I 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.
Further the book, at one point, talks about America's position on Russia and the attempts to keep them from getting "the bomb". It is exactly what has played out and will continue to play out with North Korea and Iran. History is repeating itself and we sure haven't learned from it.
I worked around nuclear weapon systems and TBH came away with the opposite impression. I grew up terrified of the military and panic mongering about of "THE BOMBS!" from family, media, etc. But after this, I ironically came away feeling much safer seeing how professional and serious people took their jobs.
The problem is not that we are blasé about nuclear weapons. For the most part we are completely ignorant about them.
No, the problem is that we assume that we wouldn’t put clowns in charge of something this dangerous. So when we put clowns in charge of nuclear weapons and they inevitably fuck up (and not just a bit), we either refuse to believe it is even possible or we assume it is a rare accident.
This is probably what will happen with terrorist attacks. There is no way they will stop now that medias love to talk about them, and there is no way they will decrease. We'll just grow tired of them.
> Further the book, at one point, talks about America's position on Russia and the attempts to keep them from getting "the bomb". It is exactly what has played out and will continue to play out with North Korea and Iran. History is repeating itself and we sure haven't learned from it.
Is it actually similar, though?
The US got the bomb in 1945.
The Russians got theirs in 1949.
Given the size of the Soviet Union, how far it is from the United States, the available spying and reconnaissance technology (no satellites, no stealth aircraft), and that the US was only four years out of World War II, I don't think there is any way the US could have made a creditable threat to use military force to stop the Russians.
Also, China and Russia were still on good terms back then. China might not have stayed out of it if the US attacked their ally and neighbor.
Compare to North Korea and Iran. In both cases the US can make a creditable military threat. From a purely military point of view, the US could easily wipe either (or both) of them out.
Furthermore, neither has any powerful allies who want them to get nukes.
With North Korea, their only powerful ally is China and I don't think China actually cares if North Korea gets destroyed as long as (1) it doesn't send a lot of refugees across the Chinese border, and (2) whatever replaces it continues to function as a buffer zone between them and South Korea because they do not want a US ally right on their border.
Thanks, you just reminded me about this book. Gonna pick it up this weekend!
Lately I have been feeling very anxious about the North Korea situation, but for some reason reading about nuclear accidents, close-calls, stories, etc. calms me in a morbid way.
I guess it has to do with "facing your fears" or something like that.
This 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 "Command and Control". That one was a liquid-fueled missile with hypergolic propellant.
See Wikipedia's list of nuclear accidents.[1] This wasn't one of the big ones.
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.
> 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.
Supposedly static electricity could trigger the detonator in a nuclear weapon. There was a near accidental ignition during the development of "the Gadget" and my understanding is that the ignition system was virtually unchanged for decades.
There's a LOT of cold war history up there in the central plains. The Strategic Air Command museum just outside of Omaha Nebraska has really incredible displays and a surprisingly large aircraft collection (to me at least). Including an SR-71. Highly recommended for anyone interested in that kind of thing.
>> without hitting the missile and causing an explosion.
>> caused a short circuit that resulted in an explosion.
>> Luckily, the cone did not do enough damage to the missile to cause the missile to explode.
To clarify: There was absolutely no chance at any point of a nuclear explosion. The article suggests that some big explosion was on the edge of possibility which, given the context, one might think would be a nuclear explosion. The warhead, the "physics package", was never really a worry. Getting those to detonate requires some careful triggering.
This was also a SOLID fuel rocket. While you wouldn't want to damage it, it wasn't full of the nasty pressurized liquids of other missiles. Getting its fuel to actually ignite would require more than hitting it with a hammer. You need something akin to a blasting cap. Shuttle used something more like a giant flamethrower. The solid retro rockets were not directly triggered by a the short circuit. I'd bet good money that their ignition system felt the short rather than the fuel being ignited by the short.
That's a big part of Command and Control, the farther back in time you go, the greater the likelihood the design of the warhead was not one point safe and it wasn't at all assured that it'd take careful triggering to get a full or partial nuclear explosion. A decent chunk of later nuclear tests were to help make bombs one point safe. But even then, it there were absolutely rudimentary fail safes that basically worked on the honor system, for well over a decade.
Anyway you still have a mess on your hand if the explosives detonate but there's no chain reaction.
> There was absolutely no chance at any point of a nuclear explosion
Exactly. Even if the conventional primer went off it's not gonna cause a create the conditions necessary for fission because it wasn't set off by the detonator.
Not an aerospace engineer or anything. I think the fear was that the rocket may tip over and collapse under its own weight. I wouldn't be too surprised if that could trigger an ignition of the rocket fuel at the very least, risking nuclear contamination.
While the physics package surely has numerous safeties, I'd be concerned that the safeties would be damaged in a way that no one could really predict after falling 80 feet. They served their purpose well, but you can bet all the engineers were in the lab for the next 72 hours straight looking for various failure modes.
This is why nuclear non-proliferation is important. Its difficult enough for a super power to safely store and control its WMD. Each new nuclear state magnifies the risks, and all the more so because they lack the after action experience that a half century of mishaps delivers.
