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The Military

Russia Says New Weapon Blew Up In Nuclear Accident Last Week (bloomberg.com) 72

Posted by BeauHD from the testing-testing-1-2-3 dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The failed missile test that ended in an explosion killing five atomic scientists last week on Russia's White Sea involved a small nuclear power source, according to a top official at the institute where they worked. The men "tragically died while testing a new special device," Alexei Likhachev, the chief executive officer of state nuclear monopoly Rosatom, said at their funeral Monday in Sarov, a high-security city devoted to atomic research less than 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of Moscow where the institute is based. The part of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center that employed them is developing small-scale power sources that use "radioactive materials, including fissile and radioisotope materials" for the Defense Ministry and civilian uses, Vyacheslav Soloviev, scientific director of the institute, said in a video shown by local TV.

The blast occurred Aug. 8 during a test of a missile engine that used "isotope power sources" on an offshore platform in the Arkhangelsk region, close to the Arctic Circle, Rosatom said over the weekend. The Defense Ministry initially reported two were killed in the accident, which it said involved testing of a liquid-fueled missile engine. The ministry didn't mention the nuclear element. It caused a brief spike in radiation in the nearby port city of Severodvinsk, according to a statement on the local administration's website that was later removed. A Sarov institute official on the video posted Sunday said radiation levels jumped to double normal levels for less than an hour and no lasting contamination was detected. The Russian military said radiation levels were normal but disclosed few details about the incident. There's speculation that the weapon being tested was the SSC-X-9 Skyfall, known in Russia as the Burevestnik, a nuclear-powered cruise missile that President Vladimir Putin introduced last year.
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Russia Says New Weapon Blew Up In Nuclear Accident Last Week More

Russia Says New Weapon Blew Up In Nuclear Accident Last Week

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  • Last words heard... (Score:5, Funny)

    by bobthesungeek76036 ( 2697689 ) on Monday August 12, 2019 @08:55PM (#59081138)
    "Hold my Vodka, watch this..."

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      "Hold my Vodka, watch this..."

      But not in that order

      • "Watch this hold my vodka?"

        I think that's called a shotglass, and it's not really that impressive to most of us.

        • "Watch this hold my vodka?"

          I think that's called a shotglass, and it's not really that impressive to most of us.

          No respectable Russian is going to be drinking from a tiny shotglass

          • You're not familiar with Russian customs then. They do indeed do shots of vodka. Endless shots with endless toasts for each one.

            It's classy to take down a couple of liters of vodka with your friends if you do it one shot and one toast at a time! Unclassy if you just drink it out of mugs.

  • good news (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chromal ( 56550 ) on Monday August 12, 2019 @08:55PM (#59081140)
    Reports indicated that the leakage was only measured as 3.6 roentgen. Not great, not terrible!

    • Not great, not terrible!

      If it was cesium-powered (it was described as isotopic), I recall figures of two orders of magnitude greater energy density than chemical fuels/explosives and three orders less than 'conventional' - sic - atomic... I don't recall whether fission or full-on thermonuke.

      • Re:good news (Score:5, Informative)

        by Rei ( 128717 ) on Monday August 12, 2019 @09:36PM (#59081230) Homepage

        I imagine that was just a translation or wording issue. There's no logic at all to a RTG-powered engine. You need huge amounts of power to propel a missile. And if it's an RTG, you can't shut it off. So what do you do, have the engine constantly running even when the missile is sitting on the ground? How would you even make such a thing in the first place? And the cost would be unthinkable.

        Nuclear engines, yes. RTG engines, no.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

          You would keep the heat source separate from the other components prior to launch. As for stopping it -- why stop a missile? Just detonate it. So if the RTG is a heat source for a hydraulic engine, you could remove the RTG source entirely (prior to insertion, or by ejecting it), you could move the RTG farther away from the hydraulic fluid, or you could have a metal piece that reflects and/or sinks the heat away, or you could block the hydraulic parts from moving (which would build up pressure though).

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Rei ( 128717 )

            How do you just "keep something that's constantly outputting hundreds of megawatts" separate? You have to cool it. With a monstrous amount of air or liquid. And how do you just "remove" something that's giving of hundreds of megawatts of heat output? How to you put such a thing together in the first place?

            • I know nothing of missile or nuclear technology, but could you create a hybrid missile with traditional fuel to get it going, then a much smaller nuclear source to keep it going for much longer duration or faster velocity?

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by spun ( 1352 )

                This is probably how it is done, but your question really does not relate to the question of whether or not this is an radioisotope thermal-electric generator or a full fledged nuclear reactor. Hint: it's a damn reactor, specifically, if it is like our prototypes, an unshielded reactor, an RTG is simply not suitable for this application.

