61–70 of 88 posts
[1] https://acoup.blog/2022/03/11/collections-nuclear-deterrence...
To give you an idea of what kinds of grim circumstances this was built for, the seats have 4-point seatbelts!
That's amazing. It's terrifying to take a step back from this and think about how much incredibly sophisticated technology had to go into ensuring that we could wipe out the human race in minutes. And then, of course, there's all the technology handling the safety guards. Because we obviously don't want to wipe out the human race in minutes, so we have all these protocols and failsafes to ensure that doesn't happen u…
I just finished reading Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen – it was great. The book walks through a minute by minute scenario from the second of launch through the satellite detection, alerting of forces, decision making challenges, evac and continuity of government during a nuclear exchange. Highly recommend.
She was also recently on Hardcore History Addendum with Dan Carlin discussing the book.
(leaving aside the frequently-repudiated Mengele-Stalin slant of the excerpt at the end, a la https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/local-las-vegas/area-51-... ' Barnes, the Roadrunners' president, said he believes the childlike aviator tale was fabricated to give the publisher something "juicy" and "sensational ')
She frames a very unique angle on James Killian (of MIT 'Killian Court' fame) in context of Pacific thermonuclear nuclear tests, for example.
I can help but think the missileers would be less depressed (it's a known problem) if some more attention was paid to aesthetics and comfort, given the amount of time they spent locked in there.
The chairs look comfy, better than standard government issue, and they're on tracks so you don't have to get up to check on the equipment.
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I think I'd prefer to go instantly in a moment via nuke than say burn to death in one of the many firebombing raids the US did on Japan during WWII: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_194... > More than 90,000 and possibly over 100,000 Japanese people were killed, mostly civilians, and one million were left homeless, making it the most destructive single air attack in human history.
I know you didn't mean it literally, but it's still worth saying: They did not "go instantly in a moment". A few, sure. I'd assume most of them probably still burned to death, or were buried under rubble, or bled out after being cut by debris, or starved to death after being blinded. Firebombing is bad, but nukes are also really bad, there's no need to treat them as if they're merciful.
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Being able to destroy everyone else is what prevents them from destroying us. Something I think about and feel bad about is the "nuclear sponge". Why do we have a bunch of ICBMs in the midwest? So that if someone wants to nuke NYC, they have to nuke the Great Plains first, or face total destruction. Makes nuclear war that much more expensive. Of course, it's kind of an outdated assumption that that alone would be eno…
The longer MAD works, the better I feel about it. We're at 77 of nuclear peace thanks to MAD. That's a pretty good record.
If you ever happen to be in Arizona, I highly recommend that you visit the Titan Missile Museum: https://titanmissilemuseum.org/ The site has been carefully maintained and the tour brings you up close to places that only a select few were able to see when they were in operation.
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Being able to destroy everyone else is what prevents them from destroying us. Something I think about and feel bad about is the "nuclear sponge". Why do we have a bunch of ICBMs in the midwest? So that if someone wants to nuke NYC, they have to nuke the Great Plains first, or face total destruction. Makes nuclear war that much more expensive. Of course, it's kind of an outdated assumption that that alone would be eno…
> that's little consolation for the 200,000 civilians we vaporized in an instant. And they’re the lucky ones.
People make fun of the fifties 'just make it look like everyone was happy' mindset, but can you blame these people? He was a young Iowa farm boy. He grew up riding his horse to school, no cars. Then off to be a Marine in the Pacific (because he and everyone from his town was too recent of German descent to be trusted to go to Europe, plus the town had a German language newspaper before the war, which of course, by the end, no trace of being German was left. Only red blooded American English speakers) who saw the effects of nuclear war. Dude just wanted to drink a beer and listen to polka music on Laurence Welk.
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Considering that when the launch order came, MAD had probably already failed: Would you have obeyed the order and killed a few million people?
I’ve oftened wondered that over the years. Maybe that’s why the young ones are usually on the front lines. Another related possibly more difficult, is how many of us would have turned the key without prior world tensions occurring. Before each alert we received a pre-departure briefing on current world conditions. I think an out-of-the-blue order would have been very difficult… We periodically lost a crew member due…