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40 Years Ago, the US Lost a Nuclear Bomb
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Nov 11, 2008 08:07 AM
from the chrome-dome-down dept.
from the chrome-dome-down dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "A BBC investigation has found that in 1968 the US abandoned a nuclear weapon beneath the ice in northern Greenland after a nuclear-armed B52 crashed on the ice a few miles from Thule Air Base. The Stratofortress disintegrated on impact with the sea ice and parts of it began to melt through to the fjord below. The high explosives surrounding the four nuclear weapons on board detonated without setting off the nuclear devices, which had not been armed by the crew. The Pentagon maintained that all four weapons had been 'destroyed' and while technically true, investigators piecing together fragments from the crash could only account for three of the weapons. Investigators found that 'something melted through ice such as burning primary or secondary.' A subsequent search by a US submarine was beset by technical problems and, as winter encroached and the ice began to freeze over, the search was abandoned. 'There was disappointment in what you might call a failure to return all of the components,' said a former nuclear weapons designer at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. 'It would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn't find them.'"
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Report to Number 1 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Report to Number 1 (Score:5, Funny)
Dear Mr cthulu_mt,
It is my duty to inform you that you have violated the Slashdot Users Union rule 34 part c which states in part that the Redundant moderation tag shall be used in cases where the obvious joke is obvious to the Slashdot community and therefore redundant. I hope that this clears up any confusion your part.
Thank you
Chester C Chester,
Director
Department of Redundancies Department
Parent
Greenland eh? (Score:5, Funny)
Wonder if Sarah Palin can see it from her house.
Re:Greenland eh? (Score:5, Funny)
Not really, moreover I think this is the time to make Palin jokes, previously all Palin said scared the hell out of me, but now we all can fully appreciate her stupidity.
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Re:Greenland eh? (Score:5, Funny)
Considering people are still saying Al Gore created the Internet, I don't think it will be over for awhile.
I laughed at Colbert's version: because of the International Date Line, not only can she see Russia, she can *see into the Future!*.
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Re:Greenland eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Obligatory... (Score:5, Funny)
From a unnamed news source:
Hey, 50 years ago, they lost one, too! (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tybee_Bomb [wikipedia.org]
And it's far more conveniently located (somewhere off the coast of Georgia). No need to go diving somewhere in the Arctic!
Re:Hey, 50 years ago, they lost one, too! (Score:5, Informative)
Quite a few nuclear weapons have been lost over the years.
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Re:Hey, 50 years ago, they lost one, too! (Score:5, Informative)
And one in BC, Canada in 1950, although there was no plutonium in that core. http://www.user.dccnet.com/welcomewoods/Nuclear_Free_Georgia_Strait/b_arrow1.html [dccnet.com]
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Re:Hey, 50 years ago, they lost one, too! (Score:5, Funny)
From Wikipedia:
The 12-foot (4 m) long Mark 15 bomb weighs 7,600 pounds (3,500 kg) and bears the serial number "No. 47782".
I thought I'd gotten lucky, but the one I found had the serial number "No. 47783". Damn.
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Re:Hey, 50 years ago, they lost one, too! (Score:5, Informative)
There's also the Palomares incident,
Well, they eventually accounted for all of the bombs. The guy who claimed salvage rights ... well, that's pretty fscking brilliant.
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A matter of time. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A matter of time. (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah because no one is going to notice a bunch of middle eastern men running around Thule Airbase drilling holes in the ice?
Also considering how much alcohol they consume up there any extremists are going to have a real hard time keeping their cover.
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Re:A matter of time. (Score:5, Funny)
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Experimental nuclear waste storage? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps this can somehow be used to demonstrate that nuclear waste can be safely disposed of in the ocean floor? There have been serious proposals for disposing of waste in holes drilled hundreds of feet beneath the seabed in especially deep water.
I know this is unpopular with the anti-nuclear crowd, but a "real demo" may provide useful data.
