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Military nuclear programs are completely unlike civilian programs. Rigorous, repeated, varied testing, no expense spared. Our ICBMs are far from untested. We us

Military nuclear programs are completely unlike civilian programs. Rigorous, repeated, varied testing, no expense spared. Our ICBMs are far from untested. We used to fire 2-3 per year to insure their reliability. Pulled out of the field, launched from Vandenberg, and carefully analyzed. I never once had any bureaucracy interfere with doing an excellent job, and money was never a limit. In the event of WW3, at least 96% would have struck their targets. We know that from decades of expensive research, testing, and incremental improvements. We spent over 5 trillion dollars on our nuclear program and received our money's worth.

lifeisstillgood 3y ago
It’s just … given something like 30k warheads (I know not same as rockets) but taking 2 or 3 for testing (and notably, taking, checking, scrubbing down, repairing … improving?) and then saying that represents the whole fleet, and leaving in the field for years between expensive retrofitting cycles on decade timescales I mean maybe the USA was a on it’s A game for fifty plus years … us in the UK well … https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68355395 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68355395
- PJDK 3y ago
  Worth noting that UK missiles (but not warheads) are taken from a joint pool with the US. They have completely shared maintenance, so any reliability concerns are shared. Similarly, the testing is also joint so this should be seen as two failures out of all trident tests rather than two UK failures. Not that that is a fun headline of course. Obviously everything around it is super secret but the muttering around this one seemed to be that the rocket noticed the warhead seemed wrong (which it was because you don't strap a real nuke to it!) And aborted itself. I only add this because I think its interesting.
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    > the rocket noticed the warhead seemed wrong Oh, that sounds like plausible muttering, and may be consistent with the utterances of the naval authorities.

lifeisstillgood 3y ago

It’s just … given something like 30k warheads (I know not same as rockets) but taking 2 or 3 for testing (and notably, taking, checking, scrubbing down, repairing … improving?) and then saying that represents the whole fleet, and leaving in the field for years between expensive retrofitting cycles on decade timescales I mean maybe the USA was a on it’s A game for fifty plus years … us in the UK well … https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68355395 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68355395

PJDK 3y ago
Worth noting that UK missiles (but not warheads) are taken from a joint pool with the US. They have completely shared maintenance, so any reliability concerns are shared. Similarly, the testing is also joint so this should be seen as two failures out of all trident tests rather than two UK failures. Not that that is a fun headline of course. Obviously everything around it is super secret but the muttering around this one seemed to be that the rocket noticed the warhead seemed wrong (which it was because you don't strap a real nuke to it!) And aborted itself. I only add this because I think its interesting.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  > the rocket noticed the warhead seemed wrong Oh, that sounds like plausible muttering, and may be consistent with the utterances of the naval authorities.