The Tsar Bomba: The Untold Story

The year is 1959. This is Nikita Khruschev, then leader of the Soviet Union. And this is Richard Nixon, then Vice President of the United States of America. And during a conversation between the two, Khruschev made a promise to Nixon. “We will catch up and surpass the United States, we have funds at our disposal that will have dire consequences for you. We will show you Kuzka’s Mother!” The translator was of course confused by the last statement, as was everyone else. It was literally translated as the Soviet Union promising to show the Mother of Kuzka to the United States.

What showing Kuzka’s Mother actually means is basically to harshly teach a lesson. To the Americans it instead became a euphemism for atomic bombs, and two years later it would become a direct nickname for a certain nuclear weapon in particular – the largest bomb ever created by man. Today this weapon has acquired a very different nickname – the Tsar Bomba.

[tanelimp]

The Soviets really blessed us Finns with fallout. Southern Finland got a large fallout from Chernobyl and a smaller one from Leningrad's 1975 meltdown, and Northern Finland got the good stuff from Tsar Bomba. The Finnish radiation safety authority STUK did a study few years ago where they went and randomly bought mushrooms from different sellers at Helsinki farmer's market. According to the results every 4th mushroom sold was still consired too radioactive (>600Bq/kg) for human consumption due to the Cesium-137 in it.

[florabee]

"afterburner" means "war emergency power" maybe for this context probably. Or, they gave the engines "your're gonna break it" throttle! Excellent footage and editing and commentary, excellent job, lots of images and details I've never seen.

[ChrisMatthewson]

The pilots had a 50/50 chance of returning alive, but they weren't told that. That sounds very Chernobyl like: Send people to do a job but don't tell them about any bad points.

[heinrichb]

15:54 there are no afterburners on Tu-95s because these are turboprop engine aircraft. If memory serves, precisely one turboprop aircraft in history had one, a prototype called XF-84H, known to most for its tremendous noise and its speed.

[ChristineHK]

I remember Khruschev taking off his shoe and banging it on the podium at the United Nations while yellling. LOL

[anaxis]

Thank you for covering this project! I'd love to hear more about different Russian nuclear weapon programs, things like MIRV & countermeasures, etc.

[CRSolarice]

"The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five."

-Carl Sagan

[bueb]

The real-time countdown from release to detonation was cool. Helps put into perspective how massive it was.

[relwalretep]

Wonder if anyone will make a major Sakharov movie. Quite the fascinating story, I think.

[tinyfrog_jpg]

i love getting to watch your videos when they come out. Nuclear Science/Disasters are my special interest and it's amazing to see frequent and up to date videos on the history

[tumultuoustenets]

7:28 Babushkas mopping the Tsar Bomba has to be the most Soviet image ever captured 😆

[victorboechat]

Dude, this is the most in depth video about Tsar Bomba I've ever watched! Great work!

[otacon]

I wasn’t in the cockpit of the plane that dropped the Bomba but I bet there were a few “Syka” and more than a few “Blyat” 😂

[ronaldgarrison]

Apart from military implications, atmospheric nuclear testing was such an environmental catastrophe that, eventually, even the US and USSR managed to agree to stop it.

[CrosswireFPV]

Nice to see you make videos about other wacky Soviet stuff, Soviet history in general is fascinating

[AJPMUSIC_OFFICIAL]

Great content. It's so easy to become fascinated with the science and lose connection to the reality of these weapons.

[longlakeshore]

If I remember correctly Castle Bravo ran away to 15 MT because its designers didn't think lithium deuteride7 would undergo fusion. Its yield was supposed to be 6 MT.. Did something similar happen with Tsar Bomba?

[davidelliott]

Anything bigger than 5 megatons is pointless because most of the energy goes into space. Ten x 5 megatons bombs cause many times more damage if not 10x as much as one 50.

[ES-sbei]

So the two primaries used in this bomb were most likely not fission bombs as you have stated. It is now believed they were compact, high efficiency two-stage fusion bombs themselves. That they had designed in 1958 in a breakthrough Project 49.

This bomb was not as simplistic as is commonly asserted. It was actually a test of new technologies probably first developed in 1958, not just a political stunt. It just used an old casing.

From my impression, the secondary itself was not a radical improvement. Instead the primaries and the interstage were new.

[shayhannah]

Thanks! Really enjoyed this. I learned a lot.