Re:Experimental nuclear waste storage? (Score:5, Informative)
Thermonuclear bombs are composed of a small amount of mildly radioactive uranium-235 and tritium, and larger amounts of minimally radioactive uranium-238 and stable lithium deuteride. The fission products that make up the most dangerous form of radioactive waste are far more dangerous, so this bomb would not provide much useful data about waste disposal.
In any event we don't really need more research. We already know that the best solution is to put it in a geologically stable and dry mountain.
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Re:Experimental nuclear waste storage? (Score:5, Funny)
Nobody wants Godzilla showing up in 50 years.
It's just too terrifying a possibility.
Especially if there's a commercial tie-in & jingle.
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The six-step plan (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The six-step plan (Score:5, Funny)
- You'll probably need an inside man in the Air Force. Expect to surgically alter his cornea so that he will pass the retinal scan during the re-jiggering of the aircraft payload orders.
- A one-time payment of $500B is nice, but will only finance SPECTRE operations for a short while, even with proper investment. Consider using the weapon directly. Igniting the arabian oil fields would cause irreparable damage to any country not properly prepared. That would be worth well more than $500B, and would be considered continuous revenue. Consider a project code name invoking Allah, but don't be too obvious.
- Should you encounter a British or US secret agent, politely invite him to lunch on your yacht. He will undoubtedly express interest in a tour, which should culminate with a demo of the ship's control center. At that point, put a bullet in his head. None of your hand-picked crew will think any less of you.
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Not the only one (Score:5, Informative)
In 1966, a nuclear armed B52 crashed [google.ca] over Palomares Spain, scattering radioactive material from multiple bombs, each 100 times more powerful than those which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
more losses (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that rare, unfortunately (Score:5, Informative)
This doesn't count those that were recovered in sometimes very expensive operations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palomares_hydrogen_bombs_incident [wikipedia.org]
Re:gentlemen: (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:gentlemen: (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:gentlemen: (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:gentlemen: (Score:5, Interesting)
Link [mentalfloss.com] The one under the wetlands in NC is probably the most recoverable. All you have to do is move 5-600 tons of sand and silt while keeping the groundwater under control, and hope that the safety shielding hasn't been compromised from impact and exposure. A separate article I can't dig up right now tells the story of the guy that found it (recently, within the last 10 years). He was able to deduce the location by taking and graphing hundreds (thousands?) of radiation measurements. He wrote the air force and they said "No, it's fine where it is."
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Re:gentlemen: (Score:5, Funny)
All you have to do is move 5-600 tons of sand and silt while keeping the groundwater under control, and hope that the safety shielding hasn't been compromised from impact and exposure.
My god... the terrorists could get it! They're already experts in sand!
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Re:gentlemen: (Score:5, Interesting)
All you have to do is move 5-600 tons of sand and silt while keeping the groundwater under control, and hope that the safety shielding hasn't been compromised from impact and exposure.
That would seem to be fairly simple to do now - modern mining techniques will freeze surrounding soft soil with liquid CO2 or N2, then they can dig a tunnel through the now solid soil.
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Re:So, where is it? (Score:5, Funny)
Nonsense.
But, of course, this means that Greenland possesses WMDs and must be destroyed.
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Re:So, where is it? (Score:5, Funny)
And AGAIN the US knows this because they left them there themselves ;).
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Yes ! Bring good old Democracy to them ! (Score:5, Funny)
And while we are at it, why not liberate democratically some oil [wikipedia.org] ?
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Re:Trailer to a movie? (Score:5, Informative)
The capital is "nuuk", which would be pretty fitting.
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Re:Trailer to a movie? (Score:5, Funny)
Gjordzilla??
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Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Funny)
The US (USAF?) does need a major overhaul of its nuclear handling policies; this crap would've never flown under SAC. You can pin that one on Clinton,
Yes, because everybody knows Clinton was in power in 1968.
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Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Funny)
Don't be so quick to dismiss this, after all Obama was involved with a terrorist group back in the '60s.
