North Carolina nearly nuked.

@Setanta,

I may be wrong from time to time but no taking the headlines design to get readers interest in a news story at face value is a damn good idea 99 out of a 100 times at least.

Someone had just wrote a book call "command and control" over nuclear weapon safety issues and accidents; Doing interviews such as on NPR and that might be why the papers are running such stories now.

Was going to download the book onto my nook but the price as the moment was too high.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

You certainly are better educated about it, Bill, than the experts at Sandia national laboratories! WOW!!!

Great responses, Walter.

All Bill has to do is to think he is right...and from that point on, he will INSIST that he is correct...no matter what.

I hope it makes him happy.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

Walter Hinteler wrote:

You certainly are better educated about it, Bill, than the experts at Sandia national laboratories! WOW!!!

Great responses, Walter.

All Bill has to do is to think he is right...and from that point on, he will INSIST that he is correct...no matter what.

I hope it makes him happy.

Plus he will turn this into an all Bill all the time thread.

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Was going to download the book onto my nook but the price as the moment was too high.

I suppose reading an actual book is quite a high price for you to pay.

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@BillRM,

Mother Jones first reported Schlosser's findings Sunday, and the Goldsboro incident attracted new attention Friday based on an article in the Guardian.

BillRM wrote:

Someone had just wrote a book call "command and control" over nuclear weapon safety issues and accidents; Doing interviews such as on NPR and that might be why the papers are running such stories now.

The British paper also published the report, written by Parker F. Jones, the supervisor of the nuclear weapons safety department at Sandia National Laboratories.

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

So let me get this straight the design of this bomb was so bad that the bomb trigger was almost told to function during an accident!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes. That is what is being reported, at least.

BillRM wrote:

Three of four safety devices did not function.................

It is possible that the media is making more of this than is warranted. That fourth safety might have been designed just for this sort of situation, and everything worked as intended. I don't have enough data to know for sure though.

BillRM wrote:

Love to be able to read the full report instead of one short sentence over this event as the comment on the side about the bomb breaking apart does not made sense as if the bomb broke apart it could not function either.

I think they are saying the aircraft broke apart (thus releasing the bombs).

BillRM wrote:

They could have been talking about the convention explosives going off and that is far far far far from the full bomb going off.

Actually, a bomb this early would not have been one point safe, so accidentally setting off the explosives would likely have resulted in a nuclear fizzle.

But the articles seem pretty clear that the bomb's triggering mechanism was activated.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Someone had just wrote a book call "command and control" over nuclear weapon safety issues and accidents; Doing interviews such as on NPR and that might be why the papers are running such stories now.

Actually, I think one of the articles said that this exact book is the source for all this news.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

Actually, I think one of the articles said that this exact book is the source for this news.

You mean that the document is a falsification???

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

But the articles seem pretty clear that the bomb's triggering mechanism was activated.

That is crazy hell even WW2 convention bombs in bombers had safety features to keep that from happening if the planes broke up.

If I remember correctly the bombs in the bomb bay have some blocking material that kept the bombs trigger from functioning and before they are drop lines from this blocking materials are connected to the plane so when the bombs are then drop the blocking material is pull free.

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@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

You mean that the document is a falsification???

No. I have no reason to believe that anything was falsified.

I am not sure whether the media is blowing this out of proportion though. Was that last safety the weak link in a rudimentary strong link/weak link system?

1 Reply

@oralloy,

oralloy wrote:

I am not sure whether the media is blowing this out of proportion though.

"Media" only jumped on this after the Guardian published the document - when Mother Jones et. al. reported about the book, there wasn't such a reaction.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Quote:

"Media" only jumped on this after the Guardian published the document - when Mother Jones et. al. reported about the book, there wasn't such a reaction

When the media jump this out of all proportion is kind of beside the point.

Hydrogen Bombs by their very need to have a complex trigger device working perfectly in nanosecond time frames are as inherently safe from accidents as any other weapon humans had ever created.

