Slashdot Mirror
The Disgruntled Guys Who Babysit Our Aging Nuclear Missiles
Lasrick writes This is a rather disturbing read about the troops who guard our nuclear weapons."'The Air Force has not kept its ICBMs manned or maintained properly,' says Bruce Blair, a former missileer and cofounder of the anti-nuclear group Global Zero. Nuclear bases that were once the military's crown jewels are now 'little orphanages that get scraps for dinner,' he says. And morale is abysmal. Blair's organization wants to eliminate nukes, but he argues that while we still have them, it's imperative that we invest in maintenance, training, and personnel to avoid catastrophe: An accident resulting from human error, he says, may be actually more likely today because the weapons are so unlikely to be used. Without the urgent sense of purpose the Cold War provided, the young men (and a handful of women) who work with the world's most dangerous weapons are left logging their 24-hour shifts under subpar conditions—with all the dangers that follow."
One thing not well documented (but it is covered if you take the tour at the Minuteman National Historic Site):
A missle will not launch until at least two capsules "vote" for launch. For a capsule to "vote" - both operators must engage the key within N seconds of each other.
So a person would need to, in addition to stretching their arms, twist two additional keys in a separate capsule using some sort of portal technology. Someone with such techology likely does not need nukes.
Also, as I understand it, in addition to the key turn, there is additional validation of launch codes by computer nowadays.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Reminds me of Silo, a neat little short film about a caretaker of an ICBM (who does a very poor job) and is forced to fix up the place... and well, any more and I'd be spoiling. You're best watching it...
I'll concede there is an argument that submarine launch is sufficient. But, the facilities are already built, the missiles exist and the systems are already in place. Maintaining them is also far easier than a submarine. They've also got the advantage that being based inside the continental US they are nearly completely secure and the ICBMs are at the current time essentially unstoppable because you'd need an interceptor in the western hemisphere to shoot them down and the ability to deliver multiple warheads on one missile which submarines lack.
As long as we have nukes I like having the ability to ensure that no matter what someone thinks they can accomplish in a first strike that the US would be assured the total destruction of said group of people stupid enough to try it. Mutually assured destruction is the only thing that kept WWIII from happening.
Unfortunately, it's tricky to imagine how you could make the job more attractive (short of a "Yeah, it's hell; but we pay you so much you can retire in two years" type approach, which would markedly increase churn and cost without necessarily much improving the day-to-day quality of the workforce.
It's a fairly shit job (Hey! It's time for work! 99.99% chance says it'll be a long stretch of pure boredom in some unpleasant bunker with a few instances of my superiors fucking with me as part of a 'routine drill'. Failing that, I get to be responsible for a few million deaths!) and doesn't have a terribly large overlap with the most desireable jobs(depending on how similar the UIs are, it may or may not be good practice for other parts of the air force that involve hunching over screens and coordinating stuff; and the people doing maintenance and inspection of ICBMs are probably picking up skills applicable to maintenance and inspection of other weapons systems). It's also hard to hide the fact that, while it isn't quite useless enough to eliminate, it's not exactly a job where you'll feel like you are doing anything of value, which won't help your morale.
How would you make doing a job like that not burn people out?