                The reason it's done this way is that it is a nuclear ram jet. The reaction mass is air, so the missile absolutely needs to be going at ramjet speeds before the nuclear engi

                • According to the narrative as it emerges, we "know" or can determine these two things: it was isotopic, not "conventional unshielded fissile" like Pluto - hence my suspicion that this may represent a new generation of "hybrid chemical/nuclear" possibly using cesium - and it supposedly utilizes a liquid reaction mass.

                  Perhaps this "missile" travels underwater.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

              RTGs produce kilowatts, not megawatts.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Rei ( 128717 )

                Supersonic nuclear cruise missiles need megawatts. And therein lies the crux of the issue.

            • These things are a solution for a problem from back when before there were ICBMs, GPS and long range cruise missiles.
              Namely - how to keep a bomber in the air indefinitely.

              Thus, they are intended not for precision strikes at great distance, but to cruise OVER the target area for days, weeks and months, bombing what needs to be bombed. With nukes.
              And if they irradiate the area along their flight path - even better. Fuck em.
              It's not like that radiation is coming back at us.
              Or like anyone will be surviving a nu

        • One imagines something more like Project Pluto, which is entirely practical and technically feasible. Also probably quite dangerous to all involved.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          • That's what came to my mind immediately. I doubt whatever they were testing would be recognized as a "rocket" or "missile". It's hard to imagine a failed missile launch killing 5 nuclear scientists. I mean, I guess they could have been standing on the launch pad.

          • In which case, did it blow up, or are they just saying that to cover up the fact that they're test firing such a stupid weapon?

          • Being an open engine design, built for one-way trips, it was super simple, the complexity being the guidance and weapons delivery systems. Those same systems (TERCOM, SATCOM) were adapted and adopted to other delivery platforms (AGM-86, Tomahawk, GBU series) and excelled there.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by sjames ( 1099 )

            Possibly less than you might think. The Windscale piles were air cooled nuclear reactors producing plutonium for the British atomic bomb program.

            They became a problem when the graphite core caught fire and threatened to release masses of radioactive ash through the unfiltered exhaust, but in normal operation they didn't create a problem.

            Pluto, in contrast used ceramic fuel elements. Of course, we wouldn't want those things flying all over the place since they do release some radiation, but since their purpo

        • I imagine that was just a translation or wording issue. There's no logic at all to a RTG-powered engine.

          Apparently it wasn't a translation issue; supposedly it was Isotopic but obviously it wouldn't be an RTG's but something more like this. [wikipedia.org] While Pluto supposedly relied on a conventional fission reactor (albeit an "open" design that spewed contamination everywhere), twenty years ago there was talk of cesium-based weaponry and then it all went dark; haven't read a peep anywhere since...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sfcat ( 872532 )

        Not great, not terrible!

        If it was cesium-powered (it was described as isotopic), I recall figures of two orders of magnitude greater energy density than chemical fuels/explosives and three orders less than 'conventional' - sic - atomic... I don't recall whether fission or full-on thermonuke.

        What? Cesium powered, how or why would you do that? I guess it would release quite a bit of heat so perhaps you could create an RTG with that. It wouldn't last as long as a Pu-239 or U-232 RTG and its power output would fluctuate and fall off much faster. I'm pretty sure this was a nuclear powered rocket which is pretty dumb on its own. ICBMs already have all the range they need so the longer life of the nuclear powered rocket wouldn't give much of an advantage. I've heard that the point of these rock

        • Ballistic missiles can be intercepted, good luck with a ground hugging cruise missile that never even rises above the horizon as far as defence radars are concerned.
        • They were launched with solid-fueled first stages, at least Pluto was. Seen some math done on it, and the shockwave of a hypersonic treetop-level pass was intense enough to kill everyone within a mile of the ground track. And if you somehow had the ill fortune to survive the blast, you had the radiation poisoning to contend with. Shielding being heavy, the fission reactor was naturally completely unshielded.

        • I'm pretty sure this was a nuclear powered rocket which is pretty dumb on its own.

          It's an intelligent and generally demented idea.

          ICBMs already have all the range they need so the longer life of the nuclear powered rocket wouldn't give much of an advantage.

          Range is far from the only consideration, especially when you consider the continuing evolution of ballistic/theater defense. Nuclear and "hybrid" (isotopic) propulsion systems (unfortunately) have a lot to like about them, including the lack of a need to carry reaction mass when traveling in a medium, etc. The tech will allow far tinier propulsion units to push far largers payloads at ever faster speeds.

          That's the objective, isn't it? :/

    • Reports indicated that the leakage was only measured as 3.6 roentgen. Not great, not terrible!

      Are we going by measurements released by Russian state agencies? Seriously?

      A picture from the linked article : https://assets.bwbx.io/images/... [assets.bwbx.io]

      • Re:good news (Score:4, Funny)

        by weilawei ( 897823 ) on Monday August 12, 2019 @10:00PM (#59081272)

        Whoosh. You missed the joke.

