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DoD Report On 32 "Nuclear Accidents"

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-meant-to-do-that dept.

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')."

46 of 241 comments (clear)

  1. Pogo on nuclear: by mcgrew · · Score: 3, Informative

    It ain't so new, and it ain't so clear.

    --
    Free Martian Whores!
  2. Keep in mind... by DesScorp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... 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
    1. Re:Keep in mind... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Where they can do no harm, until they do.

    2. Re:Keep in mind... by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Keep in mind... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:Keep in mind... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh, well if Nature does it, it must be easy.

    5. Re:Keep in mind... by Paladin2ez · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    6. Re:Keep in mind... by slimjim8094 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Exactly. They're much safer than conventional bombs. A friend of mine did (among other things) munitions decomission in the Army (throw the bomb in a big pit and blow it up). Apparently, the expanding foam "Great Stuff" was invented to decomission nuclear weapons - you used it to fill the bomb's trigger component. Since the trigger was useless, the weapon was useless.

      And, of course, you can drop them, bump them, hammer them, shock them, etc... without blowing it up. Try that with C4

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      I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
    7. Re:Keep in mind... by JWSmythe · · Score: 4, Funny

      where they can do no harm

          That ranks right up with "what could possibly go wrong", and "there's nothing to worry about".

          A nuke in the water is still a chunk of radioactive material in a steel casing, just waiting for the casing to rust away.

          If the TNT goes pop, then that's all fun and games (assuming the nuke wasn't armed). If the casing is compromised, you have three eyed fish and giant octopuses resulting from the radiation (note: sarcasm). A little extra radiation isn't really all that good for you, me, nor the ecosystem. Hell, looked at what happened to Japan. Just two small nukes, and now you have generations of short people with tiny hands,small penises, and some weird fantasies. (BTW, the last link is border line NSFW, use at your own risk when the boss isn't looking. :)

          I for one welcome our mutant three eyed octopus overlords.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    8. Re:Keep in mind... by DesScorp · · Score: 5, Interesting

      "thanks to the Manhattan project, we now have devices lying around that are designed to split atoms."

      Except that it's still not that easy. Its very likely that the mechanisms surrounding the radioactive cores were damaged during the drops, so most will be unusable anyway. Even if they're perfectly preserved, you still have to find them... and considering that the combined efforts of the Air Force and Navy couldn't do so with advanced diving and search technology, good luck with some terrorist group doing so a hundred miles off the coast. And even if they had the unbelievable fortune of finding a device, they'd still have to recover it, and arm it.

      --
      Life is hard, and the world is cruel
    9. Re:Keep in mind... by gandhi_2 · · Score: 5, Informative

      I've used Composition C4 many of times in my Army career. I know first hand that you can drop, bump, hammer, shoot, and light on fire an M112 block of C4 without detonation.

      To set off C4, you need a supersonic shockwave and a lot of heat at the same time. About the explosive power in a double overhand knot of 30-grain det cord, or an m6 or m7 blasting cap.

      --
      THL phish sticks
    10. Re:Keep in mind... by vlm · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A friend of mine did (among other things) munitions decomission in the Army

      I took a lame one week version of that class in the summer of 93. Frankly the decommissioning part is pretty simple, if you can't figure out how to blow stuff up, you've got big problems. The class was mainly how to survive doing that, and some nifty tricks that save lives. Double fusing and double priming, do everything in an excavated pit with only one man in at a time, let EOD handle the rusty/damaged stuff, always test the burn rate of the actual fuse you intend to use, don't lay down your fuse in a big ole coil, fuse so long that if you twist your ankle the medics could haul you out, don't try to do multiple pits at one time (in an effort to avoid dealing with range control, whom seem universally to be a PITA), etc. And a lot of distance safety rules, which boil down to if you're not walking far enough to get sweaty, its probably not safe enough.

