Beginning in the 1950s, American and Soviet scientists embarked on a perilous race to see who could build and detonate the world’s largest bomb. The results exceeded all expectations about how big a bomb could be built. Initially, the Americans led the way, but then left the field clear for the Soviet Union to break all records.
Secrets of the Dead chronicles how the bomb-makers on both sides were working blind as they pushed science into unknown territory to build The World’s Biggest Bomb. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the detonation of the most powerful bomb ever constructed – October 30, 1961 – The World’s Biggest Bomb premieres nationally Tuesday, May 17 at 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings).
Preview this episode:
Secrets of the Dead is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET New York Public Media. WNET is the parent company of THIRTEEN and WLIW21, New York’s public television stations. For nearly 50 years, WNET has been producing and broadcasting national and local documentaries and other programs to the New York community.
On March 1, 1954, the United States exploded its first hydrogen bomb known as ‘Castle Bravo’ at Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific. To this day, ‘Castle Bravo’ remains America’s biggest bomb and is one of the most extraordinary tales in the history of science – yet one which is largely unknown.
As soon as the bomb exploded, the test team knew something was wrong. Instead of five megatons, the blast turned out to be 15 megatons. The explosion vaporized three entire coral islands, sending the ash 100,000 feet into the air. It drifted eastward and rained upon hundreds of people living on islands to the north – a poison footprint of 7,000 square miles.
Secrets of the Dead shares an account by the commander of the bomb’s firing party, scientist Dr. John C. Clark, in which he describes how he and eight other scientists were trapped inside a concrete bunker 20 miles from ground zero. An interview with John R. Halderman, Marine Corps Veteran, who stood guard over ‘Castle Bravo,’ relates what it was like to be 23 miles from ground zero aboard the USS Curtis.
While it was thought the remoteness of Bikini Atoll would lead the fallout of the blast to blow out to empty sea, instead it was carried to the USS Curtiss, the Lucky Dragon (a fishing boat 82 miles east of Bikini) and to neighboring islands. Explaining what went wrong and why, is Dr. Martin Kalinowski, a nuclear physicist, Dr. Harold Agnew, former director Los Alamos National Laboratory and Richard Rhodes, author and historian.
After the ‘Castle Bravo’ explosion, the United States shifted gears to concentrate on smaller, more precise bombs. However, at the same time, the Soviet Union continued to build massive devices capable of destroying entire cities. The Soviet bomb program reached its peak on October 30 1961, when a device they called the ‘Tsar’ exploded above the north European island of Novaya Zemlya. At 50 megatons, it released in a nanosecond, energy that equates to 10 times the entire quantity of explosives used in World War II. The blast wave went three times around the world and made ‘Castle Bravo’ look insignificant.
Relating the chain of events leading up to the ‘Tsar’ is Dr. Alexei Kojevnikov, Russian Academy of Sciences and Dr. Boris Altshuler, a Soviet nuclear scientist who studied under Andrei Sakharov, the inventor of the ‘Tsar’. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev gave Sakharov three months to build the world’s biggest bomb. However, just months after the detonation of the ‘Tsar,’ Sakharov became a critic of nuclear weapons realizing there is no way to contain radioactive fallout.
The race to build the World’s Biggest Bomb led to the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963 which banned the test of all nuclear weapons except for those conducted underground. But sadly, 57 years after ‘Castle Bravo,’ radioactive fallout still prevents the descendants of Bikini Atoll from returning to their island.
THIRTEEN’s Secrets of the Dead: The World Biggest Bomb is a Blink Films Production for THIRTEEN in association with ZDF, ARTE, ZDF Enterprises GMBH, National Geographic Channels, Channel 5 and WNET. Narrator is Liev Schreiber.Writer/producer/editor is Andy Webb. Executive producer for Blink Films is Dan Chambers. Executive producers for WNET are Jared Lipworth and William R. Grant.
It’s pity that people are so terrified (rationally or irrationally) of atomic and hydrogen bombs. If they had incorporated them into a spacecraft known as Orion in the early 1960’s, we’d have already visited all the planets in the solar system with manned missions and we’d no doubt have a base on the Moon. Instead, we are stuck with rockets not much more advanced than the ones the Chinese used for warfare 1000 years ago.
Richard, you need to a little more research, and at the same time you brought up agood subject for “Secret’s of the dead” to possibly look into, especialy in light of the Fufushima contaminatin that’s been spread around the world. A suggestion for a title is the “The Folley of all thing’s nuclear”, the producer’s could look into the, portable, or neighbourhood nuclear power plant’s,like the test unit, Sl-1,that was in Idaho and during maintenance it had a criticality and killed 3 young service men Nov.29 1961.That site is closed off for quite some distance, and will be, pretty much for,, ever.!That same 3mw reactor was the “heart” for an air cooled nuclear jet engine that was actualy taken aloft ( did’nt know that huh?) strapped to the botton of a B-29.
