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40 Years Ago, the US Lost a Nuclear Bomb
Hugh Pickens writes "A BBC investigation has found that in 1968 the US abandoned a nuclear weapon beneath the ice in northern Greenland after a nuclear-armed B52 crashed on the ice a few miles from Thule Air Base. The Stratofortress disintegrated on impact with the sea ice and parts of it began to melt through to the fjord below. The high explosives surrounding the four nuclear weapons on board detonated without setting off the nuclear devices, which had not been armed by the crew. The Pentagon maintained that all four weapons had been 'destroyed' and while technically true, investigators piecing together fragments from the crash could only account for three of the weapons. Investigators found that 'something melted through ice such as burning primary or secondary.' A subsequent search by a US submarine was beset by technical problems and, as winter encroached and the ice began to freeze over, the search was abandoned. 'There was disappointment in what you might call a failure to return all of the components,' said a former nuclear weapons designer at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. 'It would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn't find them.'"
Perhaps this can somehow be used to demonstrate that nuclear waste can be safely disposed of in the ocean floor? There have been serious proposals for disposing of waste in holes drilled hundreds of feet beneath the seabed in especially deep water.
I know this is unpopular with the anti-nuclear crowd, but a "real demo" may provide useful data.
John
5 February 1958: An Air Force B-47 Stratojet from Homestead AFB was on a simulated combat mission when the plane collided with an F-86 Sabre near Savannah, Georgia. The B-47 was carrying one Mk 15 hydrogen bomb without its core at the time of the accident. The plane made three unsuccessful landing attempts at Hunter Air Force Base before the weapon was jettisoned over the Atlantic Ocean to avoid the risk of a high explosive detonation at the base. The bomb was dropped several miles from the mouth of the Savannah River in Wassaw Sound off Tybee Island. Though an intensive nine-week search was launched using divers and sonar equipment, the weapon was never found. Another unsuccessful search was mounted in 2001, and reports of radiation detected less than a mile from shore led to speculation of the bomb's discovery in 2004. Further investigation concluded the radioactivity was naturally occurring and the weapon remains missing. http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/weapons/q0268.shtml
Those nuclear bombs stationed outside US borders (and the US nuclear stockpile in general) were probably the only thing keeping the Soviets from rolling their tanks all the way to Paris. And if you think US imperialism is bad, try living under the Soviet version.
- you may believe this, but this is just a bunch of propaganda that was pushed into the throats of the US citizens to make sure they shut the fuck up and only cheer as the US pushed their weaponry into every possible hole in the world.
Stalin was a maniac, that can be said with certainty, however after his death the USSR quickly got away from the idea of 'spreading the communism' onto the rest of the world and just tried to survive in its own planned economy. It was already the biggest country in the world (even now Russia is almost twice as large as the next contender, Canada) and holding onto that territory with hundreds of nations living on it was a challenge in itself, adding more territory with people who had completely different mentality would not work and it was understood.
You can't handle the truth.
Republicans? Last I checked Carter was a Democrat. Half of our unbelievably disasterous foreign policy started with that clown. Not that I have much love for Republicans, but at least let's be honest here. Carter is the one that started the crap in Afghanistan in '79. Reagan continued it, but he didn't start it.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Link The one under the wetlands in NC is probably the most recoverable. All you have to do is move 5-600 tons of sand and silt while keeping the groundwater under control, and hope that the safety shielding hasn't been compromised from impact and exposure. A separate article I can't dig up right now tells the story of the guy that found it (recently, within the last 10 years). He was able to deduce the location by taking and graphing hundreds (thousands?) of radiation measurements. He wrote the air force and they said "No, it's fine where it is."
Yeah sure, forget your founding fathers. Land of the free eh?
Some of the Founding Fathers advocated for a non-interventionist foreign policy free of "entanglements" (Washington). Others (Jefferson) were in favor of an interventionist foreign policy. Trying to paint all of the founding fathers with one broad brush stroke is a mistake.
See, the USA claims it is different, either it lives up to that, or many will ridecule it.
Every Great Power has claimed that it's "different". An objective reading of history will uncover hypocrisy on the part of nearly every nation on this planet, including yours I'd suspect. Are you really that surprised that the United States also engages in it?
War in the rest of the world meant that that trade was being endangered. Sea warfare made it difficult, dangerous and expensive to transport anything anywhere, and as a consequence, the USA had a direct reason to get involved.
I'm sure that was a contributory factor. The sinking of American ships on the high seas and Zimmerman telegram also had something to do with it.
At any rate, to come back to your initial argument that all world powers do it, keep in mind that all world powers also find out at some point that its not true. Usually that comes together with their decline, and often their destruction.
All powers eventually decline. Personally I wouldn't mind seeing my country decline a little bit and focus on the home front instead of the globe. I would want to see another Democracy come forward and assume our place in the World first though -- since that doesn't appear too likely in the next few decades I think we'll have to resign ourselves to our respective roles in the World. You may not like it but ask yourself if you'd really be happier seeing China or Russia in our place.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
All you have to do is move 5-600 tons of sand and silt while keeping the groundwater under control, and hope that the safety shielding hasn't been compromised from impact and exposure.
That would seem to be fairly simple to do now - modern mining techniques will freeze surrounding soft soil with liquid CO2 or N2, then they can dig a tunnel through the now solid soil.
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