3 ms·

Having read it, I found the point Schlosser made to be that, while working with nuclear weapons (and more specifically with large liquid-fueled rockets) is a pr

by aaronem 12y ago

Having read it, I found the point Schlosser made to be that, while working with nuclear weapons (and more specifically with large liquid-fueled rockets) is a profession relatively rich in personal danger for those who pursue it, the danger of accidental nuclear detonation per se is mitigated practically unto negligibility by the measures put in place to prevent it -- otherwise, at least one of the accidents he relates in such loving detail would've had a yield measurable in kilotons.

sehugg 12y ago
Not as negligible as we were previously led to believe. There have been at least five "incidents" each of which could have started WWIII -- and as far as physical safeguards, a single switch once kept a bomb from detonating on our own soil: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/20/usaf-atomic-bomb-north-carolina-1961 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/20/usaf-atomic-bom...
- aaronem 12y ago
  And yet WWIII hasn't started, and there have been no accidental nuclear detonations since we started building the weapons in the first place. Nuclear engineering, like any field of industrial or weapons technology, has inherent dangers. That's why both civilian and military engineering disciplines include safeguards. On the civilian side, the profit-motivated nature of nuclear engineering has resulted in a variety of serious industrial accidents, which have produced a widespread but erroneous perception that the technology is just too dangerous to have, when in fact it's merely too dangerous to have in the hands of people who care only about making money off it. On the military side, conversely, the safeguards around nuclear weapons have, thus far at least, been exactly as effective as we need them to be, and nuclear warheads are as safe as anything can be that's inherently dangerous. That's not to say they are perfectly safe, but neither is anything else; all life is risk, and I'd much rather take the risk of having them, than of not having them and being at the mercy of someone who does. (And military power reactors tend to be a lot safer than civilian ones as well, thanks to an engineering safety culture which I gather is best described as fanatical. Me, I'm in favor of purchasing all civilian-owned nuclear power reactors and placing them in the hands of an eighth federal uniformed service, the US Nucleonics Service, staffed with Navy-trained engineers and operated as a cost center of government. But I appreciate that makes me sort of weird.)
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    That's the ultimate form of selection bias though. As long as it doesn't happen we can continue to discuss this and if it does happen it's moot and we likely won't be discussing it at al. Your view is a bit US centric, there are lots of nuclear installations outside of the US. The US is probably the least of the problem in this particular respect.
    - aaronem 12y ago
      I don't see how selection bias enters into it, when no matter what selection method we use, the rate of accidental detonations remains zero. I don't doubt that that will eventually change, but even a large industrial accident is hardly the end of the world. As for US-centricity, well, that's where I live, and as cold as this no doubt will sound to a universalist, I really don't see another nation's accidental nuclear detonation as being my problem; contrary to popular belief, the mechanisms involved in commencing nuclear warfare are a little more nuanced than "oh, hey, a nuke went off somewhere on the planet? Empty the silos! Tell the subs to flush their tubes!"

by aaronem 12y ago

sehugg 12y ago

Not as negligible as we were previously led to believe. There have been at least five "incidents" each of which could have started WWIII -- and as far as physical safeguards, a single switch once kept a bomb from detonating on our own soil: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/20/usaf-atomic-bomb-north-carolina-1961 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/20/usaf-atomic-bom...

aaronem 12y ago
And yet WWIII hasn't started, and there have been no accidental nuclear detonations since we started building the weapons in the first place. Nuclear engineering, like any field of industrial or weapons technology, has inherent dangers. That's why both civilian and military engineering disciplines include safeguards. On the civilian side, the profit-motivated nature of nuclear engineering has resulted in a variety of serious industrial accidents, which have produced a widespread but erroneous perception that the technology is just too dangerous to have, when in fact it's merely too dangerous to have in the hands of people who care only about making money off it. On the military side, conversely, the safeguards around nuclear weapons have, thus far at least, been exactly as effective as we need them to be, and nuclear warheads are as safe as anything can be that's inherently dangerous. That's not to say they are perfectly safe, but neither is anything else; all life is risk, and I'd much rather take the risk of having them, than of not having them and being at the mercy of someone who does. (And military power reactors tend to be a lot safer than civilian ones as well, thanks to an engineering safety culture which I gather is best described as fanatical. Me, I'm in favor of purchasing all civilian-owned nuclear power reactors and placing them in the hands of an eighth federal uniformed service, the US Nucleonics Service, staffed with Navy-trained engineers and operated as a cost center of government. But I appreciate that makes me sort of weird.)
- jacquesm 12y ago
  That's the ultimate form of selection bias though. As long as it doesn't happen we can continue to discuss this and if it does happen it's moot and we likely won't be discussing it at al. Your view is a bit US centric, there are lots of nuclear installations outside of the US. The US is probably the least of the problem in this particular respect.
  - aaronem 12y ago
    I don't see how selection bias enters into it, when no matter what selection method we use, the rate of accidental detonations remains zero. I don't doubt that that will eventually change, but even a large industrial accident is hardly the end of the world. As for US-centricity, well, that's where I live, and as cold as this no doubt will sound to a universalist, I really don't see another nation's accidental nuclear detonation as being my problem; contrary to popular belief, the mechanisms involved in commencing nuclear warfare are a little more nuanced than "oh, hey, a nuke went off somewhere on the planet? Empty the silos! Tell the subs to flush their tubes!"