      And, of course, you can drop them, bump them, hammer them, shock them, etc... without blowing it up. Try that with C4

      With the exception of hammer and electrical shock, you can pretty much do that to bulk C4 without serious harm. You can also burn it, although the fumes are quite toxic. Note that C-4 is a very specific chemical substance that is a plastic explosive. Its entirely possible that another plastic explosive, say, PETN det cord, is much more sensitive to shock than bulk C-4. From memory, ANFO is harmless in sub-ton quantities without a very hefty booster.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    11. Re:Keep in mind... by Thanshin · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh, well if Nature does it, it must be easy.

      And healthy!

      Try our new, 100% natural, splitting uranium body lotion!

    12. Re:Keep in mind... by digitaldrunkenmonk · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The problem with bombs that have laying about for decades is that they decompose and lose some reactivity. They still pose a danger due to the conventional explosives they contain and the radioactive material, but past their shelf life they will not result in a catastrophic explosion and will release their contents relatively slowly.

      What would be interesting to see is if the old bombs that have been left around have maintained the perfect symmetry required to properly compress the plutonium and ignite the nuclear fire; otherwise the ensuing explosion will be weak compared to the optimum yield, if it can occur at all. If critical mass is not met, an explosion will not occur on the scales liked to a proper nuclear blast. An explosion will still occur, maybe, but it will be trivial in terms of the actual damage done by air pressure versus radioactive contamination from the remaining fuel.

    13. Re:Keep in mind... by Thanshin · · Score: 4, Funny

      I've used Composition C4 many of times in my Army career. I know first hand that you can drop, bump, hammer, shoot, and light on fire an M112 block of C4 without detonation.

      First hand?

      You dropped, bumped, hammered, shot and lit a C4 block?

      That sounds like an amazing drinking game.

    14. Re:Keep in mind... by JWSmythe · · Score: 4, Interesting

          As I understand it, the shell and core are normally separated. When the device is "armed", the core is inserted into the center of the shell. To detonate, the explosives around the shell must simultaneously explode, compressing the fissionable material until it reaches critical mass, and then BOOM. That last step takes a lot less time than it seems in reading it.

          So, an unarmed nuke has no chance of causing a nuclear explosion. An explosion around the shell would just collapse the shell, which is not catastrophic. The core by itself isn't all that dangerous, except it'll make your hair fall out, give you radiation burns, and you won't live all that long after that. :)

          If it's > 50' under ground *AND* the explosives around the shell detonated for some unknown reason, it'd probably make a radioactive area that's already property of the US Gov't. If, for some strange reason, the core had been inserted and the explosives spontaniously blew ... well ... I wouldn't want to be too close to it. :) ... if they never recovered the weapon, how would they know 5 safeties failed? This sounds like a little political posturing.

      --
      Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
    15. Re:Keep in mind... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      You never liked my logic, until you did!

    16. Re:Keep in mind... by vlm · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You dropped, bumped, hammered, shot and lit a C4 block?

      No idea for the OP, who's writing sounded like a combat engineer-ish perspective, but for me it was mostly very close second hand. My job at the ammo depot included maintenance of the computerized list of NSNs (essentially a military UPC code) and lot/serial numbers that failed those tests, which we would never issue to troops or transfer/ship, in peacetime are issued to EOD for training, and in wartime would probably be "disposed of" by myself and buddies, although I never got to do that. I knew guys whom were later assigned to the testing labs, but I didn't know them very well.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_testing_of_explosives

      I would imagine anyone issued demolition explosives whom survived an IED attack or ambush in the sandbox has probably "dropped, bumped, hammered, shot and lit a C4 block", and if the safety features failed, I'd have been the guy doing the grunt work for essentially an army style "product recall".

      That sounds like an amazing drinking game.

      Oh, we drank a lot. What a surprise, that when policy segregates out the illegal-drug users and tobacco smokers, you're left with only the legal drug users, mostly alkies. Seems like every drunk I know is or was in the army or at least the military in general...

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    17. Re:Keep in mind... by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This conversation reminds me of a conversation I was having with an Amway rep about buying some kind of vitamins or lotion:

      "It's all natural, so it's perfectly safe."

      "Yeah... well... cyanide is also natural and it's definitely not safe."

