When the teams from BARC and DRDO replayed the tapes of the thermonuclear blast at Pokhran after they got back from Ground Zero, there was a further puzzled silence from Chidambaram and his team. The video showed the shaft intact. All that had happened was that the concrete casing that had been used to seal the shaft after it had been filled with sand had blown off. The video showed sand and mud being kicked feebly into the air. The mystery was all the more deep as that shaft had been configured for a fission blast and was not made any deeper. It is all the more strange considering that Raj Chengappa, who was given access to the dramatis personae (Chidambaram, Kalam, Sikka, Santhanam) and whose account (Weapons of Peace: The Secret Story of India’s Quest to be a Nuclear Power, HarperCollins, 2000) is thus far undisputed by the Establishment, notes that the decision to explode the three devices together was taken (pages 425-426) because it was “felt that the impact of the hydrogen bomb to be lowered into the “White House” may damage the other two shafts — Taj Mahal (for the atomic device) and Kumbakharan (sub kiloton device).” And here, as they stared at the replay, it was obvious that the thermonuclear device, three times as powerful as the fission device, powerful enough to destroy Hiroshima three times over, had left even most of the shaft in which it was buried almost entirely intact.
Whatever happened to the millions of degrees of centigrade of heat Chidambaram had so graphically described, which would exert so much pressure that a crater would be formed (See “The Real Pokhran Story”, October 3)? By that count the crater ought to have been thrice as big as the one formed by the fission device in the first shaft. Could there be any explanation other than the fact that the device was a dud? Worse, Chidambaram, who firmly believed that it was not necessary to conduct any test outside computer simulation, had made no fallback option for additional testing (but that’s another story).
To save the situation, Chidambaram apparently tried to do some impromptu theorising.
He began to suggest that maybe there was some fault that ran under the shaft that had absorbed the brunt of the explosion. His other colleagues, uncomfortable with this glib theorising did not allow him to continue, suggesting, gently, they should take a harder look at the data before they formed an opinion.
Now, of course, Chidambaram sings another tune. He now claims that, “The surface feature produced at Ground Zero depends on the depth of burial and the rock medium around the shot point and the rock medium between the shot point and the ground. These were all different for the two device tests. The fission device was emplaced in rhyolite medium. The medium for the Pokhran-I test was shale and sandstone.
The geology in the Pokhran region is inhomogenous.
The propagation of the shock wave is affected by every interface. 3-D simulation calculations of the rock mechanical effects done by BARC scientists, after considering all these factors, accounted for the observed effects in the thermonuclear test.” Translated into English it would mean that Chidambaram wants us to believe that geology in Pokhran is such that at a distance of only 3,280.84 feet (one kilometre) a device three times as powerful would not make any impact on the surface because there was granite, not rhyolite or shale and sandstone, around it and just because it was buried fifty metres deeper.
It can be argued that granite, being harder, conducts shockwaves much better and produces more accurate readings. Does Chidambaram’s claim make any sense? Moreover, scientists who have participated in underground nuclear tests say that when shafts are dug they try to make sure that they will not be destroyed by an explosion in another shaft in the vicinity. A scientist as sure as Chidambaram is that there is no need to conduct thermonuclear tests should have had the courage of his convictions to test the thermonuclear device alone, giving a gap of, say, five minutes after the fission explosion before testing it. That way the readings would have been crystal clear and there would have been no ambiguity over the success (or failure in this case) of the test.
Here he gave a cock and bull explanation that there was a good chance the device might destroy the other shafts, and therefore the tests were better done simultaneously. When the explosion leaves even the thermonuclear shaft largely untouched Chidambaram comes up with disingenuous and lame post facto rationalisations.
Obviously he had no idea how his thermonuclear weapon would behave. It can thus be argued that Chidambaram wanted to conduct simultaneous explosions so he could obfuscate the data in case the test failed. The test failed. So it looks suspiciously like he is back to mumbo jumbo cover-ups including 3-D computer simulation of rock mechanical effects after he couldn’t find a suitable explanation of his failure. Obviously Chidambaram’s dud thermonuclear bomb is unfit even for low grade (pink) granite quarrying.
Immediately after Pokhran 1 the depth of the shaft was revealed to be 107 metres. Why is Chidambaram silent on how deep the White House shaft was? Further, the cratering of Pokhran 1 and that of the fission weapon are similar and on expected lines even though they were placed in different mediums. Where does that leave Chidambaram’s argument that the cratering depends on the depth as well as the medium a nuclear device is placed in? Chengappa clearly says that the scientists were worried when they saw no nuclear explosion signatures in the White House shaft site (page 431). Who, then, were “some of the scientists (who) looked worried”? Was A P J Abdul Kalam among them? Certainly, his silence at that moment is most curious.
It is in inverse proportion to the decibel level he hits now, shouting that the device did not fail. If he was confident then, he did not show it. Probably because Kalam is no stranger to failure. After Kalam was put in charge of India’s missile programme he learnt the hard way that the path to success is always paved with failure. Thus, while Kalam was project director, the SLV3 in 1979 tumbled into the Bay of Bengal. On February 22, 1988, the first launch of the Prithvi failed.
When Rajiv Gandhi visited the Defence Research and Development Laboratory on August 3, 1988 to witness the indoor testing of Trishul’s motor, much to Kalam’s embarrassment it was a failure. Rajiv apparently told Kalam: “I think your rocket motor has just exploded.” On April 19, 1989, Agni’s launch was aborted following a glitch. The second attempt on May 1 had to be aborted again. In November 1989, according to Chengappa, (page 361), “Prithvi’s subsequent flights had a fair share of goof-ups. Prithvi’s second launch in November 1989 took off well but in the terminal phase rolled uncontrollably and missed the target by several kilometers….In mid 1990 the missile was still far from ready. (page 362). Prithvi’s eighth test saw the missile go up barely a kilometre before coming down like a corkscrew and bursting into flames.” On May 29, 1992, when Agni was launched, “within the first minute after the lift-off ” on the giant monitor screen the scientists “saw the missile break up into two and explode.” (Page 372).
This reporter could go on but this is sufficient to illustrate that Kalam who presided over many, many failures, was applying an entirely different yardstick when it came to Chidambaram’s obviously dud thermonuclear experiment. Here was a situation where Kalam’s own Delta team had deep doubts over the success of the test and all Kalam did was listen thoughtfully all the while backing Chidambaram.
(Maybe Gujral should have given Chidambaram the Bharat Ratna, after all).
The preliminary readings clearly indicated that there had been no explosion of the kind that had been discussed and anticipated by Chidambaram and his team. The ground motion instruments did not pick up readings commensurate with a 45 kilotonne yield. The DRDO team wanted to be doubly sure so they took the time to check and double check before they made their case.
The DRDO team numbered about sixty at the site. The ballistics division, which was involved in the analysis, numbered about thirty.
A core group of about half a dozen prepared the draft, which was reviewed a number of times. To Kalam’s credit he did not hinder this process of review. That he took the side of Chidambaram in is thus all the more inexplicable, considering that the review clearly showed the test had failed. With this, one thing is sure about our deterrence as envisaged by the logic of the thermonuclear bomb: we do not have it.
To think that Chidambaram is science adviser to our Prime Minister. How cute is that?
The answer is the Govt asked him to support the BARC team, and Kalam agreed, because if the man has always been the obedient silent sort. Its ironic that when it comes to himself, he maintains the highest standards, and even with his own team, but when it came to "partners" from BARC he was willing to give them the fig leaf of cover. Something the other BARC people - Santhanam etc would not do.
ReplyDelete