Nuclear Officers Napped With Blast Door Left Open 238
Lasrick writes "AP's Robert Burns reports that 'Air Force officers entrusted with the launch keys to long-range nuclear missiles have been caught twice this year leaving open a blast door that is intended to help prevent a terrorist or other intruder from entering their underground command post.' Why is that signifcant? At least one of the officers was napping at the time. Airforce officials said other violations like this have undoubtedly occurred and gone undetected. Yeesh. 'The blast door violations are another sign of trouble in the handling of the nation's nuclear arsenal. The AP has discovered a series of problems within the ICBM force, including a failed safety inspection, the temporary sidelining of launch officers deemed unfit for duty and the abrupt firing last week of the two-star general in charge. The problems, including low morale, underscore the challenges of keeping safe such a deadly force that is constantly on alert but is unlikely ever to be used.'"
The worst job on earth (Score:5, Interesting)
You'd think about the obvious reasons for nuclear disarmament, but nobody ever spares a thought for the poor sods who have to sit there watching these doomsday devices: if they ever get used it's the end of the world, if they're ever attacked it will be with overwhelming force, and they are expected to be running their AAA-game 24/7/365, no holidays, no vacations.
(Interesting thought experiment: replace "nuclear weapons officer" with "megabank sysadmin")
I actually used to work in one. (Score:5, Interesting)
A) There are two blast doors.
B) They are [REDACTED] meters below ground.
C) There is an elevator
D) They are their for more than a day, so they sleep.
This isn't really much of a deal. There is nothing that can happen that they can nap through.
Their Job is extremely boring, and their isn't a regular thing to watch. Like gauge, or pressure valves.
Re:Why hold them to higher standard? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, it's a sucky job. Often it gets assign to former pilot, and no one wants to do it.
F.E.* Warren Air Force base is horrid, it's in a horrid place, and threes things happen when someone goes there:
1) The retire
2) The put 100% of their effort to getting a new station
3) They just give up to get discharged.
I was their for 18 months. During that time promotions were frozen(Thanks Reagan!) We were at 30% staffing. Meaning I spent many weeks work 72 to 100 houre, straight. as in No sleep, or at best an hour a night Plus I was told no one in my classification would every get transferred out because that don't see staffing getting put back up to 100%
Plus, for some reason, they thought I was talking drugs, os about every month I had to go pee in a cup. I have no idea why they would think that
The security teams the send out to the site our horrible people who will rob you blind.
*Fuck Everybody Warren.
Re:I can't decide... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a horrible, awful job. My father was in the airforce and maintained a lot of that equipment. Think of it this way, you are locked underground with 2 other guys. Everyone has a gun and have been psychologically tested to be sure that they could kill YOU immediately if ordered to, or if you hesitate in following an order. Spend 6 months with those guys and try and have meaningful interactions with them... oh right, you might have to shoot them to... so don't get too attached.
It's basically a recipe for the worst reality show ever. My father said the second he'd show up to work on stuff the guys would begin yapping their traps non-stop. Being the first human they'd seen in months that had no designs on shooting them in the head, he was their new best friend.
Lastly, the blast doors aren't the only doors. It's an entire facility. It just takes the blast doors a loooong time to open. So they dont close them unless they absolutely have to. Granted, his experiences were in the 60s and 70s so I'm not sure how much of it still applies. But I bet it's still pretty much the same.
Re:I can't decide... (Score:5, Interesting)
It does sound like your dad is talking about Titan II, but even then its not nearly as bad as you make it out to be (still pretty shitty though) and better than MM LCCs (the Titan II facilities were much larger... but also built right next to the silo).
Far worse were SAC B-52 crew alerts. You'd go on on ground alert for days at a time, where you had to eat/sleep/live within running/short drive distance of your bomber and couldn't really leave.
Give me a break (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, I think of the 'poor sods' in the missile silos... to laugh uproariously at them and how 'hard' they work. They're on duty in the silo for 24 hours once a week or so, and when they're not on duty they work 9-5 and get weekends off. When something in the system breaks, they phone home and someone else comes out to fix it.
I sat my missile fire control console six on, twelve off, mumble feet under the North Atlantic for sixty to eighty days a pop. If the system went down, it was on us to fix it. No nine to five. No weekends. No meals at home. No sunshine. And back then, the Walkman was brand new and the absolute height of personal electronics. (Not that personal electronics make up much for what you're missing.) I truly had to have my AAA game, because there were dozens of ways to die or be badly injured surrounding me 24/7 for days on end.
When it comes to a hard life in the strategic weapons world, the chumps out there with the prairie dogs aren't close to having the hardest. That (dubious) 'honor' belongs to my brothers and sisters boring holes out there in the deep blue.
x-FTB2/SS, USS Henry L. Stimson 655B 1983-87.
Re:Is anybody surprised? (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey there troops, listen up! It's your job to sit in this drab, overbuilt concrete coffin, sitting on your lazy asses like the cold war relics you are, until such a time as you are instructed to commit the greatest mass slaughter in human history. Any questions?
I do have a suggested alternative.... Have at least 5 or 6 command post stations; with at least 10 different pairs of watchpeople holding the launch keys.
In the event, that a launch condition is signalled -- a random command post, or a plurality of command posts; is selected to be the command post whose launch keys will activate the launch.
That way..... when the command posts are ordered to turn their keys Nobody at the command posts actually know which key turns will be the final approval for the launch to commence; hence, they will all have plausible deniability.
(2) If terrorists compromise one of the command posts; it will be unlikely that just happens to be the right post that was chosen to signal final approval.
(3) if only one or two command posts turns their keys, then the launch is aborted
(4) the command posts have security cameras monitoring each other; not in such a way as the other command posts can determine if another one has actually turned the keys, BUT in a manner, that a command post can see if another is under duress.
(5) An alternate key, and an alternate keyhole is provided for operators to use, in case under duress; a key that "prohibits" launch and neutralizes that post's abilty to approve ----- instead of approving launch.