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Thermonuclear Milestones: (3) The Race Accelerates

NOV 01, 1996
The Soviet thermonuclear program moved into high gear in 1950. What conclusions can be drawn from the program’s successes in 1953 and 1955?
German A. Goncharov

No more than four days after President Harry Truman’s January 1950 directive to continue US work on the superbomb, the problem of “measures to ensure the progress of RDS‐6” was discussed in the USSR at a meeting of the Special Committee. On 26 February, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a resolution that commissioned the First Central Administration at the Council of Ministers, Laboratory No. 2 of the Academy of Sciences, and KB‐11 to organize analytical‐theoretical, experimental and design operations on the construction of devices RDS‐6s (Sloika, the Layer Cake) and RDS‐6t (Truba, the Tube). (See the preceding article for descriptions of these thermonuclear bomb designs.)

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More about the authors

German A. Goncharov, Russian Federal Nuclear Center—All‐Russian Scientific‐Research Institute of Experimental Physics (RFYaTs‐VNIIEF).

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This Content Appeared In
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Volume 49, Number 11

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