NOTE: This particular film is only available in SD quality.
This reel of film shows Soviet atomic bomb tests. It starts with RDS-6s (:07), known in the West as Joe 4. (The Soviet warhead name RDS-6s meaning “Reaktivnyi Dvigatel Specialnyi” or “Special Jet Engine”) was an American nickname for the first Soviet test of a thermonuclear weapon on August 12, 1953, that detonated with a force equivalent to 400 kilotons of TNT. Scholars dispute the authenticity of RDS-6 as a thermonuclear device as it did not manage to produce a yield consistent with a true hydrogen bomb. It utilized a scheme in which fission and fusion fuel (lithium-6 deuteride) were “layered”, a design known as the Sloika (Russian: Слойка, named after a type of layered puff pastry) model in the Soviet Union. A ten-fold increase in explosive power was achieved by a combination of fusion energy and neutron-initiated (“boosted”) fission. A similar design was earlier theorized by Edward Teller, but never tested in the U.S., as the “Alarm Clock”.
At 5:53 the Joe 25 test is shown, dating from September 2, 1956, including at 6:13 images of the bomb being loaded aboard an aircraft for the test. The test occurred at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan and had a 51kt yield. The Semipalatinsk Test Site (STS or Semipalatinsk-21), also known as “The Polygon”, was the primary testing venue for the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons. It is located on the steppe in northeast Kazakhstan (then the Kazakh SSR), south of the valley of the Irtysh River. The scientific buildings for the test site were located around 150 km (93 mi) west of the town of Semipalatinsk (later renamed Semey), near the border of East Kazakhstan Region and Pavlodar Region with most of the nuclear tests taking place at various sites further to the west and south, some as far as into Karagandy Region.
The Soviet Union conducted 456 nuclear tests at Semipalatinsk from 1949 until 1989 with little regard for their effect on the local people or environment. The full impact of radiation exposure was hidden for many years by Soviet authorities and has only come to light since the test site closed in 1991. Since its closure, the STS has become the best-researched atomic testing site in the world, and the only one in the world open to the public.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
