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Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed
81–90 of 250 posts
Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed
#82We've been very lucky so far not to have had any serious incidents.
Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed
#83This wasn't really that big a deal. By the Minuteman era, warheads were safe against fires and crashes. Nuclear weapons from several B-52 bombers hit the ground hard in crashes without a nuclear explosion. (Sometimes the implosion charges did go off, but not symmetrically, as is needed to get implosion.) The Minuteman missile itself had a solid fuel engine. This was nowhere near as bad as the incident described in "C…
That sounds right:
> Incredible as it may sound to a civilian, Hicks said he spent no time worrying about the thermonuclear warhead. He had been convinced by his training that it was nearly impossible to detonate a warhead accidentally. Among other things, he said, the warhead had to receive codes from the launch-control officers, had to reach a certain altitude, and had to detect a certain amount of acceleration and G-force. There were so many safeguards built in, Hicks later joked, that a warhead might have been lucky to detonate even when it was supposed to.
Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed
#84I recently finished Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety [0]. I can't recommend the book enough for how eye opening it really is into how blasé we have been with nuclear weapons. We've been reckless and by all accounts it is a miracle we haven't had a serious accident (there have been a few, just not on our own soil). The number of close calls is just astounding. Fur…
Hey it's not all bad, we managed to convince Ukraine to destroy their nuclear weapons and it worked out really well for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
It worked so 'well' that it lost part of it's territory.
From Budapest Memorandum Wiki:
'The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.'
Now it will be a lesson for others: nukes are way more reliable than some piece of paper, which no one is gonna follow: http://www.dw.com/en/ukraines-forgotten-security-guarantee-t...
Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey it's not all bad, we managed to convince Ukraine to destroy their nuclear weapons and it worked out really well for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
not to mention gaddafi
Nuclear weapons wouldn't have help Gaddafi anyways. He didn't have a working weapon nor a reliable way to delivering it. Also, what was he going to do with one? Threaten the US with one if the internal rebellions don't stop? Threaten to nuke his own people?
There's an illusion of the utility of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons might be OK if you want to destroy masses of conventional armies or destroy the ability of an enemy fighting a heavily industrialized conventional form of war. Unless the destructive power of nukes fit into your overall strategy, it's better not to have them or waste the resources developing them (along with the risk of sanctions, etc.)
Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the realistic approach to this though? I don't know anything about this area, but to me it seems like hoping for 20 countries having 50 each would be effectively the same as hoping for 20 countries having 0 each. That is to say, we're in the arms race because each country did have N each. But then one country had N+1, and so the others raced for N+2, and so on. If we hoped for 50 each, wouldn't it drop back to…
You can't just un-invent nukes. They're there, they provide nuclear deterrence. They will continue to exist no matter how many countries "agree" to stop using them. Regardless of whether you have them, there is always a chance that someone might still keep the nukes in secret despite what they agreed to. No one would want such a risk if they have an option to avoid it.
Oh I agree completely, but that's sort of my point.
The OP's solution seemed to be making everyone have 50 instead of 4,000. That seemed both impossible, and a weird goal. If you're going to try for the impossible, shouldn't we aim for 0?
I don't ever see us stopping N+1 nukes though.
Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed
#87This wasn't really that big a deal. By the Minuteman era, warheads were safe against fires and crashes. Nuclear weapons from several B-52 bombers hit the ground hard in crashes without a nuclear explosion. (Sometimes the implosion charges did go off, but not symmetrically, as is needed to get implosion.) The Minuteman missile itself had a solid fuel engine. This was nowhere near as bad as the incident described in "C…
Yep, a modern nuclear bomb takes a very coordinated sequence to actually have the confinement needed to get good utilization of the fissile fuel (i.e., be a nuclear-driven explosion), otherwise they just fly apart before any significant fission/fusion can occur.
The fuel used for a nuclear weapon is also basically radiologically inert by necessity so if it does explode conventionally there is not a significant release of radiation. It's pretty toxic chemically, but there's not a lot of it so it's not nearly as bad the fallout that would precipitate from a nuclear explosion.
Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey it's not all bad, we managed to convince Ukraine to destroy their nuclear weapons and it worked out really well for them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
It worked so 'well' that it lost part of it's territory. From Budapest Memorandum Wiki: 'The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.' Now it will be a lesson for others: nukes are way more reliable than some piece of paper, which no one is gonna follow: http://www.dw.com/en/ukraines-forgotte…
"Now it will be a lesson for others: nukes are way more reliable than some piece of paper, which no one is gonna follow"
Is it really though? Even if Ukraine had nukes, would it have threatened and actually have the will to use it over the lost of the Crimea? The conflict was low intensity warfare, which nukes are not particularly well suited for. I don't think nukes are the be-all-end-all weapons people think they are. There are huge consequences to using them, especially against another nuclear power.
Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
parent was concerned about > risking nuclear contamination. not a nuclear explosion. A conventional boom could spread radioactive materials all over.
EDIT: I was wrong. See the child for correction. There are no radioactive materials in the warhead. In other words: there are no materials that undergo radioactive decay. What is in there are fissile materials: ie. materials that emit neutrons upon being irradiated with neutrons. The only way the warhead might become radioactive is if it partially detonated.
Pu-239 is radioactive no? Along with impurities like Pu-240 which are slightly more radioactive.
Re: Fifty-three year old nuclear missile accident revealed
#90I found that the side-story as to how they even got this story was pretty fascinating: http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/revealing-a--year-old...