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The Tsar Bomb is the single most physically powerful device ever deployed on Earth, the most powerful nuclear bomb tested and the largest man-made explosion in history. For comparison, the largest weapon ever produced by the US, the now-decommissioned
B41, had a predicted maximum yield of 25 Mt (100 PJ). The largest nuclear device ever tested by the US yielded 15 Mt (63 PJ) because of an unexpectedly-high involvement of
lithium-7 in the fusion reaction; the preliminary prediction for the yield was from 4 to 6 Mt (17 to 25 PJ). The largest weapons deployed by the Soviet Union were also around 25 Mt (100 PJ)
The weight and size of the Tsar Bomb limited the range and speed of the specially-modified bomber carrying it. Delivery by an
intercontinental ballistic missile would have required a much stronger missile (the
Proton started its development as that delivery system). It has been estimated that detonating the original 100 Mt design would have released fallout amounting to about 26% of all fallout emitted since the invention of nuclear weapons.
[63] It was decided that a full 100 Mt detonation would create a nuclear fallout that was unacceptable in terms of pollution from a single test, as well as a near-certainty that the release plane and crew would be destroyed before it could escape the blast radius.
[64]
The Tsar Bomba was the culmination of a series of high-yield
thermonuclear weapons designed by the Soviet Union and the United States during the 1950s (e.g., the
Mark 17[65] and B41 nuclear bombs).
[2]
Practical applications
Tsar Bomba was never a practical weapon; it was a single product, the design of which allowed reaching a power of 100 Mt TE. The test of a 50-Mt bomb was, among other things, a test of the performance of the product design for 100 Mt.[23] The bomb was intended exclusively to exert psychological pressure on the United States.[20]