Hicks said the metal of the screwdriver contacted the positive side of the fuse and also the fuse’s grounded metal holder, causing a short circuit that sent electricity flowing to unintended places.
Is there some company out there making non-conductive screwdrivers designed for electrical work? I can understand that maybe the materials science to make strong plastic screwdrivers didn't exist in the 1950s, but surely they exist today, right?
He was supposed to be using a fuse puller, but he didn't have one.
This is a fuse puller.[1] It's a pair of pliers made from nylon. Before good plastics, they were made of hardwood.[2] Standard electrician tool for a century.
Oh yeah they exist. There are ceramic ones and I have also seen plastic ones.
I've seen other fun specialized types of screwdrivers in my career:
Screwdrivers with conductive plastic in the handle, to deal with ESD requirements in the spacecraft industry. Alternatively, take a normal plastic screwdriver handle and wrap it in copper tape.
Beryllium screwdrivers (non-ferrous) for use around MRI machine bores thanks to the insane magnetic fields. You also have to wear ceramic hard-toed shoes.
The proper tool is a fuse puller not a screwdriver. These days similar maintenance evolutions are heavily controlled operation performed under reader/worker controls.
“I wasn’t there,” Smith said of the explosion, “but I know there were two technicians who ruined their underwear. 'Cause that ain’t supposed to happen.”
Best line of the story. I'm curious how close we've been to nuclear annihilation and we had no idea.
If you happen to visit Badlands National Park, or western South Dakota in general, make time to visit the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site mentioned in the article. I toured Delta-01 last summer, and it was fascinating. The tour guide did a fantastic job of conveying the gravity of the mission and just how scary the Cold War was.
Incidents like this shows us that things will inevitably go wrong with increasing frequency and gravity.
Furthermore, I fear regional conflicts involving mass scale conventional face-off (ex. dmz) are converting to a low operating cost high risk situations in the form of mutually assured destruction.
East Asia is venturing into a potential double whammy of naval and nuclear arms race--smaller countries like South Korea are entering a phase of normalization for nuclear armament with pressure mounting from the public to have a deterrence and a back up plan yet cannot have land based missile silo's, instead relying on nuclear submarines that will host the IRBMs. The cost is much higher than the "previous generation", as smaller countries will most certainly be decimated, land based silos do not make sense.
There was a frightening number of close calls over the course of decades on the american side alone. One can just assume what must have happened on the sites of other nuclear powers that just doesn't get reported.
It's certainly time to reduce the number of warheads from a nuclear-winter-guaranteeing one to an at least nuclear-deterrence-still-works-but-an-accident-is-terrible-but-no-longer-civilization-ending one.
Well in a solid fuel missile, there was simply no way it was going to explode due to any kind of external damage (or at all, solid fuel does not explode). Good that nuclear safety of the warhead itself worked well, as none of the explosive lenses gone off.
This article didn't seem like that much of an incident. The warhead didn't fire, at least. SL-1 is more of what I would think would be a real .mil-sector nuclear accident.
[+] [-] knappe|8 years ago|reply
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.
Further the book, at one point, talks about America's position on Russia and the attempts to keep them from getting "the bomb". It is exactly what has played out and will continue to play out with North Korea and Iran. History is repeating itself and we sure haven't learned from it.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C5R7F8G/
[+] [-] abandonliberty|8 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
[+] [-] gedy|8 years ago|reply
I worked around nuclear weapon systems and TBH came away with the opposite impression. I grew up terrified of the military and panic mongering about of "THE BOMBS!" from family, media, etc. But after this, I ironically came away feeling much safer seeing how professional and serious people took their jobs.
[+] [-] bborud|8 years ago|reply
No, the problem is that we assume that we wouldn’t put clowns in charge of something this dangerous. So when we put clowns in charge of nuclear weapons and they inevitably fuck up (and not just a bit), we either refuse to believe it is even possible or we assume it is a rare accident.
[+] [-] baby|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] valuearb|8 years ago|reply
We've never had a serious accident. So maybe it's not luck, maybe there are a lot of controls that actually work well.
[+] [-] tzs|8 years ago|reply
Is it actually similar, though?
The US got the bomb in 1945.
The Russians got theirs in 1949.
Given the size of the Soviet Union, how far it is from the United States, the available spying and reconnaissance technology (no satellites, no stealth aircraft), and that the US was only four years out of World War II, I don't think there is any way the US could have made a creditable threat to use military force to stop the Russians.
Also, China and Russia were still on good terms back then. China might not have stayed out of it if the US attacked their ally and neighbor.
Compare to North Korea and Iran. In both cases the US can make a creditable military threat. From a purely military point of view, the US could easily wipe either (or both) of them out.
Furthermore, neither has any powerful allies who want them to get nukes.
With North Korea, their only powerful ally is China and I don't think China actually cares if North Korea gets destroyed as long as (1) it doesn't send a lot of refugees across the Chinese border, and (2) whatever replaces it continues to function as a buffer zone between them and South Korea because they do not want a US ally right on their border.
