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Remembering the night two atomic bombs fell on North Carolina
- LatteLazy 6y agoDo any other countries routinely fly nuclear weapons the way we (US, UK, Russia etc) used to? I mean Pakistan, India, China maybe? Also, I thought that: at atomic bomb is pure fission, a thermonuclear bomb is Fusion driven by a fission bombs heat and pressure wave? The article seems to use the term "atomic" to refer to thermonuclear weapons.
- pdonis 6y ago> atomic bomb is pure fission, a thermonuclear bomb is Fusion Strictly speaking, the term "atomic bomb" shouldn't even be used for a fission bomb since the reactions involved are nuclear reactions, not chemical ("atomic") reactions. However, in non-technical contexts, I have seen "atomic bomb" used for both fission and fusion bombs.
- klyrs 6y agoDo you have a source supporting this distinction?
- nostrademons 6y agoIt's in the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon#Fission_weapons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon#Fission_weapons That and high-school chemistry.
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- klyrs 6y ago> That and high-school chemistry. My 40yo ass would get thrown out of high school before I could ask "where's the chem lab" but thanks
- nostrademons 6y agoCan still buy a textbook. I do that all the time for subjects that my nearly-40-year-old ass didn't bother to learn in college but ended up finding useful.
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- philipkglass 6y agoThe people of the Manhattan Project used the term atomic bomb internally and externally for their invention. "Atomic" was widely used as a synonym for "nuclear" in both lay communication and technical literature for at least a generation afterward. The International Atomic Energy Agency is still called such and never felt the need to correct this imagined terminological mistake.
- nostrademons 6y agoThat's not what he's referring to, though. In chemistry, bonds between "atoms" are ordinary chemical bonds, held together through electromagnetic forces, and yielding typical chemical reactions like explosions and deflagrations. Fission and fusion are "nuclear" processes, operating between protons and neutrons within the nucleus of an atom only, and moderated by the strong nuclear force. The energy released by breaking these bonds is orders of magnitude greater, and what we normally refer to as a "nuclear" explosion. Calling it "nuclear" vs. "atomic" conveys useful information about what's actually going on when it detonates.
- walrus01 6y agoyou'd have to be a madman to fly around with 'live' ready to use nuclear bombs in the modern era, but then again, strategic air command was headed by a madman, curtis lemay... and they did it from the early 1950s for 25+ years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Air_Command https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Air_Command
- tyingq 6y agoThey do still maintain the ability to launch nukes from various aircraft. There was a famous oopsie in 2007 where they mistakenly flew some live nukes around. In this case, cruise missles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_Air_Force_nuclear_weapons_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_Air_Force_n...
- tyingq 6y agoIsrael comes to mind. Not much is known about what type of nuclear weapons they have.
- neartheplain 6y agoThe educated guess is somewhere between 80-400 warheads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Israel They nearly used them in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option
- LatteLazy 6y agoI think their doomsday scenario is covered by nuclear subs (supposedly, no public info...)...
- nostrademons 6y agoColloquially "atomic bomb" usually refers to both fission and fusion weapons. Almost no weapons currently in use by major nation-states are pure fission devices. Two-stage thermonuclear Teller-Ulam designs are more stable, easier to control the yield, capable of scaling up to 1000x the power, and cheaper to manufacture once you have the technology. A major part of the cost of nuclear weapons is enriching uranium or producing plutonium; fusion weapons can use a much smaller amount of these expensive materials and get the bulk of their yield from deuterium, which is distilled from water. Pure fission weapons were used in some artillery shells (where there isn't enough room to get a second stage in) and by emerging nuclear powers that haven't yet developed the technology for fusion weapons. Non-colloquially, scientists would probably refer specifically to "fission" and "fusion" weapons, or to specific design used (eg. gun-type linear implosion, explosive lens, Teller-Ulam).
- LatteLazy 6y agoThanks for your excellent comment! I didn't know most advanced powers were using fusion weapons but it makes perfect sense when you say it (cost, stability, power and controlability).
- pinewurst 6y agoThere's also the intermediate case of boosted fission, where tritium gas is introduced into the fission core, generating neutrons via fusion, that in turn accelerate/enhance the fission process (e.g. allowing more fission energy to be released in the interval between detonation and when the device blows itself apart).
