Nuclear Arms Race!

By Adam Damon and Grant Patrizio

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

• August 6, 1945• Fission bombs• Developed in Americans’

Manhattan Project• Intimidation against Soviets

F i s s i o n ! ! !

• Unstable heavy isotope (U-235, Pu-239) bombarded by neutrons

• Nuclei of atoms are split, creating lighter elements, and…– More neutrons, creating a

chain reaction– Energy with each split, in the

form of HEAT!!!

Fission.mov

Stalin Bluffs… How typical

• Stalin pretended he didn’t care about US nuclear weapons

• Secretly worked on own nuclear weapons– Uranium mines from Eastern Europe and

domestic mines– Massive funding to physicists– Spies

See, what’d I tell you?

““Joe 1”Joe 1”

And they’re off!

• Soviets detonate first fission bomb Soviets detonate first fission bomb August 9, 1949August 9, 1949–Almost identical to Fat ManAlmost identical to Fat Man

• Both nations want to be superior Both nations want to be superior through nuclear weapons – More through nuclear weapons – More POWERFUL!!!POWERFUL!!!

• Competition starts!Competition starts!

Behold… The Power of HYDROGEN FUSION!!!HYDROGEN FUSION!!!

• Both the US and USSR wanted to build Both the US and USSR wanted to build something more destructivesomething more destructive

• US detonated first hydrogen bomb US detonated first hydrogen bomb November 1, 1952November 1, 1952

• Soviets followed with their own in August Soviets followed with their own in August 19531953

Hydrogen Bombs!

• A fission bomb compresses fusion fuel with gamma radiation

• Fusion fuel: Tritium,(3H) and Deuterium (H2)

• Fuses together from compression: helium

• 10’s of millions of degrees of heat

Fusion.mov

What now?

• The US wanted better delivery methods of bombs– Jet-powered bombers: B-47 and B-52 in early

50’s

The Soviets are Clever• Deploy bombs using missiles

• ICBM’s – InterContinental Ballistic Missiles

– Travel long distances, deliver nuclear warheads to anywhere in world

– First revealed in delivery of Sputnik in 1957

– US builds their own (duh!) in 1959

• Atlas, used in space missions

Nuclear Submarines?

• 1955: Soviets launch first SLBM, submarine-launched ballistic missile, from a diesel-electric submarine

• Improves mobility and accuracy of missiles

• US Polaris submarines– 16 nuclear missiles, each with 4

warheads

• Another way to fight that is not actually used

Uh-oh…We’re Scared!

• Large radar arrays to detect missiles and bombers

• Underground bunkers and fallout shelters– Not actually effective

Mutually Assured

Destruction• Both superpowers knew it would be suicide to attack the other, so neither actually attacked!!!

Cuban Missile Crisis!

• October, 1962: Soviets try to readjust power against the US by stationing nuclear missiles in Cuba (Communist)

• Close enough to US coast that major cities were in danger

What does the US do?

• President John F. Kennedy decides to impose a quarantine on Cuba, so no more weapons will get in

• Brinkmanship: the US is ready to invade Cuba if the Soviet Union doesn’t get the missiles out

What does the Soviet Union do?

• Very difficult decision!

• A few days later, the Soviet Union agreed to remove their missiles if the US didn’t invade Cuba and if they would remove missiles from Turkey

• No more risky business!

Détente = Peace

• Economic problems in the Soviet Union from weapons

• Vietnam War costs in the US

• Both Richard Nixon and Leonard Brezhnev wanted to end the war

• Practical, outright negotiations with each other

• Cold war tensions dropped

Time for agreements!

• SALT I: Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

• Soviet Union and US met November 1969 to May 1972 in Helsinki, Finland and Vienna, Germany– Froze the number of ICBM’s and SLBM’s in

each country – Limited the number of ABM Systems in each

nation

More Agreements

• SALT II• Soviet Union and US agreed to limit the

number of total ballistic missile launchers on June 28, 1979

• Balance of power!

Star Wars!• Ronald Reagan isn’t happy with détente

• Anti-communism drives his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), to protect the US against Soviet missiles– A space-based anti-ballistic missile system– Many Soviet negotiations reducing nuclear

weapons were rejected because of plan

• Never happened

The End!Thanks for your kind attention.