Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi • Hacker News Board

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#11

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 1:14 AM UTC

For people who don't want to slog through the long-form article for the few tidbits of actual information:

"Nuclear device" does not refer to a nuclear weapon in this case, it was a radio signal capturing device powered by a RTG.

They had to abandon the first one when trying to install it due to bad weather and couldn't find it again. Maybe it was stolen, maybe it just melted its way under many meters of ice and snow.

They placed a second one, realized that it melts itself into the mountain (who would have thought), and retrieved that one.

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#12

Post by SoSoRoCoCo » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 1:15 AM UTC

Ericson2314 wrote: post #2

The more one learns, the more it seems like the CIA spent the whole cold war poorly executing silly stunts,

Imagine what happened that WASN'T documented.

This is totally off-topic but related to your post: The CIA LSD testing was completely off the books. The journalists who uncovered it relied on hundreds of interviews. The CIA simply hired Sidney Gottlieb to do whatever he wanted to with zero oversight because the CIA wanted to achieve mind-control before the Russians. Gottlieb literally bought all of the LSD in the world at one point, and it was given to people such as Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary and Whitey Bulger.

Absolute frikken insanity:

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-que...

https://www.history.com/mkultra-operation-midnight-climax-ci...

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/buried-treasure-the-ci...

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#13

Post by hudvin » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 1:20 AM UTC

Some info: I found this story while reading Fallen Giants (Maurice Isserman) - history of mountaineering in himalayas.

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#14

Post by ceejayoz » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 1:21 AM UTC

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #4

That sounds like a complete disaster, can plutonium in the water supply of 200 million people cause real problems? I don’t know better, but if I did I’d compare this to the DuPont C8 Teflon scandal

RTGs like this are made to withstand orbital reentry, pressure from the bottom of the ocean, etc. It's fairly unlikely it's gonna leak in the snow.

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#15

Post by Retric » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 1:24 AM UTC

mhh__ wrote: post #9

jamiek88 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK too. Bond movies give an impression of British intelligence intelligence that is unwarranted. Riddled by KGB spies with very little inside Moscow themselves.

British Intelligence was a complete clusterfuck roughly until Peter Wright's generation came of age within the services and were finally able to institute things like Vetting(!!!!!!!!!!). After that, however, starting slightly dubiously with Polyakov (Possibly a dangle) and highlighted by Gordievsky they were "winning". I don't have a citation on hand, but I believe Gordievsky stated that a set of diplomatic expulsio…

The complete failure of British Intelligence to predict the fall of the USSR shows they might have gotten better at counter espionage, but still failed at their primary job.

The tricky bit isn’t collecting intelligence, the tricky bit is being able to turn raw data into something worth all the effort of collecting it.

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#16

Post by nafizh » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 1:25 AM UTC

morsch wrote: post #7

In a nice bit of symmetry, another RTG is lost in an ocean trench: The fuel cask from the SNAP-27 unit carried by the Apollo 13 mission currently lies in 20,000 feet (6,100 m) of water at the bottom of the Tonga Trench in the Pacific Ocean. This mission failed to land on the moon, and the lunar module carrying its generator burnt up during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, with the trajectory arranged so that the…

So after 870 years, it begins to pollute the water?

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#17

Post by pm90 » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 1:26 AM UTC

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #4

That sounds like a complete disaster, can plutonium in the water supply of 200 million people cause real problems? I don’t know better, but if I did I’d compare this to the DuPont C8 Teflon scandal

Yes, ingesting plutonium can cause serious problems. I’m surprised that the Indian Government hasn’t commissioned an exhaustive, multi year search for this device. Maybe the snow is too deep? But I can’t see why one couldn’t carefully skewer into the snow, tessellate the whole mountain with such probes and see if it picks up any radioactivity.

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#18

Post by AdamJacobMuller » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 1:30 AM UTC

nafizh wrote: post #16

morsch wrote: post #7

In a nice bit of symmetry, another RTG is lost in an ocean trench: The fuel cask from the SNAP-27 unit carried by the Apollo 13 mission currently lies in 20,000 feet (6,100 m) of water at the bottom of the Tonga Trench in the Pacific Ocean. This mission failed to land on the moon, and the lunar module carrying its generator burnt up during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, with the trajectory arranged so that the…

So after 870 years, it begins to pollute the water?

10 half lives means it will have reduced radioactivity to

(1/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/2/1)*100 % of original or .19% of its original radioactivity. Also keep in mind radioactive decay is not even. The faster, thus more dangerous, particles inherently decay faster and will be even more degraded, I'm not going to do the math on it, but, probably another order of magnitude or three.

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#19

Post by mhh__ » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 1:43 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #15

mhh__ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

British Intelligence was a complete clusterfuck roughly until Peter Wright's generation came of age within the services and were finally able to institute things like Vetting(!!!!!!!!!!). After that, however, starting slightly dubiously with Polyakov (Possibly a dangle) and highlighted by Gordievsky they were "winning". I don't have a citation on hand, but I believe Gordievsky stated that a set of diplomatic expulsio…

The complete failure of British Intelligence to predict the fall of the USSR shows they might have gotten better at counter espionage, but still failed at their primary job. The tricky bit isn’t collecting intelligence, the tricky bit is being able to turn raw data into something worth all the effort of collecting it.

True, but economics predicting 2*n of the last n crashes and Noam Chomsky predicting 17 of the last 0 revolutions indicates that it's an impossibly difficult problem than mere incompetence.

SIS do not publish their archival material so we'll probably never know exactly which side of that argument they deserve to be placed.

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#20

Post by Nextgrid » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 1:43 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #14

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #4

That sounds like a complete disaster, can plutonium in the water supply of 200 million people cause real problems? I don’t know better, but if I did I’d compare this to the DuPont C8 Teflon scandal

RTGs like this are made to withstand orbital reentry, pressure from the bottom of the ocean, etc. It's fairly unlikely it's gonna leak in the snow.

Are you sure this one was like that? I'd assume RTGs are a small enough market that they would be pretty much all be custom-made and tailored to the current requirements, and given this isn't a space probe and must be covertly transported by people on foot I would be surprised if they have the same amount of shielding/protection than the ones made for space.