Getting back to the “Orion”, nuclear rocket, it would have needed in the order of 200, various strength nuclear detonation’s, the larger being the first few, until it got further from earth, in order for the 400ton steel capsule to get escape velocity. The fallout from one launch would have excceeded Fukushima ( not by much).If onlythe public were truly made aware of how many cancer’s, child lukeimea’s were and will be caused by nuclear power.
Remeber Dr. Helen Caulicott, she recently anounced at a Montreal press confrence that Chernobyl caused one million premature death’s,how many will die from Fufushima ??
Another anti-nuke screed. Thanks Mikey. Sweaters, solar panels, windmills and unicorns won’t make up the loss of electrical power in the U.S. if we shut nuke power plants down. Read Stewart Brand… and get smarter on the subject.
Richard – thanks for the post.
Another pro-nuke screed. Thanks Jim. Nukes, Oil, Coal and Hot Air from gasbags won’t generate the power we need as long as no one is willing to change the way we live, work and play. Our obsession with all things powered and powerful has already caused our population to become fat, lazy and dependent upon someone or something to do all of our work for us. No one has stated that we should shut down any nukes. But stating facts will just get some folks upset and resort to name-calling, so I’ll keep my facts short and sweet. Coal, Oil, gas will all eventually run out. Nukes might last forever, but so will the waste produced by them, and we’ll eventually run out of room to store that. Therefore, it just makes sense if we intend to survive, to start looking at alternatives and gradually bring those online. The technologies already exist to reduce our dependence upon fossil fuels. They are just expensive comparatively. But removing subsidies from fossils and giving those to new energy alternatives would begin to level the playing field somewhat.
Nuclear energy to sustain our need for energy can be understandable pershaps…but is no one else concerned about nuclear technology used to build bombs that can devastate entire regions of the world and eventually engulf the world itself??? What a terrible thing that man has discovered!
In response to Abraham, just read or reread ON THE BEACH by Neviil Schutte to see how long the results of such bombs have been understood. Jus .t because gunpowder burns and explodes we have not used it to heat homes or power rockets except in science fiction. Some energy sources make no sense when the consequences are faced. Of course a world filled with nuclear reactors, cars, planes, and rockets would be perfect in science fiction. Oh, that was written nearly 100 years ago
The summary contains a couple inaccuracies.
Castle Bravo was not the first US hydrogen bomb; it was the first to use dry fuel, lithium deuteride, instead of the liquid deuterium and tritium used in earlier fusion devices. The run-away of the explosion was due to a previously unknown reaction of the lithium that resulted in more thermonuclear fuel becoming available.
The Soviet Union’s largest test explosion was not named Tsar. It was given the nickname Tsar Bomba because of its great size just as a huge cannon was named Tsar Pushka and a giant bell, Tsar Kolokol. Also, the energy release in a thermonuclear device takes quite a bit longer than one nanosecond; the Tsar Bomba explosioin is estimated to have taken 39 nanoseconds. Finally, the Soviet explosion was estimated to have released some 57 megatons of energy.
It is disappointing to see a sloppy inaccuracy in the web history above: this statement from it may be literally true as worded: “On March 1, 1954, the United States exploded its first hydrogen bomb known as ‘Castle Bravo’ at Bikini Atoll” — yes, that was the first (and only) hydrogen bomb with that name. However, the first U.S. hydrogen bomb, named “Mike,” was detonated on 31 Oct. 1952 at Eniwetok (now “Enewetak”) Atoll, as part of Operation Ivy. You can research this on the internet in about 10e9 nanoseconds.
As for energy sources for the U.S., we seem to be disqualifying every possible one. Coal is too dirty. Natural gas is obtained by environmentally damaging hydraulic fracturing. Oil is obtained from dangerous deep-water drilling. Nuclear is unsafe and produces wastes we cannot store properly. Windmills kill birds. Solar isn’t energy dense enough, nor is it near where energy is used. It is also intermittent. Fusion is a pipe dream. And so on. America, we have a problem.
Eisenhower had the good sense to nix things like nuclear-powered aircraft over 50 years ago, but here we have people like “Richard” (who when he wrote his screed _could not_ have seen the PBS special , since it premiered on May 17th) advocating nuclear powered spacecraft as if merely adding thermonuclear propulsion would magically solve problems of radiation exposure (cosmic and solar, not propulsive) in space, or problems of the psychology of months or years in extreme confinement or problems or _returning_ people to Earth or problems of keeping them alive at their destination.