      • The comment is in reference to a quote from the TV show "Chernobyl" where a character says that and it then turns out to have much higher radiation.
      • joke reference to mini series. back in the 80's with Chernobyl the maximum reading on the meter was supposedly 3.6 and as it was reading 3.6 that is what they reported as they didn't have a meter on site at the time that could read the true value.

    • Reports indicated that the leakage was only measured as 3.6 roentgen. Not great, not terrible!

      The reports are wrong. At the point of prompt criticality, your "leakage" was closer to 1,000,000 roentgens and that sir IS terrible. Was anything left other than radioactive residue? Film at eleven.

  • Nuclear missiles? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stevent1965 ( 4521547 ) on Monday August 12, 2019 @09:18PM (#59081172)
    It was probably a beta test of that ridiculous nuclear-powered airplane/missile/whatever that the Soviet Union...-kaff-...Russia was bragging about last year that could fly around the world in three seconds, was invisible, and could destroy Jupiter...or something like that, you can't trust the Russians to tell if the sun is out, or not.

  • Where you can count on a fair reporting of disaster by the authorities, and a gut punch [reuters.com] when the same authorities deem it appropriate.

  • ... "we are having new clear vepons."

  • Pluto? (Score:3)

    by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Monday August 12, 2019 @10:30PM (#59081332)

    Don't know whether to be happy or sad if they have brought back project pluto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    It was too crazy even for the peak of the cold war, and is an incredibly dumb idea - but it is sort of cool.

    Guess it goes along with rumors Poseidon having a cobalt warhead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Maybe the US doesn't have the craziest leader.

  • ... anyone?

  • Another accident, those Russians are so careless...
  • Hey, you guys don't seem to have a lot of success with nuclear things. How about trying a steampunk kinda missile? Might be something you can handle better. Just sayin.
  • Let's see: it's a weapon. So that was an overall success, right? Or was is NOT somehow supposed to blow up?

    Here's our latest weapon: the UScareUm. It's a missile that flies Mach 6 to the target, then uses solar panels to power attached drones to fly around the target in circles for days, either scaring people to death (it's still there!) or causing watchers enough dizziness for for us to easily invade.

    Still in prototype is the UPinUm: where we drop a bunch of paper tails and very slowly fly a picture
    • That's about the only reason to have nuclear powered missiles - something like Project Pluto. You could have a projectile that circles enemy territory perpetually while you make threats and try to get a surrender. Possibly armed with sub-missiles that launch off the main one.

      I see little reason to have nuclear scientists circled around a launch pad, so probably whatever they tested was not a missile, but they are calling it that for secrecy. Whatever they were working on, probably does not have a Wikipedi

    • Or was is NOT somehow supposed to blow up?

      It was a flight test, it was not supposed to blow up. It was supposed to crash into an area of ocean that had been closed for a month already in preparation, where it would be recovered by a special ops submarine carrier that has been out there waiting.

  • Imagine the development of weapons that have not been bungled yet. Human ingenuity may save us or sink us. Regimes want to survive since there is not much of an alternative, since except for democracy power changes are usually perilous.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @03:46AM (#59081732)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • NASA is still working on fission reactors for missions:
      https://www.space.com/nuclear-... [space.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by spun ( 1352 )

      Nobody should hate you just for being misinformed. This is the Russian version of (a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto")Project Pluto(/a), which is 60 year old technology. It's called the (a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M730_Burevestnik")9M730 Burevestnik(/a) and it's not like it is a huge mystery.

      The reason they test where they do is that this thing spits radiation out the back, by design, and at the end of the test, you've got a supersonic flying reactor that needs to crash somewhe

  • The blast occurred Aug. 8 during a test of a missile engine that used "isotope power sources" on an offshore platform in the Arkhangelsk region

    Not to worry. It's just 007 protecting us from the Goldeneye Device

    Hint: Goldeneye mission 1 on the N64

  • Probably a conventional fuel propulsion accident on a missile using small RPG to power electronics instead of a battery.

    • This seems very likely. As nuclear weapons are designed to sit ready for decades an RTG power source for electronics makes sense, they are extremely reliable and wouldn't require the maintenance of a typical battery system.

      Also I think you mean RTG. Though if they are using an RPG to power the electronics I think that could have been the cause of the problem.

      • >Though if they are using an RPG to power the electronics I think that could have been the cause of the problem.
        LOL - Autocorrect strikes again...
  • The Russians are taking the threat seriously as the polar caps shrink, allowing whales greater access to their northern coast. They will be prepared.

  • It was supposedly a nuclear engine for a hypersonic cruise missile.

    Can you asshole scientists work on sexbots instead, please?

  • So simple even a caveman could do it, if he was crazy.
    https://youtu.be/4VcXqtl3FAI [youtu.be]

  • My first thought was - yea, that's what a nuclear bomb is supposed to do, blow up.

    An Isotope engine. Interesting.

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