[+] [-] fokinsean|8 years ago|reply
Lately I have been feeling very anxious about the North Korea situation, but for some reason reading about nuclear accidents, close-calls, stories, etc. calms me in a morbid way.
I guess it has to do with "facing your fears" or something like that.
[+] [-] FabHK|8 years ago|reply
Or maybe it's evidence for the many-worlds-interpretation of quantum mechanics... we're in one of the few universes where we didn't blow ourselves up.
[+] [-] j_s|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Animats|8 years ago|reply
See Wikipedia's list of nuclear accidents.[1] This wasn't one of the big ones.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accid...
[+] [-] gh02t|8 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] collinmanderson|8 years ago|reply
> 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.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cmiles74|8 years ago|reply
https://books.google.com/books?id=lJ6JDQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA41&ots=...
[+] [-] le-mark|8 years ago|reply
http://sacmuseum.org/
[+] [-] sandworm101|8 years ago|reply
To clarify: There was absolutely no chance at any point of a nuclear explosion. The article suggests that some big explosion was on the edge of possibility which, given the context, one might think would be a nuclear explosion. The warhead, the "physics package", was never really a worry. Getting those to detonate requires some careful triggering.
This was also a SOLID fuel rocket. While you wouldn't want to damage it, it wasn't full of the nasty pressurized liquids of other missiles. Getting its fuel to actually ignite would require more than hitting it with a hammer. You need something akin to a blasting cap. Shuttle used something more like a giant flamethrower. The solid retro rockets were not directly triggered by a the short circuit. I'd bet good money that their ignition system felt the short rather than the fuel being ignited by the short.
[+] [-] cmurf|8 years ago|reply
Anyway you still have a mess on your hand if the explosives detonate but there's no chain reaction.
[+] [-] dsfyu404ed|8 years ago|reply
Exactly. Even if the conventional primer went off it's not gonna cause a create the conditions necessary for fission because it wasn't set off by the detonator.
[+] [-] bjt2n3904|8 years ago|reply
While the physics package surely has numerous safeties, I'd be concerned that the safeties would be damaged in a way that no one could really predict after falling 80 feet. They served their purpose well, but you can bet all the engineers were in the lab for the next 72 hours straight looking for various failure modes.
[+] [-] oconnor663|8 years ago|reply
Oh cool, I was wondering why they didn't just defuel the rocket first thing.
[+] [-] rrggrr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nerdponx|8 years ago|reply
Is there some company out there making non-conductive screwdrivers designed for electrical work? I can understand that maybe the materials science to make strong plastic screwdrivers didn't exist in the 1950s, but surely they exist today, right?
[+] [-] Animats|8 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.jensentools.com/gc-waldom-9356-fuse-puller-molde... [2] https://www.etsystudio.com/listing/552201603/antique-wooden-...
[+] [-] planteen|8 years ago|reply
I've seen other fun specialized types of screwdrivers in my career:
Screwdrivers with conductive plastic in the handle, to deal with ESD requirements in the spacecraft industry. Alternatively, take a normal plastic screwdriver handle and wrap it in copper tape.
Beryllium screwdrivers (non-ferrous) for use around MRI machine bores thanks to the insane magnetic fields. You also have to wear ceramic hard-toed shoes.
[+] [-] gebeeson|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lostapathy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GCU-Empiricist|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrbill|8 years ago|reply
https://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Ill...
[+] [-] skellertor|8 years ago|reply
Best line of the story. I'm curious how close we've been to nuclear annihilation and we had no idea.
[+] [-] slezakattack|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zedpm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pwaai|8 years ago|reply
Furthermore, I fear regional conflicts involving mass scale conventional face-off (ex. dmz) are converting to a low operating cost high risk situations in the form of mutually assured destruction.
East Asia is venturing into a potential double whammy of naval and nuclear arms race--smaller countries like South Korea are entering a phase of normalization for nuclear armament with pressure mounting from the public to have a deterrence and a back up plan yet cannot have land based missile silo's, instead relying on nuclear submarines that will host the IRBMs. The cost is much higher than the "previous generation", as smaller countries will most certainly be decimated, land based silos do not make sense.
[+] [-] leeoniya|8 years ago|reply
"The two 3–4-megaton MK. 39 nuclear bombs separated from the gyrating aircraft as it broke up between 1,000 and 2,000 feet (300 and 610 m)."
For reference, Little Boy's (Hiroshima) yield was 15 kilotons.
[+] [-] gilleain|8 years ago|reply
http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=4000&lat=35.5111142&l...
[+] [-] _Microft|8 years ago|reply
You can find a timeline of these almost accidents here: https://futureoflife.org/background/nuclear-close-calls-a-ti...
It's certainly time to reduce the number of warheads from a nuclear-winter-guaranteeing one to an at least nuclear-deterrence-still-works-but-an-accident-is-terrible-but-no-longer-civilization-ending one.
[+] [-] gozur88|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Havoc|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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