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Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Interesting)
Those nuclear bombs stationed outside US borders (and the US nuclear stockpile in general) were probably the only thing keeping the Soviets from rolling their tanks all the way to Paris. And if you think US imperialism is bad, try living under the Soviet version.
- you may believe this, but this is just a bunch of propaganda that was pushed into the throats of the US citizens to make sure they shut the fuck up and only cheer as the US pushed their weaponry into every possible hole in the world.
Stalin was a maniac, that can be said with certainty, however after his death the USSR quickly got away from the idea of 'spreading the communism' onto the rest of the world and just tried to survive in its own planned economy. It was already the biggest country in the world (even now Russia is almost twice as large as the next contender, Canada) and holding onto that territory with hundreds of nations living on it was a challenge in itself, adding more territory with people who had completely different mentality would not work and it was understood.
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Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Informative)
Stalin was a maniac, that can be said with certainty, however after his death the USSR quickly got away from the idea of 'spreading the communism' onto the rest of the world and just tried to survive in its own planned economy
... while continuing to occupy Eastern Europe and crushing any attempts by those countries to leave the orbit of Mother Russia.
Fixed that for you.
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Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
But you are just confirming my statement. After the death of Stalin there was no new conquests, no new territories
I'm sure you'd find that comforting if you lived in Poland or Hungary during the Cold War.
Afghanistan was an attempt at showing off, also an attempt to stop the inflow of drugs into the 3 USSR republics bordering it
Wait a minute, you are rationalizing the USSR's intervention in Afghanistan because of the drug trade? So by your logic the US was well within our rights to intervene in Panama in 1989 (Operation Just Cause), right?
USA was and is the main international aggressor for the past 60 years
The US engaged in a number of questionable activities during the Cold War, mostly due to the perceived threat of Communism. It's a bit of a leap to say that the US was the "main international aggressor" though and I find it pretty troubling that you can rationalize aggression by the USSR but condemn it when done by the United States.
Your arguments aren't consistent with each other and it seems to me that you are more interested in condemning the United States than in having an honest dialog about the military history of the 20th century.
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Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Informative)
Really? The "main international aggressor for the past 60 years"?
Yeah. I can't think of a single [wikipedia.org] instance [wikipedia.org] of any [wikipedia.org] other [wikipedia.org] nation [wikipedia.org] doing [wikipedia.org] anything [wikipedia.org] aggressive [wikipedia.org] over [wikipedia.org] the [wikipedia.org] past [wikipedia.org] sixty [wikipedia.org] years [wikipedia.org].
And we all know about those massive amounts of territory the US has added to its borders since 1948.
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Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they invaded Afghanistan because they knew if they didn't a bunch of religious nutbars would take over. That was the only thing keeping the fundamentalist terrorists in check.
Of course the Regan administration saw this as 'godless commies repressing religious freedom' and started training and passing arms to the Afghan rebels to fight the communists. Russia eventually saw this as an unwinnable war and pulled out.
That provided the path for the religious nutbars to take over Afghanistan which brings us to the modern day mess we have there.
Good job Republicans!
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Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes Carter started it, but it was mainly a CIA operation. It took Reagan to dramatically increase funding and US involvement:
From http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Afghanistan/Afghanistan_CIA_Taliban.html [thirdworldtraveler.com]
In March 1985, the Reagan administration issued National Security Decision Directive 166,29 a secret plan to escalate covert action in Afghanistan dramatically: Abandoning a policy of simple harassment of Soviet occupiers, the Reagan team decided secretly to let loose on the Afghan battlefield an array of U.S. high technology and military expertise in an effort to hit and demoralize Soviet commanders and soldiers....
...
By 1987, the annual supply of arms had reached 65,000 tons, and a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon officials were visiting Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters in Rawalpindi and helping to plan mujahideen operations
...
