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DoD Report On 32 "Nuclear Accidents"
natebjones writes "Remember the time the US Air Force accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb on a family in South Carolina? [This DoD report lists] that and 31 other nuclear accidents including: nuclear bombs inadvertently falling through bomb bay doors; the accidental firing of a retrorocket on an ICBM; the vast dispersal of radioactive debris; and the loss of enriched fissile material and nuclear bombs (which are 'still out there somewhere')."
Where they can do no harm, until they do.
It's pretty hard to split an atom, which is why we poured billions into learning how during the Manhattan Project.
True enough that there are way more ways for an accident to not result in a full detonation than to do so. But the above statement is a bit misleading: thanks to the Manhattan project, we now have devices lying around that are designed to split atoms. (Itself, not difficult. Nature does it every second of every day.) Comparing the probability of an accident yielding a nuclear explosion to the pre-Manhattan odds is dubious.
Whereas the leftover warheads from the former USSR........well, they're not lost, I'm sure that former officials in Russia know exactly who they sold them to.
The conclusion at the end was pretty ignorant.
This small sampling of harrowing accounts clearly chinks the counter-intuitive and commonly argued position that nuclear weapons actually make the world a safer place. It reminds us that the shattering blast and fiery rain of a nuclear detonation may not occur because of war, terrorism, or miscalculation, but rather, because of something more common: an "accident."
Nuclear deterrence / M.A.D. theory has never been proposed as a way to prevent "A" individual nuclear detonation, so the article claiming that they've somehow proven it is not exactly insightful. However, it is a very reasonable and successful way to prevent "ALL" nukes from detonating aka full out total nuclear strategic warfare WWIII.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Yes, there may be no detonation, but even a low-level atomic weapon having its high explosives going off is good enough to irradiate a good-sized area. Now imagine the impact of that weapon that set off it's high explosives, in mid-air, over a large metropolis. Dirty bombs are just as much of a pain in the ass. The destruction isn't wide spread, but you're still not going to want to live there. Actually, in the end, the economic and social damage may even be greater in the long run.
Now imagine the impact of that weapon that set off it's high explosives, in mid-air, over a large metropolis.
The public knee-jerk panic over anything with the word "nuclear" would be far more dangerous than the actual radiological release. Pu-239 has a long half life, low rate of spontaneous fission and breaks down via alpha decay. It's actually more dangerous with regards to metal toxicity than with regards to radioactivity. You can hold Pu-239 in your hands with no ill effects.
There are much more effective isotopes to use in a dirty bomb than weapons grade plutonium.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
In other news, aliens with advanced weaponry might invade the earth tomorrow, and that would be a real game changer. So we need to start working on a counteroffensive NOW!
What you're missing with all your melodrama is that nobody is saying it would be impossible for rogues or terrorists to get a nuclear-capable device. But if it happens, it's not likely to be one that was the object of the largest search effort for a man-made device ever in the history of the world that still failed to find it. And these nukes aren't so special. Your hypothetical terrorists don't need to find these particular devices, because there are easier ways to get their hands on some other nuclear device. Nobody needs to plan specifically for the contingency that some terrorists find this particular nuclear device. They just need to plan for the general contingency that terrorists find some kind of nuclear device. A terrorist finding these particular devices is not a black swan event, because it would be no different from a terrorist getting a nuclear device via more reasonable means. And I don't even think a terrorist finding a nuclear device is a black swan event. Everybody is aware that the risk is there, and everybody is aware that it would be a really big deal. That's why there's a lot of time and effort directed at avoiding that very thing.
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