      The Amway person frowned and walked away. He didn't want to hear any negativity that might pull him out of his good-feeling cult group.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    18. Re:Keep in mind... by Shakrai · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.
    19. Re:Keep in mind... by vlm · · Score: 5, Informative

      But there's a reason Comp B and C4 are used in place of Commercial Dynamite in military settings.

      I may as well argue the fine point that the nitro in commercial dynamite seeps and settles and "weeps" and it gives you a terrible headache by touch and perhaps by fumes, unless you rotate/flip the crates every couple months, and there is no freaking way us guys in at the ammo depot are going to successfully accomplish that. Everything else in the bunkers is absolutely zero maintenance, lock the door and walk away until you need it.

      Also wood supposedly gets flammable from the seeping nitro, so we'd end up with some re-usable wood pallets being hazardous flammable waste and some being "safe", or so we hope.

      They told us that sometimes we'd have to stock commercial dynamite at a depot anyway, because its cheap, but everyone involved hated dealing with it. Thus, maintenance-free RDX-based military dynamite instead.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    20. Re:Keep in mind... by HungryHobo · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Interesting little side note:
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor

      Oklo uranium deposit behaved as a natural nuclear fission reactor in Precambrian times with natural water as neutron moderator.

    21. Re:Keep in mind... by AndrewNeo · · Score: 3, Funny

      Natural selection!

    22. Re:Keep in mind... by FooAtWFU · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yeah? What harm is that going to be? A bit of environmental contamination on the sea floor? That's harm, sure, but it's pretty tame as such things go. A full-scale nuclear explosion? Not actually on the table. Terrorists with submersibles and scuba gear bringing it up and disassembling the inoperative rusting hulk in some far-fetched attempt to reconstruct a nuclear bomb? That's not "harm", that's a Tom Clancy novel, and it's a dud because they shot their nuclear engineer before he warned them that their tritium needed to be purified from helium-3 so most of us are safe unless the President gets into a standoff with the Soviets and starts World War III.

      --
      The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
    23. Re:Keep in mind... by HungryHobo · · Score: 4, Informative

      he's referring to the risk in aggregate.

      Take a license plate. each place has a 1:39 chance of having A.
      a plate with 1 character has a 1:39 of having an A.

      as you add more characters the probability of *at least one* character being an A approaches 1.

    24. Re:Keep in mind... by careysub · · Score: 4, Informative

      "thanks to the Manhattan project, we now have devices lying around that are designed to split atoms."

      Except that it's still not that easy. Its very likely that the mechanisms surrounding the radioactive cores were damaged during the drops, so most will be unusable anyway...

      A fully assembled fission bomb (especially a pure fission bomb) is actually rather dangerous - accidental detonation of the high explosives can create a nuclear explosion on the order of a few hundred tons, quite devastating by any ordinary standard. But it is for this reason that all atomic bombs after the wartime models had features that kept them from being fully assembled before combat use (removable fission cores, or internal motorized in-flight assembly). These early safety features were replaced by others in the later compact "wooden" (no field accessible component) bombs, but those took years to develop.

      So the bombs were really pretty safe against any nuclear event, but only because special measures had been taken to ensure it.

      The 1950s accidents were all (nearly all?, I haven't checked each one just now, and in some cases there are disputes) WITHOUT the fission core installed so not only was a nuclear explosion impossible, so was significant radioactive contamination.

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
    25. Re:Keep in mind... by careysub · · Score: 3, Informative

      FTA: In 1961 a B-52 carrying two 24 megaton nuclear weapons (equivalent to 3,700 “Hiroshima bombs”) broke up in the air over Goldsboro, North Carolina. One bomb fell as far as 10,000 feet and sunk into the “waterlogged farmland.” The Air Force dug as deep as 50 feet trying to excavate the weapon, which contained uranium, but was unsuccessful. Finally, the Air Force purchased an easement on the land. Reportedly, a Pentagon document stated that five of the bomb’s six safety mechanisms had failed; “only a single switch” prevented the nuclear detonation of this 24 megaton device.

      What are the chances of the final safety mechanism ever deteriorating or otherwise failing due to age?

      Zero. The OP is confusing the status of two different weapons. The one that deployed its parachute was recovered intact (but with the safety mechanism failures mentioned). The other broke apart and it was only the thermonuclear secondary stage that was not recovered.

