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Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

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Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#41

Post by thombat »

smegger001 wrote: post #31
drdeadringer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps like in 'Lord Of The Rings', don't think too hard about Gandalf and the Great Eagles.

Or that he sent a hobbit with the one ring into a mountain alone where one of the two thing that were capable of destroying the ring happened to be located. Gandalf sent Bilbo on a suicide mission into the lonely mountain to get burnt by a dragon to melt the ring avoiding the war of men and orcs entirely.

Except it's only after escaping from the Misty Mountains that Gandalf can have any idea that Bilbo possesses such a ring, but I don't remember him modifying the plan in response to that knowledge. Meaning that if it was a suicide mission, it was set up that way all along, so rather than this being Gandalf the realpolitik puppetmaster it's Gandalf the Rollercoaster Tycoon player, erecting a lengthy and complex scheme just for the joy of watching the ensuing catastrophe.

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#42

Post by GekkePrutser »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #2

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

The Russians put multiple nuclear reactors in orbit and crashed one on Canada. Many of their nuclear cores are still in storage orbits. Look up RORSAT :)

Just saying the CIA wasn't the only one acting crazy. Of course this was all before Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. Nuclear tech was really viewed as less dangerous than it is now.

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#43

Post by srikanthkrish »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #2

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

Its not just the CIA its almost everyone else at the time. I just finished Rise and Kill first, a book on Mossad's targeted killings ops. Its full of really silly and clumsy stuff. My favorite story from the book is that back in the 60's Mossad tried to do the Manchurian candidate routine with a PLO guy, they hired a hypnotist and gave it a few months. The PLO dude eventually got smart, started playing along, acting as if he got hypnotized and they believed it and let him go with a gun. Once he crossed Israel, he handed his gun to his PLO folks and told them about it. Intel agencies back in the day were more like startups.

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#44

Post by bigbubba »

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?

One RTG is nothing, a handful of whole nuclear reactors have been dumped into the ocean before (a few of the accidentally, and a few of the deliberately.)

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#45

Post by graderjs »

tmilard wrote: post #3

Spying... It is fascinating how nuclear was not seen at he time so dangerous. So much risk on the environment for 'just' listening the Chinese telecom.

People were aware of the danger at the time. Here's a collection of press clippings after the story was exposed by Outside magazine.

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP81M00980...

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#46

Post by GekkePrutser »

graderjs wrote: post #45
tmilard wrote: post #3

Spying... It is fascinating how nuclear was not seen at he time so dangerous. So much risk on the environment for 'just' listening the Chinese telecom.

People were aware of the danger at the time. Here's a collection of press clippings after the story was exposed by Outside magazine. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP81M00980...

Funny how they publish this on their own website given as they still don't officially confirm the operation according to the other article linked above

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#47

Post by GekkePrutser »

saboot wrote: post #40
ceejayoz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes; even the Earth-bound ones are made to withstand major vehicle crashes, corrosion, etc. Ignorant humans dissembling them is a bigger concern.

Yes, this has happened many times with medical radioisotopes. People find them in a scrap yard, get amazed by the glowing blue powder, and leave a deadly trail of contamination until it's discovered what happened.

Yeah like the Goia incident. Terrifying and that wasn't material nearly as dangerous as Plutonium

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#48

Post by ganeshkrishnan »

Nextgrid wrote: post #21
pm90 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wouldn't thermal vision be better at finding it? Presumably the thing is hot (especially compared to ambient) and should be visible with some advanced thermal imaging solutions?

It's not switched on, so it wouldn't be hot. It was supposed to be switched on and activated at the peak which they never reached.

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#49

Post by GekkePrutser »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #28
pm90 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Since the stuff could well have melted itself into the snow and ice very slowly, and might have moved laterally considerably, I guess you'd effectively have to skewer a giant, largely vertical glacier down to the rock below, with rocks of all sizes peppered in, using heavy machinery that doesn't exist yet, at high altitude where just surviving at all is a challenge, with lots of very extreme weather, avalanches, rock…

Well I hope the renewed attention will drive some action. We have much more remote control capability now. Shouldn't have to cost lives I think.

Re: Lost nuclear device atop of Nanda Devi

#50

Post by octoberfranklin »

mhh__ wrote: post #10
Ericson2314 wrote: post #2

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

The KGB were definitely the shrewder operation (this is why people effectively giving their modern counterparts the benefit of the doubt via blind equivalency irks me). The CIA did some absolutely insane things during the Cold War (and after), but the KGB was in some ways the backbone of the Soviet Union - it doesn't even begin to compare. The saying "No one does it better" is apt when it comes to things like active…

> (this is why people effectively giving their modern counterparts the benefit of the doubt via blind equivalency irks me)

It's Career Inertia.

For half a century CIA hired people who had invested massive resources in becoming completely fluent in Russian, well versed in Russian culture, and who had cultivated contacts in Russia. These are the sorts of skills that take a lifetime to develop. All of the most senior staff at the intelligence agencies fall into this category.

This is why the intelligence agencies stick their fingers in their ears and sing "LALALALALALA... I can't hear you" every time Chinese intelligence humiliates them. They're a one-trick pony: anti-Russian operations. That's all they know how to do. They're just trying to get to retirement, no matter what it costs the country.

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