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The true story of the superpower race to build a super bomb is an epic of science and engineering where the United States led the way - but then left the field clear for the Soviet Union to set off the world’s biggest ever explosion, on October 30 1961. By drawing on remarkable first-hand testimony and by carrying out a scientific forensic investigation this documentary reveals for the first time the real reasons why the United States misjudged the potential power behind their early hydrogen bomb tests resulting in severe radioactive contamination spreading over nearby inhabited islands and with new meteorological analyses available this documentary examines for the first time the weather conditions surrounding the detonation of the world’s biggest bomb and can now reveal the true extent of the fallout from the world’s biggest explosion.