The sheer power of staggering ignorance displayed by mind-numbingly ill-informed right-wing war lovers. Pathetic.
How can I see the credits? Why was the program abruptly cut, then a promotional for upcoming program & then back to credtis that were run at too fast a speed to catch. Was watching on Mt. Lake Television. Thanks
Just watched this…It’s amazing to learn how the scientists of these life destroyers turned against what they once believed to be the greatest thing..the race to the biggest bomb! I wouldn’t doubt that our military forces are harboring some sort of weapon of all weapons of mass destruction..things like this never really stop now that it’s been tested..how many more people are we going to displace for the sake of testing? how many more lives are going to be ruined? Why do others think this okay? to put out others? to be FIRST? It’s disheartening.
And today we worry about global climate change? Al Gore did you watch this program?
For more information on the Soviet bomb, read Richard Lourie’s “Sakharov, A Biography.”
Nuclear weapons are responsible for a large portion our national debt. The cost of developing, maintaining, testing, destroying, deploying, and cleaning up after nukes has been shown to have cost $5.5 trillion ($8 trillion AGI for 2011) up to 1996. They will continue to cost taxpayers as the government cleans up Hanford and pays reparations to those affected by testing. Additionally, Obama is increasing spending on nukes by $20 billion.
All this money, for what? So our government could experiment with weapons of mass destruction on a civilian population and kill several hundred thousand civilians in the process? So our government could lie to and displace native Pacific islanders? So our government could create the biggest environmental disaster in the country (the Hanford Site) that polluted Native American hunting grounds? So the government could lie to its people and create the nation’s first black budget, which violated the constitution?
Nuclear weapons are bad, but government is evil.
Nuclear power is bad, unless you compare it to coal. Top of the food chain fish contain potentially unsafe levels of mercury from coal regardless of where on the planet they come from. A study in the 1980s found that electric cars in California would result in clearer air, but electric car in the East would result in more air pollution because the electricity would come from coal not oil and natural gas as in California.
At this time, we do not have a solution to energy supplies and we cannot exist without it. If the US changed it’s housing patterns to that of Europe the US could reduce it’s per capita energy usage to resemble Europe’s. The change would require considerable time of the order of 50 years to make an impact because the half life of housing is at least 50 years. Even if this were done, the total energy usage would continue to grow as population growth will overwhelm the savings. We have little choice but to utilize every source of energy we have and strive for greater efficiency. Cost will aways be the discriminator of feasibility.
I worked for many years in NASA both on the manned and unmanned programs. The use of Nuclear weapons for trips to the moon or other planets is unjustifiable because nothing is beneficial enough to send men considering the enormous cost regardless of propulsion. Everything you would like to do in space can be dun much cheeper and probably better roboticly.
Nuclear weapons were initially developed because of the well founded but incorrect belief the Nazi government was also developing them. Once developed they became the preview of the military and politicians, a measure of power of the nations. The scientist by and large realized the futility in using them.
My grandfather was at Operation Castle testings, including but not limited to the Castle Bravo explosion. He had told me that he had been on the USS Sioux, which had carried some of the scientists and the bomb. I have found supporting evidence that his ship had in fact carried scientists, but nothing about the bomb. If I remember correctly, this program stated that the USS Curtiss carried the bomb, but I have not been able to find any information on which ship carried it. I also would like to know how far away each ship was from the blast. If there is anyone who knows this information or can get me in contact with any of the creators of this particular episode I would be incredibly grateful.
PS- My grandfather died a few years ago due to complications from skin and esophagus cancer. Many of his naval comrades who served with him on the USS Sioux have also died from skin cancer.
My DAD, a Navy Veteran, was on a refueler ship at Bikini. Watched the bomb explode, then had to go wash the deck of another ship that we closer to the explosion. He is 84 and sitting in a room, smaller than my cubicle, in a rest home on Medicaid. The VA refuses to acknowledge and list it on his service record that he participated in Operation Crossroads. He suffers from skin cancer, has lesions on his back, that appeared a few weeks after he cleaned the deck of that ship. He has been awarded a citation by the state of Kansas, recognizing him as an Atomic Veteran, yet he can’t qualify for VA disability. We sit in comfort. He can’t even put up the footrest of his chair because his room is so small. At 2 pm, he still hasn’t received his breathing treatment he should have had in the morning, just a small example of hundreds of things he doesn’t get a fair shake at, with all the health issues he had had since then. He paid the price. He washed the decks and was there. I hope you all think about the consequences of what you say and do while remembering that the US Government used these young soldiers as guinea pigs and then won’t even acknowledge their symptoms or put it on their records. Just want y’all to remember that PEOPLE have paid a price for what happened and the US Government has turned its back on them. How many of you visit our aged WWII Vets (Crossroads Guinnea Pigs) that are ignored now, with silenced voices that aren’t heard any more? Have you thanked them for helping you?
