3 ms·

"Atomic Accidents" by James Mahaffey is an entire book of essentially criticality accidents. Well worth reading and entertaining in an often sick way.

cmiles74 9y ago
"Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety" by Eric Schlosser enumerates accidents related to nuclear weapons, many of which do not end in criticality due to sheer luck in most cases. Illusion of safety indeed. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C5R7F8G/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C5R7F8G/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
- programd 9y ago
  And also "A Review of Criticality Accidents", a short but action packed read referenced in the article. Nuclear materials are deadly in the most unexpected ways. https://www.orau.org/ptp/Library/accidents/la-13638.pdf https://www.orau.org/ptp/Library/accidents/la-13638.pdf
  - pinewurst 9y ago
    That's a really good read too.
- dekhn 9y ago
  I read that book differently. In nearly every case the payload didn't end in criticality because of the design of the weapon. Instead, there were ancillary effects from non-explosions.
  - cmiles74 9y ago
    That is true, although I was left with the impression that in many cases it was due to luck. Older weapons with poor safeguards ended up in service far longer than was reasonable and the addition of necessary safeguards was resisted at nearly every level. There were also many stories where a weapon was dropped during loading or caught in a fire, etc., and the general idea seemed to be that it could just have easily ended up in disaster. The story of the Damascus incident, which served as the framing story for the rest of the book, also seems relevant. In that case there were procedures to ensure safety but over time the reasons for these procedures seemed to have been forgotten or the knowledge inadequately passed on to newer team members. Old equipment (like HAZMAT suits) were allowed to get old, rendering them useless. Many people in the administration chain had weak or little knowledge of the facilities... And then there was an accident where a small mistake compounded into pretty scary incident.
- pinewurst 9y ago
  I didn't care for this book - I felt it was like a bad cookie with a few good chocolate chips. The Titan silo explosion that the book is structured around is more a demonstration of designed nuclear safety than not (and the nuclear part is almost nonexistent). Industrial accidents have been so much worse than this.
acqq 9y ago
It's really entertaining and worth reading, but it's still intentionally biased to almost suggest "a little bit of radiation can be good for you" in a way that smoking was presented in older times by the tobacco companies. And it's not so. An individual can be lucky, but it's not something to be approached with "don't worry". The proofs are in Eileen Welsome's "The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plutonium_Files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plutonium_Files Much more depressing than Mahaffey's book. And example of the attitude of these responsible, Welsome, speaking in 1999: https://www.c-span.org/video/?153507-1/plutonium-files https://www.c-span.org/video/?153507-1/plutonium-files "Los Alamos National Laboratory told me they knew nothing about the experiment and in fact denied that it occurred even though it was a subject of the congressional report in 1986."

cmiles74 9y ago

"Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety" by Eric Schlosser enumerates accidents related to nuclear weapons, many of which do not end in criticality due to sheer luck in most cases. Illusion of safety indeed. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C5R7F8G/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C5R7F8G/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...

programd 9y ago
And also "A Review of Criticality Accidents", a short but action packed read referenced in the article. Nuclear materials are deadly in the most unexpected ways. https://www.orau.org/ptp/Library/accidents/la-13638.pdf https://www.orau.org/ptp/Library/accidents/la-13638.pdf
- pinewurst 9y ago
  That's a really good read too.
dekhn 9y ago
I read that book differently. In nearly every case the payload didn't end in criticality because of the design of the weapon. Instead, there were ancillary effects from non-explosions.
- cmiles74 9y ago
  That is true, although I was left with the impression that in many cases it was due to luck. Older weapons with poor safeguards ended up in service far longer than was reasonable and the addition of necessary safeguards was resisted at nearly every level. There were also many stories where a weapon was dropped during loading or caught in a fire, etc., and the general idea seemed to be that it could just have easily ended up in disaster. The story of the Damascus incident, which served as the framing story for the rest of the book, also seems relevant. In that case there were procedures to ensure safety but over time the reasons for these procedures seemed to have been forgotten or the knowledge inadequately passed on to newer team members. Old equipment (like HAZMAT suits) were allowed to get old, rendering them useless. Many people in the administration chain had weak or little knowledge of the facilities... And then there was an accident where a small mistake compounded into pretty scary incident.
pinewurst 9y ago
I didn't care for this book - I felt it was like a bad cookie with a few good chocolate chips. The Titan silo explosion that the book is structured around is more a demonstration of designed nuclear safety than not (and the nuclear part is almost nonexistent). Industrial accidents have been so much worse than this.

acqq 9y ago

It's really entertaining and worth reading, but it's still intentionally biased to almost suggest "a little bit of radiation can be good for you" in a way that smoking was presented in older times by the tobacco companies. And it's not so. An individual can be lucky, but it's not something to be approached with "don't worry". The proofs are in Eileen Welsome's "The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plutonium_Files https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plutonium_Files Much more depressing than Mahaffey's book. And example of the attitude of these responsible, Welsome, speaking in 1999: https://www.c-span.org/video/?153507-1/plutonium-files https://www.c-span.org/video/?153507-1/plutonium-files "Los Alamos National Laboratory told me they knew nothing about the experiment and in fact denied that it occurred even though it was a subject of the congressional report in 1986."