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Nukes of Hazard (2013)

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Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)

#21

Post by axman6 »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #17

How hard is it to report facts. "The plane split in two, the base was evacuated, and the fire burned for two and a half hours. But the explosives in the warhead didn’t detonate; that would have set off a chain reaction." This statement seems to imply the bomb would have went off, which is just not true. The physics just do not work that way.

Depending on the design, isn't there some chance that the heat could detonate the conventional explosive used to force the nuclear material together? as far as I understand it, there is definitely a risk of detonation, though it's hopefully very low. Physics is not directly the reason for it being so low either, but more safeguards put in place to ensure detonation only happens when it's supposed to and is prevented otherwise.

Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)

#22

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

axman6 wrote: post #21
myrandomcomment wrote: post #17

How hard is it to report facts. "The plane split in two, the base was evacuated, and the fire burned for two and a half hours. But the explosives in the warhead didn’t detonate; that would have set off a chain reaction." This statement seems to imply the bomb would have went off, which is just not true. The physics just do not work that way.

Depending on the design, isn't there some chance that the heat could detonate the conventional explosive used to force the nuclear material together? as far as I understand it, there is definitely a risk of detonation, though it's hopefully very low. Physics is not directly the reason for it being so low either, but more safeguards put in place to ensure detonation only happens when it's supposed to and is prevented…

If I understood this correctly, the main challenge in nuclear bomb design is to time the conventional explosions in such a way that the resulting blast will compress the nuclear material, achieving critical mass, and not simply tearing it all apart.

So I think that this fire would probably not have caused a nuclear explosion.

Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)

#23

Post by _s »

axman6 wrote: post #18
Rapzid wrote: post #16

"...the American public was regularly frightened by warnings about the dangers of a nuclear attack that was always made to appear imminent" Not much has changed.

But the terrists are real. Did you already forget 9/11, the greatest tragedy ever inflicted by man upon itself?

9/11 the greatest tragedy? I can think of much worse - though it could be argued if it weren't for 9/11 the world wouldn't be in the state it is in now.

Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)

#24

Post by RachelF »

100k wrote: post #2

I read "Command and Control" on vacation this summer and I highly recommend it. It interweaves jaw-dropping nuclear weapon disasters from the whole nuclear age with a detailed account of one particular incident. It's astonishing how close we've come to accidental nuclear detonation (and then what happens?). That's really the point of the book: it's a matter of when, not if.

It makes a great read. The interleaving of the Titan accident and the rest of the story is leads to a disjointed structure though, making it a bit hard to follow.

It seems quite possible that we'll blow ourselves up by accident.

Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)

#25

Post by rwmj »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #17

How hard is it to report facts. "The plane split in two, the base was evacuated, and the fire burned for two and a half hours. But the explosives in the warhead didn’t detonate; that would have set off a chain reaction." This statement seems to imply the bomb would have went off, which is just not true. The physics just do not work that way.

Not true. The bomb had a design defect which meant it could be armed and fired by an extended period of heat. The book which this link is promoting covers this.

Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)

#26

Post by Spearchucker »

This is my problem with the American and Russian government - actually any government - they play games. Stupid, myopic and arrogant idiots who see life other than their own on this planet as a thing to be toyed with. Intellectually they're little better than teenagers.

Machiavelli's blueprint smothers the benevolence of the Ghandis, the Tutus and the Mandelas. A populace too absorbed in day-to-day survival is in no position to change the status quo. Depressing.

Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)

#27

Post by boomlinde »

_s wrote: post #23
axman6 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the terrists are real. Did you already forget 9/11, the greatest tragedy ever inflicted by man upon itself?

9/11 the greatest tragedy? I can think of much worse - though it could be argued if it weren't for 9/11 the world wouldn't be in the state it is in now.

I don't think that his claim was entirely sincere.

Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)

#28

Post by Spearchucker »

lotharbot wrote: post #3

The article claims that a nine-megaton blast would wipe out "most of the state of Arkansas". Wikipedia claims the lethal radius on a bomb of that size is about 20 miles for thermal effects ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B53_nuclear_bomb#Effects ), which is around 2% of the area of Arkansas; other effects are described as having an even smaller radius. I suspect, but cannot prove, the wikipedia number is more likely t…

It's sad that semantics appear to be more worthy of discussion than the mere existence of such raw destructive power.

Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)

#29

Post by XorNot »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #22
axman6 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on the design, isn't there some chance that the heat could detonate the conventional explosive used to force the nuclear material together? as far as I understand it, there is definitely a risk of detonation, though it's hopefully very low. Physics is not directly the reason for it being so low either, but more safeguards put in place to ensure detonation only happens when it's supposed to and is prevented…

If I understood this correctly, the main challenge in nuclear bomb design is to time the conventional explosions in such a way that the resulting blast will compress the nuclear material, achieving critical mass, and not simply tearing it all apart. So I think that this fire would probably not have caused a nuclear explosion.

Years of testing have never yielded a nuclear detonation from the conventional explosives cooking off in a warhead - radioactive strewn desert in Australia is a testament to the British testing this directly.

Nuclear bombs require absurd - something on the order of microseconds (I suspect nanoseconds probably come into play) detonation precision in order to reach super-criticality.

Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)

#30

Post by arethuza »

lotharbot wrote: post #3

The article claims that a nine-megaton blast would wipe out "most of the state of Arkansas". Wikipedia claims the lethal radius on a bomb of that size is about 20 miles for thermal effects ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B53_nuclear_bomb#Effects ), which is around 2% of the area of Arkansas; other effects are described as having an even smaller radius. I suspect, but cannot prove, the wikipedia number is more likely t…

Fall-out effects from such a large & dirty H-bomb detonated at ground level would have been pretty bad - you wouldn't want to be downwind of such an event.

[Edit 1]

Actually, if you consider the indirect effects of the use of such a weapon - particularly the large number of refugees fleeing contaminated areas, huge numbers of injured etc. while such a detonation wouldn't destroy an entire state it would probably reduce it to complete chaos.

e.g. The UK government estimated in the 1950s that three H-bombs would be all it would take to destroy the UK as a functioning society - the UK ambassador in Moscow even had a drunken debate with Kruschev on this point - suggesting that the hundreds of weapons the Soviets had pointing at the UK were complete overkill...

[Edit 2]

The UK government was always pretty gloomy/realistic about the likely impact of a nuclear war on the UK - basically even in fairly optimistic scenarios such as the Square Leg exercise used as the basis for Threads were absolutely awful. A real attack would have been far worse that the one shown in Threads, if anyone can conceive of that.

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