Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

Re:Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear wa... by MichaelMoser123 on Monday September 18, 2017 @02:44AM (#15273838)

I wonder if there are other, still classified instances where the weapon has almost been launched. If lt. colonel Petrov was aware of the limitations of the early warning system then there must have been other faults as well - I bet there have been problems with the early warning system on both sides...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear wa... by Gargoyle on Monday September 18, 2017 @10:35AM (#15276301)

I recently read the non-fiction book Command And Control by Eric Schlosser. It's structured around an incident when a Titan II missile blew up in its silo in Arkansas, throwing the warhead out of the silo and into the air.

Anyway, it uses that incident to go back in history and explain the development of nuclear weapons and how the command and control systems we have today came about. A lot of it was driven to prevent all sorts of near-miss accidents that have happened in the past. We've been really, really lucky.

Highly recommend the book, especially for the HN crowd. It's good prose, but gets deep enough into the tech and system details that you come away with a solid understanding of how it all works.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear wa... by billh on Monday September 18, 2017 @11:46AM (#15276900)

This was made into a documentary and is currently available on Netflix. If you can spare 90 minutes check it out, it's a hell of a good watch.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80107656

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear wa... by teel on Monday September 18, 2017 @07:25AM (#15274899)

The Okinawa missiles of October was a story that looked like a close call (to me at least!). It was on HN couple of years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10452983

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear wa... by aswanson on Monday September 18, 2017 @08:07AM (#15275107)

There was an incident in 1979 where a US military center thought Russia was firing.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear wa... by sillysaurus3 on Monday September 18, 2017 @02:46AM (#15273842)

Ever hear of the bomb the US accidentally dropped on the mainland? When they recovered it, they discovered the bomb had armed itself and that all the safety mechanisms failed except one.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear wa... by leeoniya on Monday September 18, 2017 @03:06AM (#15273900)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear wa... by SilverSlash on Monday September 18, 2017 @08:38AM (#15275289)

What the hell?! How many times are we going to be lucky before something goes very wrong. I hope they are a lot more careful now, and I mean all sides.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear wa... by dbdr on Tuesday September 19, 2017 @02:15AM (#15282196)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1ya-yF35g

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear wa... by ams6110 on Monday September 18, 2017 @09:28AM (#15275688)

That's why redundant systems are good. It worked as designed.

[ Parent | on HN ]