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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')."
It ain't so new, and it ain't so clear.
Free Martian Whores!
... while "nuclear weapons accident" sounds scary, it almost always involves a malfunction or mistake that can't set off a detonation. It's pretty hard to split an atom, which is why we poured billions into learning how during the Manhattan Project. Tom Clancy's book The Sum of All Fears had a scenario where terrorists acquired an Israeli warhead lost in the desert during the 1973 war. But almost all of the "lost" warheads from USAF are in the ocean, where they can do no harm.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
It's specifically a list of accidents with nuclear weapons, not just any old nuclear accidents. (Just mentioning that since there are some of those in the military as well. For example the SL-1 which is notable since it killed 3 people, including one guy who got accidently nailed to the ceiling.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
right, because no one would bother looking for them
you lack imagination. plenty of other people don't lack imagination, and plenty of them mean you harm. so make up for your imagination gap, or you will someday suffer for it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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
" the accidental firing of a retrorocket on an ICBM;" You use retro rockets to de orbit. ICBMs don't go into orbit they use a ballistic trajectory.
I would like to know more details about that little comment.
Frankly this is a big so what. None of the listed accidents are new and I think they are all in the Wikipedia and have been listed for years.
They left out the Titan II explosion in the 80s that blew a multi mega warhead a good distance from the silo and caused the Air Force to retire the Titan II.
Hey on the bright side in the 50s and 60s every major US city was ringed with Nike SAM sites and some of them had nuclear warheads on them. They have all been retired for a good long while.
This is so not news it is at best a badly written history lesson. Actually it is nothing but political diatribe on how evil nuclear weapons are. Frankly this should be pushed to the politics page or just not on Slashdot since it tells us nothing new. Heck the freaking learning channel covered this a few years ago.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Not really nuclear accidents. Nuke Weapons have a ridiculous amount of safeguards and settings needed to happen to actually go off. So it is impossible for a true nuclear weapon accidents. Maybe call em' accidents that involved nuclear weapons. any other phrase is alarmism
The biggest nuclear disaster was the movie with John Travolta, Christian Slater, and that hot chick. Man, that movie stunk. Howie Long saying "You da man!" could wipe out an entire town.
"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach
you have no imagination
just because something is difficult or improbable, doesn't mean it won't get done. in fact, it is improbable events, with major implications, that pretty much define the whole game. from politics, to economics, to military campaigns, to history itself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory
the point is this: don't worry about every improbable event, but DO worry about improbable events that radically change the game. some improbable events have extremely huge consequences. know them. make contingencies around them. good military intelligence is all about their analysis
our entire historical narrative is pretty much a litany of black swans. from the assassination of the archduke of austria to the collapse of lehman brothers: we talk about these historical events as inevitable. but thats all argument after the fact, hindsight, that's easy. however, shortly before lehman's collapse, or franz ferdinand's little trip to sarajevo, no one was seriously predicting anything remotely like what was about to happen, and yet these events changed absolutely everything
so you worry about the black swans. you worry about nukes sitting on the seabed that "nobody" will find
the black swans control your fate, my fate, the fate of the entire world
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
and by "chile" I meant "chilean food", not "chilli"
Wow, you must have been really hungary.
Ezekiel 23:20
I'm sure most people here have heard about the Documentaries made by Peter Kuran, but in case you have not, I suggest watching this movie http://www.vce.com/nuc911.html (Nuclear 911) about nuclear weapons accidents, and also the other films from the same director. All of them have superb scenes and music.
www.meneguzzi.eu/felipe
gee, that's funny, since that's part of my point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludic_fallacy
so, to summarize, you regurgitate part of my point back at me, as if you are refuting me
Kid, I've browsed from one side of this Internet to the other.
thanks for the patronization, dad. but apparently you haven't been around enough to even coherently understand and refute what i'm fucking saying in the first place. if i may be so patronizing as you, i think you need to see more sides of the internet, kid
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Several people on this discussion, including LWATCDR and Sanat, make very good points; this is really Old News.
I was a program manager at The Directorate of Nuclear Surety (now AFSC/SEWA) for three years. While there, I read the reports on all of these accidents.
In my personal opinion (NOT the opinion of the DoD or USAF), Nuclear Surety is astronomically better with modern weapons than with those prior to the early 1960s. This is mainly due to better technology such as; one-point safe designs, Permissive Action Links (events in the Jimuh Carter years notwithstanding), modern initiator explosives, Environmental Sensing Devices, and vastly improved computer modelling techniques. Not to mention some fiendishly clever engineering tricks employed in the physics packages of modern designs.
Also, as better technology became available, the DoD employed better procedures and tactics. An example of this is the USAF abandonment of Airborne for Ground Alert in the early '60s.
A few good books pertaining to this subject are;
Chuck Hansen's U.S. Nuclear Weapons (apparently out of print; and with an astronomical price tag)
Operation Crossroads by J. M. Weisgall
Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes
Happy Reading!