Soviet Nuclear Technoscience

Abstract

Topography of the field and new avenues of research In 1904, Frederick Soddy, who would later receive the Nobel Prize for his seminal studies in radiochemistry, speculated that the "new alchemists" who had unlocked the awe-inspiring power of the atom would "turn wastelands green, melt the polar ice caps, and transform the planet into a friendly Garden of Eden." But he also predicted that the state to possess the first viable atomic weapon would achieve world domination. 1 The significance of nuclear technology, at once promising and terrible, shaped the following decades as the Atomic Age dawned. In 1972, the Soviet nuclear physicist and Nobel laureate Petr Kapitsa observed that modern science now had the ability "not only to annihilate but also to stimulate life at a global scale." 2

The Soviet Nuclear Archipelago

“…10 Klaus Gestwa, Stefan Guth, and Roman Khandozhko, for their parts, elaborated on what they call Soviet nuclear technopolitics and technoscience. 11 The spread of Soviet nuclear technology to Finland and Central Europe is another theme that has attracted ample scholarly attention. 12 Some scholars have widened the analysis from nuclear reactors to the nuclear fuel cycle, which is where the civilian and military parts of nuclear engineering tend to interact most dynamically.…”