062 How It Works
HISTORY
A fter the US had detonated its hydrogen bomb
in Eniwetok Atoll, a chain of islands in the
Pacific, it only took the USSR a year to test its own
hydrogen creation, presenting the very real
threat of globally destructive nuclear warfare. As
political tension grew bet ween the t wo nations
during the Cold War, the conflict reached a
boiling point in what is now know n as the Cuban
Missile Crisis of 1962.
In a 13-day standoff bet ween the US and the
USSR, the world held its breath after the US
discovered that the USSR had been building and
storing nuclear weapons in Cuba, just 145
kilometres from Florida. Creating ablockade
around the island, the US preventedmilitar y
supplies from entering the countr yinhopesof
starving USSR nuclear supplies to Cuba.Thisact
of quarantining Cuba was seen as anactof
aggression by the USSR, and diplomatic
resolution appeared to be unachievable.
However, much to everyone’s surprisea
resolution was found after A merica
threatened to invade Cuba, and theUSSR
retreated from the island. It later
came to light that the USSR’s
retreat came with a
condition: that the US
would remove its
nuclear arsenal
from Turkey. The
two nations
constructed a
doctrine called
mutual assured
destruction, in
which both nations
recognised that if one
launched missiles against
the other, the retaliation
wouldleadtobothcountriessufferingterrible
nuclearfallout.
ByJuly 1968 theTreatyontheNon-
ProliferationofNuclearWeaponswassignedby
theUS,theSov ietsandtheBritish.Thetreat y
soughttopreventanycountr ywithout
nuclearweaponsatthetimefrom
developingthem.Intheyearsthat
followed,severalnucleartreaties
bet weentheUSandtheSov iet
Unionweresigned,suchas
theStrategicA rms
LimitationTalks(SALTI)
andSALTII,toease
tensionsbetweenthem
andlimitproductionof
nuclearweapons.THE UK BOMBS
AUSTRALIA
Between 1952 and 1963 the United Kingdom carried out
a series of nuclear tests on the arid continent of
Australia, with the government’s permission. Carried
out over three locations – the Montebello Islands, Emu
Field and Maralinga – 12 major nuclear bomb tests with
a yield ranging from 1.4 to 98 kilotons were detonated.
In the years that followed, the British made efforts to
clean up their nuclear mess. In 1967 ‘Operation Brumby’
removed and buried waste and debris in the hope of
diluting the UK’s radioactive residue. However, despite
its best efforts, 60 years on the land has still not
completely recovered, and wildlife has still not returned
to these contaminated areas.
Maralinga
1956:12.9,1.4,2.9,10.8kilotons
1957:0.93,5.7,26.6kilotonsEmuField
MontebelloIslands 1953:9.1and7.1kilotons1952: (^25) kilotons
1956: 16 and (^98) kilotons
BUILDING
THE A-BOMB
The Manhattan Project changed the
course of history forever, ultimately
leading to the death of hundreds of
thousands of people. After the discovery
of nuclear fission by German scientists
Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann in 1938,
fears grew in the US that Nazi Germany
may be able to develop the first atomic
bomb. To beat the Germans to the punch,
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt
assembled a team of scientists and
military experts, known as the Uranium
Committee, to evaluate the use of
nuclear fission and become the first
nation to weaponise the newfound
science. Having deduced its potential for
the creation of a new type of bomb, the
Manhattan Project was formed in 1942,
named after the location of the office
headquarters. Three years later the
project bore its first explosive fruit, the
‘Gadget’ plutonium bomb, an invention
that led to the nuclear arms race.
The ‘Gadget’ was a plutonium device, similar in
design to the Fat Man bomb that was later
dropped on Nagasaki, Japan
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Autunite can be used as
an ore of uranium
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The Americans’ first full-scale hydrogen
bomb was detonated in 1952
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