Death Star
Although details, such as the superlaser's location, shifted between different concept models during production of "Star Wars", the notion of the Death Star being a large, spherical space station over 100 kilometers in diameter was consistent in all of them. George Lucas gave the original task of designing a "Death Star" to concept artist and spaceship modeler Colin Cantwell, who had collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the 1968 film "". In a 2016 interview, Cantwell related that "I didn't originally plan for the Death Star to have a trench, but when I was working with the mold, I noticed the two halves had shrunk at the point where they met across the middle." As it "would have taken a week of work just to fill and sand and refill this depression," Cantwell suggested a trench to Lucas to save the labor. Lucas liked the idea, and the Death Star model was created by John Stears. The buzzing sound counting down to the Death Star firing its superlaser comes from the "Flash Gordon" serials. Portraying an incomplete yet powerful space station posed a problem for Industrial Light & Magic's modelmakers for "Return of the Jedi". Only the front side of the 137-centimeter model was completed, and the image was flipped horizontally for the final film. Both Death Stars were depicted by a combination of complete and sectional models and matte paintings.
Tsar Bomba
The bomb, weighing 27 metric tons, was so large ( long by in diameter) that the Tu-95V had to have its bomb bay doors and fuselage fuel tanks removed (it is also larger than what the original layouts would suggest). The bomb was attached to an 800-kilogram, 1600-square meter parachute, which gave the release and observer planes time to fly about away from ground zero, giving them a 50 percent chance of survival. The bomb was released two hours after takeoff from a height of 10,500 m (34,500 ft) on a test target within Sukhoy Nos. The Tsar Bomba detonated at 11:32 (or 11:33) Moscow Time on 30 October 1961, over the Mityushikha Bay nuclear testing range (Sukhoy Nos Zone C), north of the Arctic Circle over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, at a height of 4,200 m ASL (4000 m above the target) (some sources suggest 3,900 m ASL and 3,700 m above target, or 4,500 m). By this time the Tu-95V had already escaped to 39 km away, and the Tu-16 53.5 km away. When detonation occurred, the shock wave caught up with the Tu-95V at a distance of 115 km and the Tu-16 at 205 km, and the Tu-95V dropped one kilometer in the air because of the shock wave but was able to recover and land safely. According to initial data, the Tsar Bomba had a nuclear yield of 58.6 megatons (significantly exceeding what the design itself would suggest), and was overestimated at values all the way up to 75 megatons.