As well as training and recruiting Afghan nationals to fight the Soviets, the CIA permitted its ISI allies to recruit Muslim extremists from around the world. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid reports: Between 1982 and 1992, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 Islamic countries in the Middle East, North and East Africa, Central Asia and the Far East would pass their baptism under fire with the Afghan mujahideen. Tens of thousands more foreign Muslim radicals came to study in the hundreds of new madrassas [religious schools] that Zia's military government began to fund in Pakistan and along the Afghan border. Eventually more than 100,000 Muslim radicals were to have direct contact with Pakistan and Afghanistan and be influenced by the jihad [against the USSR]
Like I said - Good job Republicans!
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Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
Eisenhower and Truman were two of our greatest presidents. A Republican and a Democrat.
Bush Jr and Carter have been two of our worst presidents. A Republican and a Democrat.
Thomas Jefferson was one of our greatets politicians and presidents. A Democratic-Republican (Holy shit! Both letters!?)
Can we please get over this party line bullshit now?
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Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
So when Russia invades a country to keep "religious nutbars" in check, it's okay?
So when the US creates problem like Afghanistan, Iran-Iraq, Bin Laden, etc. through crappy foreign policy, then has to go in and kill more people to clean up the first mess, that's ok?
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Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Insightful)
Leaving it alone as a failed state that harbors terrorists who want to kill American citizens doesn't seem like a good alternative.
You're missing the point. It was the CIA led initiatives that CREATED the terrorists in the first place. The fundamentalists were there before, but it took the US to actually organize them, train them, fund them and give them weapons and resources that they would never have received on their own.
Before the US got involved, they were tribal, fighting with rifles on horseback. Do you really think they were a threat to the US like that?
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Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Informative)
"to a responsible and trustworthy country, France for example"
I actually find myself speechless...
France being the #4 arms exporter (if you exclude the EU as a whole) in the world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_largest_arms_exporters [wikipedia.org]
Yeah, and France's rather recent history of illegal underwater testing of nuclear weapons, the reason for the huge zone of floating dead animals in the South Pacific, also doesn't speak well of them here.
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Re:Imperialism Gone Mad (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah sure, forget your founding fathers. Land of the free eh?
Some of the Founding Fathers advocated for a non-interventionist foreign policy free of "entanglements" (Washington). Others (Jefferson) were in favor of an interventionist foreign policy. Trying to paint all of the founding fathers with one broad brush stroke is a mistake.
See, the USA claims it is different, either it lives up to that, or many will ridecule it.
Every Great Power has claimed that it's "different". An objective reading of history will uncover hypocrisy on the part of nearly every nation on this planet, including yours I'd suspect. Are you really that surprised that the United States also engages in it?
War in the rest of the world meant that that trade was being endangered. Sea warfare made it difficult, dangerous and expensive to transport anything anywhere, and as a consequence, the USA had a direct reason to get involved.
I'm sure that was a contributory factor. The sinking of American ships on the high seas and Zimmerman telegram also had something to do with it.
At any rate, to come back to your initial argument that all world powers do it, keep in mind that all world powers also find out at some point that its not true. Usually that comes together with their decline, and often their destruction.
All powers eventually decline. Personally I wouldn't mind seeing my country decline a little bit and focus on the home front instead of the globe. I would want to see another Democracy come forward and assume our place in the World first though -- since that doesn't appear too likely in the next few decades I think we'll have to resign ourselves to our respective roles in the World. You may not like it but ask yourself if you'd really be happier seeing China or Russia in our place.
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Re:Broken Arrow? (Score:5, Funny)
Just send in Christian Slater to recover it. It'll only take him a few hours, with the additional bonus that movie footage of the recovery mission will make for a great action movie once the evil John Travolta tries to steal it.
Hey, cut John Travolta some slack. He just wants to get his hands on a thermonuclear weapon so he can give Xenu a taste of his own medicine.
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Re:24 episode (Score:5, Funny)
I don't like how dark Jack has become. He shouldn't even by a U.S. employee anymore with the tactics he uses.
I prefer the early seasons when Jack was still a decent human being.
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