- Koshkin 6y ago> ”atomic bomb" usually refers to both You must be talking about “nuclear weapon.” Never in my life I heard “atomic bomb” being used in reference to a hydrogen bomb. > Almost no weapons currently in use by major nation-states are pure fission devices. All tactical nukes are pure fission devices.
- nostrademons 6y agoYou would refer to the warheads on Minuteman 3 & PeaceKeeper ICBMs, Trident SLBMs, and B63/B81 bombs as "atomic bombs", would you not? All of the above are thermonuclear fusion weapons. The tactical nukes I believe you are referring to are the W54 Davey Crockett, W48 6.1" shell, and W79 8" shell, all pure linear implosion fission weapons. All of those have been out of service since 1992, though.
- ufmace 6y agoIt doesn't really make sense to fly armed weapons around as a strategic deterrent now, since you can mount them on missiles instead, which can be stored in safer and faster to launch silos and are harder to intercept anyways. And put them in submarines that are even harder to locate. Before all that, it seemed much more reasonable to do so, if you were concerned that your enemy might sneak their bombers close enough to destroy your bomber airfields before you could get your bombers airborne.
- nataz 6y agoIt's a lot harder to get a missile to turn around. In theory (specifically US nuclear deterrence) each leg of the nuclear triad has a different purpose (and institutional stakeholders). Bombers flying at a target are slow enough that in theory you can convince someone they are about to make a serious mistake, while still maintaining the ability to deescalate/give the adversary an off ramp. Bombers are visible, verifiable, and put a clock on negotiations. They are a form of communication. They signal premeditated violent intention. ICBM/SLBM are an act of war. There is lots of literature on the practical use of nuclear weapons. All of it thankfully questionable and untested. It can get pretty wonky pretty fast. Countervailing, decapitation, C4ISR, escalation ladders, tactical vs. strategic nukes, etc.
- hpoe 6y agoAnd all it takes is one blasted radio to be on the fritz and it won't matter. Dr. Strangelove was a fascinating movie.
- souprock 6y agoThe nuclear triad probably isn't everything. I wonder which embassies contain nuclear warheads. For the ones that do, which staff know what is in the mysterious secretive box? Who presses the button, and does that person know what the button does?
- arethuza 6y ago"I wonder which embassies contain nuclear warheads" I would guess as a first approximation - almost certainly zero. The risks of discovery are far too high.
- rtkwe 6y agoNo one really does it any more and the practice only lasted a around a decade even in the US. Once ICBMs became reliable enough they largely replaced bombers because it was much easier to dig a bunker than to constantly have bombers on standby or in the air and they provided a better strike capability because there's no real defense vs bombers that could be intercepted.
- Giorgi 6y agoThere is defense and it's pre-emptive strike, being static is one of the weakness of such system, that's why there are subs and Russia (S.U.) has some of the nukes on the trucks. There also was a railway version, SS-24 Scalpel (РТ-23 УТТХ) which was mounted inside always-on-the-move train locomotion. Decommissioned in 2005 but they have new version in development.
- rtkwe 6y agoThere's a distinction between defense and deterrence the former stops something that's been done, eg shooting down missiles and bombers, and the latter in the nuclear context is always maintaining the ability to strike back. A pre-emptive strike isn't defense it's just starting the war and it also doesn't prevent you from being struck. Unless you're in Cuba firing at the US or Europe aiming at Russia there's always time to launch a retaliatory strike before the first missiles hit and missile bases were designed to survive really close hits. That's part of why the US freaked out so much about missiles coming to Cuba and why Russia developed more mobile launch capability than the US. The only real 'defense' against and ICBM (at the time we're maybe figuring out real defenses now) was to be able to survive to strike back which isn't so much a defense as deterrent.
- arethuza 6y agoThe lack of time to distribute PAL codes is why the UK does not use PALs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link#Usage_by_other_states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link#Usage_b... Rather we use hand-written letters and a lot of trust: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort
- mkehrt 6y agoFWIW, I would use your distinction as well. "Atomic" to me means fission only, where "thermonuclear" means fusion and "nuclear" could mean either. But other comments seem to show this is not universal.
- LatteLazy 6y agoYeah, I think that's the case.
- stretchcat 6y agoThe way I've seen it, atomic bomb and nuclear bomb are synonyms which refer to any sort of fission, boosted fission or fusion bombs. Fission bombs can be specifically referred to like that. Fusion bombs can also be called hydrogen bombs or thermonuclear bombs.