It would take real genius to design such a weapon that would go off if the plane that was carrying it broke apart.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

When the media jump this out of all proportion is kind of beside the point.

My response wasn't at all directed to you:

http://i1334.photobucket.com/albums/w641/Walter_Hinteler/b_zps29b6b644.jpg

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Notice what we are talking about here: TRIGGERING CIRCUITRY, not the actual circuitry that makes the bomb go off, but what sends it the signal, the yes-or-no that makes it go off. That doesn't have to operate in anything like the nanoseconds Bill is postulating. The process in the bomb has to be in precise sequence, in fractions of a second,( but probably nowhere near as little as a nanosecond, which was well beyond the technological capabilities then), but all the triggering circuitry probably has to do is say yes, and then the speedy part happens. Notice there were safety features designed to keep it from saying yes, and it was one of those, described as a "simple low-voltage switch"
that was the final backup and kept it from going off. Not a million-dollar component. Bill is as usual somewhere way far out in the ozone. And the bomb designers got really, really lucky. And DOD kept it from us, just how vulnerable to our own stuff we are.

1 Reply

@MontereyJack,

Quote:

bomb has to be in precise sequence, in fractions of a second,( but probably nowhere near as little as a nanosecond, w

Hundreds of milloseconds my rear end as a five dollar 5 ms mechanical relay from radio shack could then do the job with time to spare.

Implosion wave on the sphere of plutonium by the package of chemical explosives need to be time in the nanosecond or at most the microsecond range.

Note that the gun method of setting off plutonium bombs can not be use as the speed of thousands of feet per second is not fast enough to keep the bomb from fizzling.

Quote:

( but probably nowhere near as little as a nanosecond, which was well beyond the technological capabilities then)

The first plutonium bomb had only a small yield compare to if size due to the problem of getting the triggering as fast as needed.

If memory service me correctly they did so with a very very fast tube like device who name I can not think of at the moment.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Quote:

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Krytron

A krytron is a specialized electronic device for the extremely fast switching (e.g., 5 nanosecond) of moderately high power electrical pulses. It is a member of the subclass of cold cathode trigger devices in the broader class of pulse power switching devices. While there are multiple applications, the strategically sensitive, dual-use reason that they are under tight export controls is that they are a building block for the triggering mechanisms of many nuclear weapons. The speed and reliability of switching distinguish it rather than its absolute power switching ability; a typical krytron impulses up to approximately 3000 amperes and 5000 volts.

Physically, it is a gas-filled tube, with the gas kept ionized because the tube contains a small radioactive source, usually a beta emitter. It has four electrodes, two for the triggering impulse and two for the power load to be transferred.

Non-nuclear applications include photographic flash lighting and laser welding.

Categories: CZ Live | Engineering Workgroup | Military Workgroup | All Content | Engineering Content | Military Content

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@Setanta,

Quote:

That had to have been written by a Brit. Where the hell do they think North Carolina is?

He he he. A bomb dropped on the coastal plain near Wilmington NC will probably be noticed as a dim light in Richmond.

1 Reply

I have to say, as someone who has read a bit about the topic, that BillRM has been right about the timing issues.

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@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

BillRM wrote:

Sorry but physics is physics

And bollocks is bollocks.

Stop talking in a foreign tongue.

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@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

A close shave indeed.

Quote:
A four-megaton nuclear bomb was one switch away from exploding over the US in 1961, a newly declassified US document confirms.

Two bombs were on board a B-52 plane that went into an uncontrolled spin over North Carolina - both bombs fell and one began the detonation process.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24183879

This is such silliness. B-52's did not carry "four-megaton" nuclear weapons. The detonation of a bomb has to be effected by the bombardier. The detonation process is not like a light switch. There would only be a cordoned off area where there would be a downed aircraft.

In my opinion, people should stick to things they know about.

Anyone out there in poster land that has antipathy to the US nuclear deterrent might have liked this thread. If that be true, f*ck them!

2 Replies

North Carolina nearly nuked.

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