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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.
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
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
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.
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.
"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
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
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
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
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.
LISTEN UP! The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.
which is totally what she said