- blakesterz 6y agoInteresting story. There's also one missing off the coast of GA: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18587608 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=185876... "On Feb. 5, 1958, a B-47 bomber dropped a 7,000-pound nuclear bomb into the waters off Tybee Island, Ga., after it collided with another Air Force jet. Fifty years later, the bomb -- which has unknown quantities of radioactive material -- has never been found."
- noja 6y ago"unknown quantities" - sure!!
- foobarian 6y agoAnother scary event off the coast of Spain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash Two of the four bombs exploded due to conventional fuses detonating, spreading radioactive material over land.
- MaanuAir 6y agoAnd case not closed still today.
- tyingq 6y agoMakes me curious if the radioactive material eventually gets exposed by corrosion or erosion.
- laumars 6y agoI couldn’t explode. You’d need the detonator to do that. However the radioactive content could still pollute if the shielding were to corrode away.
- Aerroon 6y agoThe main ways it would be harmful is if you touched it or ate fish that touched it. The corrosion would probably just spread it out in the ocean and it'll soon become unnoticeable. After all, the radioactive materials mostly exist in nature anyway.
- umvi 6y ago> The U.S. Government soon announced its safe return and loudly reassured the public that, thanks to the device’s multiple safety systems, the bomb had never come close to exploding. Okay but seriously. How good are the safety mechanisms? Is there significant risk an unarmed nuke could explode if going fast enough or with enough vibrations?
- nickff 6y agoMost warheads are actually very safe, and require either a detonator, or very high heat/pressure to set them off. The most dangerous part of most weapons is actually the propellant (which free-fall bombs obviously do not contain). This is a product of what weapons are designed for; the warhead is designed to resist premature detonation, but the fuel (and oxidizer if present) must be readily and easily combustible in an engine.
- Mindless2112 6y ago> "Always/Never" shares the story of the national labs’ history of work for the safety and security of nuclear weapons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQEB3LJ5psk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQEB3LJ5psk
- harywilke 6y agorelated video on Compliant Mechanisms they briefly talk about a device to safety nuclear warheads. about a minute in and again at 10:20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97t7Xj_iBv https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97t7Xj_iBv
- kryogen1c 6y agoa relatable analog is a piece of firewood. there is enough combustible energy in a section of dead tree to kill or maim you and set off a chain reaction that will destroy everything in your house, but you neednt worry if you have wooden furnitire, even if theres a lighter on it.
- dghlsakjg 6y ago
- walrus01 6y agothere's also this event with a B-36: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950_British_Columbia_B-36_crash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950_British_Columbia_B-36_cra...
- joshuahedlund 6y agoObligatory recommendation of the riveting book Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser https://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illusion/dp/0143125788 https://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Ill...
- ubermonkey 6y agoGlad I'm not the only one who immediately came into this thread to rec that book. It's fascinating and TERRIFYING.
- brightball 6y agoAlso one that fell in South Carolina. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/2018/03/31/the-atomic-bomb-that-faded-into-south-carolina-history/ https://www.militarytimes.com/news/2018/03/31/the-atomic-bom...
- monoideism 6y agoAlso one in Georgia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_collision https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_co... So both the Carolinas, and Georgia.
- cf100clunk 6y agoObliquely referenced by Bob Welch in 1973 on the track Hypnotized, by Fleetwood Mac: "I remember a talk about North Carolina and a strange, strange pond You see the sides were like glass In the thick of a forest without a road And if any man's hand ever made that land Then I think it would've showed"
- ggm 6y agoI believe the Spain incident informed Gerry Anderson's decisions making "Thunderbirds" along with some more peaceable non weapons emergency collaborations
- outlace 6y agoThis was a great read - I recommend reading it all the way through
- ineedasername 6y agoIf you read this story and were disturbed by it, I strongly suggest you contact your local Vault-Tec representative for a serious discussion.
- sgt101 6y ago>A few weeks before, the Air Force and the plane’s builder, Boeing, had realized that a recent modification—fitting the B-52’s wings with fuel bladders—could cause the wings to tear off. Tulloch’s plane was scheduled for a re-fit to resolve the problem, but it would come too late. plus ca change
- hu3 6y ago> Faced with a disheveled African-American man cradling a parachute and telling a cockamamie story like that (he had just bailed from a crashing B-52), the sentries did exactly what you might expect a pair of guards in 1961 rural North Carolina to do: They arrested Mattocks for stealing a parachute.