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I think we can count ourselves lucky this wasn't a nuclear armed missile. How do you accidentally fire a missile into another country? When North Korea does t
by mc32 5y ago
I think we can count ourselves lucky this wasn't a nuclear armed missile.
How do you accidentally fire a missile into another country? When North Korea does these things, they are on purpose.
In any event, to use a morose term, I hope their postmortem results in making sure it's not possible to fire into another country accidentally.
- nimbix 5y agoThere was another somewhat similar incident in Europe today: an autonomous plane - presumably coming from Ukraine - crashed into a park in the capital of Croatia. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60709952 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60709952
- unmole 5y ago> I think we can count ourselves lucky this wasn't a nuclear armed missile. You can't accidentally fire a nuclear missile and have it go off.
- mc32 5y agoI'm obviously not versed in these things, is that something we can count on to be true?
- unmole 5y agoIt's not entirely clear if Indian and Pakistani nukes are secured by something like PAL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link The Soviet nukes left over in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan were protected.
- sidewndr46 5y agoThere is a lingering story that the launch code for USAF ICBMs was just all zeroes. This has been refuted by the pentagon but the operator's manual suggests it is normal practice. https://sgs.princeton.edu/00000000 https://sgs.princeton.edu/00000000
- dragonwriter 5y ago> You can't accidentally fire a nuclear missile and have it go off. There are, IIRC, several nuclear weapons related accidents where the warheads were recovered by the reports, to the extent declassified, do not indicate that all safety mechanisms worked as designed. I would not assume from the fact that weapons are typically designed with the intent to prevent accidental nuclear detonation and so far the accidents that have occurred have not resulted in accidental detonation that such is categorically impossible.
- sidewndr46 5y agoThe US fired a missile in the 1950s and lost control of it. It was found in the jungles of Brazil in 1983 https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=g5lVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MkANAAAAIBAJ&dq=snark%20found%20brazil&pg=6689%2C2748525 https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=g5lVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MkAN...
- mc32 5y agoBrazil and the US were not at risk of annihilating each other due to misunderstanding —also technologically were 70 years past that crude period (when atomic this and that were future promises for a world of plenty).