      The discrepancy between knowing that "five of the bomb's six safety mechanisms had failed" and reportedly not having recovered said weapon should tip one off that the account for the OP was confused.

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
    26. Re:Keep in mind... by careysub · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Although C4 is pretty safe in normal handling (the plasticizer desensitizes the RDX to some extent), RDX based explosives can be detonated accidentally. (The Wikipedia article implying that it cannot is incorrect.)

      If you read the document you read of several weapons exploding in accidents. The earliest ones all involved Comp B, a TNT/RDX mixture. Later weapons often used the very dangerous and more powerful HMX.

      Since the 1970s the U.S. has moved to using a very unusual high explosive, TATB, which genuinely can only be detonated by another detonation shock.

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
    27. Re:Keep in mind... by somersault · · Score: 5, Funny

      LISTEN UP! The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    28. Re:Keep in mind... by elnyka · · Score: 3, Funny

      i don't think they'll be able to disassemble, they used a proprietary torx-type screw. *that*'ll stop 'em!

      Octopuses are very ingenious at unscrewing things. Glowing mega mutant octopuses will rule the world I tell ya!

    29. Re:Keep in mind... by torkus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For what it's worth I'm firmly in the anti-alarmist category and don't make a fuss over silly things that are otherwise labeled a crisis for media consumption.

      That said isn't getting weapons grade Pu or U the most difficult part of building a nuclear bomb? I'm not talking about the highly refined Fission-fusion-fission 50Mt or man-portable devices. But given a modest budget and the internets it wouldn't be THAT difficult to build a Manhatten-project era nuclear device...assuming you had sufficient quantity of enriched material.

      People seem to automatically assume that obscurity (or ocean depth) equals safety. Then you hear about 4 college kids with a budget of 3 grand who design an automated SAR diving robot. I'm not saying MIT will be a nuclear power next week but for all the insane amounts of money we spend doing cavity searches on grandma at the airport...maybe we should consider that eventually another non-dumb terrorist cell will come along.

      --
      You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
  3. You should fix the summary by NotSoHeavyD3 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.
    1. Re:You should fix the summary by vlm · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Three people at a test reactor is sad but pretty small potatoes compared to the Scorpion, Thresher, and the six Russian/Soviet subs.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lost_nuclear_submarines

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    2. Re:You should fix the summary by DesScorp · · Score: 3, Informative

      Soviet boats have had reactor failures, but the US boats were doomed by other causes. The Scorpion was likely sunk by either a torpedo malfunction, or trash disposal device malfunction which caused massive flooding. In the Thresher's case, it was faulty welds on piping which caused flooding and shorted out the electrical system. With the loss of electrical power, the reactor shut down... as designed... to prevent a nuclear accident. Ironically, this is what doomed the crew. With no power, they couldn't surface. But in the cases of both US boats, the reactors operated precisely as planned in both accidents. They aren't "nuclear accidents". In neither boat was the reactor a cause.

      --
      Life is hard, and the world is cruel
  4. Ignorant conclusion at end of article by vlm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Ignorant conclusion at end of article by couchslug · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Of course it was. Recitation of ancient news is merely a "bitch piece".

      "Oh, lookee da bad nukes!" Oh. lookee the clueless fuck who didn't live through the Cold War...

      The nuclear deterrent worked, and instead of large conventional wars of the "massive bloodbath" (WWI, WWII) variety the Cold War had few casualties (by comparison) and was fought by proxy in expendable countries.

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  5. ICBMs don't have retro rockets. by LWATCDR · · Score: 4, Interesting

    " 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.
    1. Re:ICBMs don't have retro rockets. by Sanat · · Score: 5, Informative

      I had worked with the guy that did that back in 1964. I had TDY duty there in 1963 to assist in posturing the missiles initially.

      What actually happened was that a modification to the communications panels required shutting down the comm gear. He use a screwdriver (instead of a fuse puller) to pop out the fuse and inadvertently shorted the V++ to chassis ground. This in itself did not do anything really bad, however there was a malfunction in the on-board computer that caused a branch in the software to blow the retro-rockets.

