine uber-intelligent benevolent alien overlords who always happen to agree with whatever point they're trying to make. It's an extension of the "if you disagree with me, you don't actually have an opinion, you're just having an emotional reaction to my rational points" nonsense that's all over the internet.

[pfdietz]

I've been told that for a sufficiently large thermonuclear bomb, it isn't even necessary to compress the secondary -- just heating it is enough. Teller's original "Super" idea would work at scale. So once you've made a big enough bomb, attach it to a big tank of deuterium with thick walls and you're good.

The problem of making such a bomb comes down to the problem of economically producing deuterium.

[Vrondi]

A la Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, https://youtu.be/bPBzj90Su8A?feature=shared

[coffeecantcode]

Sort of describing the DeathWorlders series

[beAbU]

Appropriately timed video about the American version of this, that (presumably) got stopped at the planning phase.

A bomb so big, you did not even need to deploy it to enemy territory. You just set it off in your own back yard. It was going to destroy the entire planet anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E55uSCO5D2w&t=642s

[arethuza]

Sundial was the 10Gt bomb - which is 2 orders of magnitude more powerful than the Tsar Bomba (as designed, not as tested).

Edit: Good video!!

[gambiting]

The documentary mentioned in the article is definitely worth watching. Some parts of it are undoubtedly propaganda, but it still offers an incredible view on what detonating a nuclear bomb actually looked like.

[achairapart]

For reference, there is declassified footage (very clear images, even with some original voice over) of the RDS-4 bomb[0] ("only" 1.5 Megatons) detonating at the infamous Semipalatinsk Test Site[1] (now Kazakhstan).

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHRLEMTsLyA

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semipalatinsk_Test_Site

[JKCalhoun]

Maybe this? https://youtu.be/Swmcldi_jc4

[throwaway0394]

I like the little bombs on the left of the page showing the difference. Nice touch.

[beAbU]

Wanted to say something similar. It's really effective to bring home how stupidly massive this thing really was. You just keep on scrolling and scrolling and the little bombs don't end!

[kundi]

Perplexing is the nature of human - to create and destroy, compete, and fear itself.

[smusamashah]

Kurzgesagt recently made a video about Final Bomb which would have destroyed a big part of planet earth, some 400km would have immediately burned https://youtu.be/E55uSCO5D2w

[delichon]

I wish I could believe the argument that Russian corruption has reached the point at which their nukes are no longer a threat and the alternative view amounts to fear mongering. But it seems unlikely that they have regressed so far in the means of power in the last sixty years. As the Doomsday Clock moves ever closer to midnight it concerns me that its political salience has only diminished.

[batushka5]

They are corrupt. Next time Russia will colapse and ask for food aid (see Bush Legs 1990), we should exchange it for nukes. Food for nukes, sounds sweet.

[rcxdude]

Yeah, it's not particularly plausible. Even if you believe that they are in a truly atrocious state of repair, that, say, 95% of them will fail to land on target and detonate, a nuclear strike from Russia would still be catastrophic.

The main reasons most observers are not super worried about nukes in the context of their invasion of Ukraine, is that MAD is still an effective policy against an all-out attack against NATO, and NATO (especially the US) has a credible red line of any attempt at a 'small-scale' use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine that will bring them into the war.

The main effect of nukes, though, is to make Ukraine's allies nervous about the collapse of the russian government, because that is a plausible situation in which nukes could be used. The US, especially, seems to by trying to help Ukraine win, but not win so hard that Russia collapses, and it's not obvious that a level of support exists that would satisfy both outcomes.

[ndsipa_pomu]

I don't think that U.S. corruption is something to be ignored either. It surprises me that people are concerned about Putin pushing the button, but don't consider Trump pushing the button.

[aa-jv]

It is never a good idea to believe ones own propaganda. The 'weakness' of Russia is a fallacy that need not be tested, ever, with aggression.

A far better use of ones time is to wonder where all the diplomacy has gone.

[rightbyte]

Ye thanks for the reminder arethuza. Better not forget I might get glass schrapnel in the left side of the face without notice. WFH would have its advantages.

[waldothedog]

“New” would be relative. I don’t think anyone but you can know the answer without giving the article a read.

[sedan_baklazhan]

> Tsar Bomba is a potent example of how nationalism, fear, and high-technology can combine in a fashion that is ultimately dangerous, wasteful, and pointless.

Not to be confused with the way democracy, love, and science produce beautiful, useful and eco-friendly nuclear weapons.

[troyvit]

So true! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb

'The concept was originally developed by the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was seen as a "cleaner" bomb for use against massed Soviet armored divisions.'

[samatman]

It seems you have no understanding at all of the goals of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

It's worth reading up on.

[hydrolox]

Democracy in the US isn't mutually exclusive with any of those?

[jjk166]

I don't think anyone is claiming that nationalism, fear, and high-technology were a problem unique to the Soviet Union.

[Caroline1994]

Interesting point of view.