"...chronicle nine hours of terror that prevented an explosion 600 times more powerful than Hiroshima."
I'm calling out the film's makers on that statement. I challenge anyone to describe a situation whereby an ICBM with a leaky first stage could ever detonate the warhead in a manner resulting in such an explosion. These things don't go off when you drop them. They don't go off when you set them on fire. They don't go off when you surround them with explosives. Getting a thermonuclear weapon to detonate requires hundreds of things to happen in a precise manner. That cannot happen by accident.
I don't understand the downvotes, the OP is correct, the explosion could have resulted in a environmental disaster but in effect it would've been a "dirty bomb".
In the book they went over the trigger mechanism and overall there was no way for the 1st stage fission warhead to detonate not to mention for the 2nd stage fusion reaction to kick off.
A nuclear warhead is pretty darn hard to detonate, the detonation sequence is extremely precise and the smallest deviation would result in a dud and in rare cases an extremely low yield fizzle.
You can do whatever you want to a nuke, blow it up, set it ablaze, put it in a microwave, hit it, drop it even from orbit, it will not go off, not even because there are failsafes but because there is virtually no way for the nuke to "fail" in a way that would be even remotely close to a detonation sequence, an accidental detonation especially through brute force that would physically damage the warhead is about as likely as a tornado passing through a junkyard leaving assembled 747's in it's wake.
I am in complete agreement, with the exception of this statement:
> there is virtually no way for the nuke to "fail" in a way that would be even remotely close to a detonation sequence
That is not true, at least not universally. Nuclear bombs are, by definition, designed to go off, and as a result there is a category of failure modes that could lead to inadvertent detonation. Basically, a failure that produces the same command that would cause the normal detonation sequence to begin, could cause an unintended detonation. The Mk. 39 bomb involved in the 1961 North Carolina B-52 crash [0] reportedly came close to detonating in this manner.
Additionally, there are weapons designs that are not "one point safe", such that a failure which causes ignition of the high explosive could lead to a nuclear detonation. Weapons considered "one point safe" require multiple, carefully timed or simultaneous ignitions of the high explosive. The last non-one-point-safe weapons in the US arsenal were built in the 50s but not disassembled until recently; the W56 was reportedly not one point safe [1], or at least not provably so to the safety margins now recognized as reasonable. I don't know of any information in the unclassified literature about whether Soviet weapons are universally one-point-safe or not.
It would not surprise me if there are a variety of weapon designs still floating around in the world that aren't one-point-safe. Single compression "gun type" bombs, like the Fat Man design, would require additional engineering to make one-point-safe beyond what is minimally required to get them to detonate, which makes me suspect that some marginal nuclear powers probably don't bother.
Having read the following, I am now convinced that Goldsboro was NOT anywhere close to a nuclear detonation.
Author below has documents FOIA'd from NNSA and DOE to back his claims in a well written / detailed document:
TLDR: These weapons require auxiliary aircraft power and aircrew intent to initiate the mechanisms and sequence (19 steps) required to even arm the bomb so that it can produce a nuclear detonation.
"Bomb 2, the object of the Goldsboro controversy, was not "one step" away from detonation (nor was Bomb 1). The Mark 39 Mod 2 had two additional safety switches, the Trajectory Arm Switch and Rotary Safing Switch."
The Goldsboro crash didn't came "close" to a detonation, the result of the crash were that all but 1 of the fail safes that would prevent it from going off were damaged, it doesn't mean that it would be able to detonate if the last one would have failed too from the crash.
The detonation sequence of the nuke isn't just the conventional explosive part it's also the nuclear trigger itself (a fast neutron source) which has to fire at the exact time and power levels while the casing is still intact and can be used as a neutron reflector.
Without that even if the core goes critical it would not detonate (might result in a fizzle if the core is really big) but it would go very hot and melt down.
"one point safe" is a metric in which the US measures the nuclear explosion due to accidental detonation, anything above 4 lbs of TNT doesn't count as one point safe, this however doesn't mean that any none one point safe weapons can be detonated at full yield or anything close to that.
So yes I would still stand by the fact that there is absolutly "zero" chance of an accidental damage to a weapon to bypass all the PAL's and other failsafes and initiate a nuclear triggering which would result in a substantial yield detonation.
With modern weapons it's even less likely since technically modern designs can be considered "subcritical" (under normal pressures and conditions) and only undergo fission when they are configured properly via boosting/salting and neutron management, this is how you get "dial a yield weapons".
Can a gun type weapon ever be made one point safe? You'd have to somehow make sure that the explosives could never accidentally drive the two pieces together, which seems impossible. Doing it for an implosion weapon is, relatively speaking, much more straightforward: implosion is inherently finicky anyway, so you design it to fail unless multiple detonations happen at precise times.