      When the missile dropped off "strategic alert" the launch crew (located 20 miles away in an underground capsule) asked them to check on the guidance package. They illuminated the launch tube via the collimator port and saw that the warhead and the guidance package was gone... having fallen to the bottom of the launch tube.

      Now about the retro-rockets... The range of a minute man is probably still classified but say that it is (as an example only) 5000 nautical miles... but say that the particular target you want to hit is only 4000 miles from the launch facility so as the final stage ( 3rd stage of the three rockets) passes over the proper location then the retro-rockets fire cause the warhead and the on-board computer to detach from the third stage and free fall ( actually it is more of a large parabolic curve from near space to either detonate as an air burst as it approaches nearer the Earth (most damaging) or to continue its flight and detonate at the ground level on impact(most contamination).

      The accuracy in which the warhead can contact the target is astounding... even though my description of it sounds like it is trying to hit a basket in center field with a baseball being thrown... more likely is you can determine whether you want to hit the near side of the basket or the far side!

      This is based on my working knowledge from the 60's... of course, a great deal has changed in the last 50 years with the merves (multiple entry - reentry vehicle)- means numerous warheads, and the "penetration aids" dropped to confuse the enemy as to which is the real warhead and which are radar look-a-like reflections.

      --
      And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
  6. "Nuclear Accidents" by markass530 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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

    1. Re:"Nuclear Accidents" by sampas · · Score: 5, Informative

      Ridiculous amount of safeguards? While permissive action links (requiring codes for launch) were created and deployed at the urging of Defense Secretary McNamara after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Air Force kept the codes set to all zeros until President Carter found out about it. That was over ten years later. The Air Force kept the codes at all zeros so they could launch without presidential authority. Source: http://www.cdi.org/blair/permissive-action-links.cfm. To quote, "And so the “secret unlock code” during the height of the nuclear crises of the Cold War remained constant at OOOOOOOO." So, when you say ridiculous amount of safeguards, I'm not buying it without verification.

    2. Re:"Nuclear Accidents" by thomasdz · · Score: 5, Informative

      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

      Yeah, British nukes were protected with "Bike Locks"
      http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/7097101.stm

      --
      Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
    3. Re:"Nuclear Accidents" by DerekLyons · · Score: 4, Informative

      Ridiculous amount of safeguards?

      The safeguards the OP refers to are the ones that prevent detonation, not the ones that prevent launch. Different safeguards for different purposes.
       

      The Air Force kept the codes at all zeros so they could launch without presidential authority.

      PALs are not intended to prevent launch without Presidential authority, PALs are intended to prevent weapons that fall into unauthorized hands from being used. Which is why the USAF kept PALs active on gravity bombs and disabled them on the silos and why the Army used them on their AFAPs - and why USN SSBN's never had them in the first place.

  7. Biggest Accident by MrTripps · · Score: 3, Funny

    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
  8. Re:Oh boy. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Funny

    and by "chile" I meant "chilean food", not "chilli"

    Wow, you must have been really hungary.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  9. Re:like i said by ultranova · · Score: 4, Informative

    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

    Actually, no. The situation in Europe was known to be perfectly conductive to a huge war even before Franz got himself shot. There were a lot of incidents happening, any of which could had ignited the poweder keg and started a war, and one of which was pretty much guaranteed to do just that. That it war Franz getting shot that did is, to put it bluntly, completely irrelevant: WWI was caused by opposing alliances and several people actively wanting a war, and using Franz Ferdinand's murder as an excuse to get one.

    As for Lehman Brothers collapsing, it should not come as surprise to anyone that a bank that ties a significant amount of its capital into obfuscatingly complex schemes is likely to do just that, altought I suppose it is a bit surprising that the elite didn't bail their buddies out there.

    the black swans control your fate, my fate, the fate of the entire world

    Kid, I've browsed from one side of this Internet to the other. I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful equation controlling everything. There's no mystical feather field that controls my destiny. It's all a lot of simple statistical tricks and nonsense.

    --

    Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  10. Re:like i said by Zordak · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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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