Thank you for your program. It is a start. My husband was part of Operation Ivy and the H bomb MIKE. He suffered for many years with hearing loss, memory problems, skin cancer. He told a story of the intense heat. He just died in Jan . of this year. He said his brain had been fried and wanted the VA to fix him and to let others know of the dangers and fears of a nuclear blast. I don’t believe all the information is correct. We lived the cold war and it was a different time. I hope there will more films to let the public understand how the atomic veterans served our country.
In response to Alan, oil will be completely depleted by the end of the century. Natural gas will last longer than oil, but it too will eventually become completely depleted. The world has enough coal reserves to last several centuries. The only problem with coal-fired power stations is that ‘clean coal’ is an oxymoron, there is simply no such thing as clean coal, because combustion of coal produces carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfer dioxide, ozone smog, and small toxic particles commonly known as soot which pollutes the air, harms human health, and greatly contributes to global climate change. Despite the fact that coal-fired power stations are one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions they will continue to produce power in the forseeable future, since there is simply a large abundance of coal. Nuclear power plants, in comparison, are truely an idea which has not intellectualy blossumed yet. If a country like the US created a closed fuel cycle composed of (1) Uranium/Thorium Mining; (2) Uranium/Thorium Milling; (3) Uranium Enrichment/Isotope Seperation (STYLEX); (4) Fuel Fabrication; (5) Nuclear Reactors; (6) Reprocessing Facilities; (7/A) MOX Fuel Fabrication Fabrication; (7/B) Breeder Reactors. The US could possess a nuclear fuel cycle that produces virtually no waste what so ever. The left over actinides could be seperated and isolated and funneled into scientific research or medical treatments (i.e. Iodine – Radiation Cancer Therapy). Remaining nuclear waste could be permanently placed in large salt domes which will naturally encase material in calcium prevening radiation from exiting to the surface.
In response to ‘Cindi’, I would recommend calling your Congressman. They may be able to help out.
[...] makes me think of this: The World?s Biggest Bomb – About This Episode | Secrets of the Dead | PBS The russians once exploded a 50 megaton bomb…like 10,000 of the Hiroshima bombs going off at [...]
Destroy mankind to help mankind ?? Man’s intelligents is of power and money or is it ignorance ??
What is the cost of maintaining, updating and providing security for these necular arsonals. QWhat proporation
THANK GOODNESS THERE ARE SOME AWARE – INTELLIGENT FOLKS STILL AROUND
MY BROTHER WAS ON ENEWETOK ON NOV 1ST- 1952 WHEN THEY EXPLODED THE FIRST
HYDROGEN BOMB…HE WAS RED FLAGGED IN A VET’S HOSPITAL BUT NOT FOR CANCER
HOWEVER HE DID DIE AT62 FROM OTHER AILMENTS….
In response to Cindie and her father’s situation – not only call your Congressman’s Chief of Constituent Affairs, but also both Senators’ Constituent Chiefs. I’m not sure what is in your area, but I would recommend checking with the local Am Legion, DAV, or VFW and enlist their support. Each organization have “experts” to assist in filing claims with the VA.
As far as the show, I went to the Nuke, Bio and Chem warfare school in the 70s and it was the radiation that makes the weapon not practical. The recent show on NOVA about titled “Radioactive Wolves” in the Chernobyl area demostrate the inability to reside downrange from a nuclear fallout area.
Thank you for the good writeup. It in reality used to be a amusement account it. Look complicated to more delivered agreeable from you! By the way, how can we be in contact?
Where was Edward Teller (the father of “The Super”) in this story? My father had skin cancers all his life and died of lung cancer. I know that he went into the WAR late, and helped build air bases for the island hopping B-29’s on their way to Japan. He would NEVER talk about his experiences. Before he died, he gave me a cryptic message, he said I’ve lied to you all these years about what I did in the WAR. It won’t do any good, but I want to find out what that was.
On top of that, my mother found out after the War, that she had worked at the Hanford, Washington plutonium facility during the War. I think her sister worked with her; she died of massive cancer in 1960, and my mother died of cancer years later.