The US hasn't had a gun-type nuclear weapon since 1963. The Hiroshima weapon was gun-type, and there was a serious risk of accidental detonation. Later gun-type bombs were used in the "atomic cannon" artillery shells. These apparently came in two parts intended to be assembled just before use.
Other countries, who knows? The first Soviet atomic bomb was an implosion device.
Yes, mechanically. You put something in the barrel that would shatter the 'bullet' should the explosives go off. Detonation then occurs only if the safety is moved prior to explosion. Then, as another measure, you can rig that mechanical safety mechanism to snap back in place in cases of external fire (ie some part is designed to melt and swing it back in place).
Sounds like a good system! Does it really eliminate the possibility of any detonation, though? Seems like you could still potentially get enough stuff together to exceed critical mass. The explosion would probably be smaller than nominal, but more than the 4lbs TNT equivalent that the US military specifies as its criteria for one-point safety. But perhaps I overestimate the chances of this happening. I'm far from an expert here.
>> an accidental detonation especially through brute force that would physically damage the warhead is about as likely as a tornado ...
Even if you do damage the warhead, even if you get the high explosives of the warhead to detonate, that detonation will not be symmetrical. If it isn't perfect, the shell doesn't collapse evenly --> no critical mass --> no nuclear fission --> no nuclear fusion == a week dirty bomb. No mushroom cloud. The bomb's brain has to be involved. It has to want to go off.
Note that your two examples didn't involve any nuclear material, as the fissile cores were kept separately and weren't installed in the bombs at the time.
I don't disagree that they are dangerous objects. They are radioactive material surrounded by explosives atop a rocket full of other explosives. But the 600x description means a full and proper thermonuclear detonation. That is a very different beast than an on-pad/in-silo explosion possibly releasing a small amount of radioactive material in an isolated location, a 'dirty bomb' at best. The reference to a large nuclear mushroom cloud is improper. It was never a possibility short of someone actually wanting it[1].
[1] There is much evidence that these things could have been set off deliberately (see "111111") but that isn't what this film is about.
The 11111111 weren't the only "launch codes", overall the guys in the silo can launch the rockets without an explicit order they have access to the launch keys, that's one of the reasons there are 2 of them.
I did, and found no particular cause for concern with regard to safety. Past practice lacked in some regards, I agree. But, as I recall the book, even Schlosser conceded that those issues have been effectively addressed, and that the balance between agility of response and effective C&C had been swung pretty firmly in the latter direction even by the time of the 1980 Titan accident, to say nothing of today.
This seems like a rather mild interpretation. As for the effective addressing of safety issues, it was not that long ago that the USAF last "lost" nuclear weapons [1]. (The weapons were in fact in USAFs possession, but no one knew were they were, or even that they weren't where they should have been. During this time the weapons were not handled according to the normal procedures.)
True. That was also the first time in forty years that such an incident had occurred. The officers responsible were relieved of their commands; the enlisted personnel involved were retrained and in some cases demoted; the entire command structure around nuclear-armed formations was reworked to reduce the likelihood of future such incidents. What about this response strikes you as having been ineffective?
I've read the book. The issue is not the trigger mechanisms/lack of security - we are talking about the durability of the warheads and accidental detonation.
Ex US Army bomb technician here (eod). This entire story is somewhat of a legend among our community (those that actually went through nukes at least).
Added to our (me and the SO) calendar for the weekend. Looking forward to seeing it.
The movie looks interesting, but seems I'll never get to see it, as there are no screenings in London, and I bet they won't offer a digital download option on their website...
It is described as an American Experience film, with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting listed as an underwriter. Surely we'll see this on a PBS TV broadcast soon.
Loved the book but the trailer looks a little.. meh. I hope the movies does not disapppoint, this ia a very important topic folks should care and know about.
As someone who hasn't read the book or heard about the incident for that matter, I thought it was an interesting trailer. I certainly want to see the film now.
TLDR: documentary about nine hours of terror that prevented an explosion 600 times more powerful than Hiroshima at Titan II missile complex in Arkansas; September, 1980.
Is that your characterization or theirs? It's been a while since I read the book, but I don't recall either that or any other source suggesting that there was at any point a serious risk of the warhead going off.
I'm calling out the film's makers on that statement. I challenge anyone to describe a situation whereby an ICBM with a leaky first stage could ever detonate the warhead in a manner resulting in such an explosion. These things don't go off when you drop them. They don't go off when you set them on fire. They don't go off when you surround them with explosives. Getting a thermonuclear weapon to detonate requires hundreds of things to happen in a precise manner. That cannot happen by accident.