A Burning B-52 Nearly Caused A Nuclear Catastrophe

Re:A Burning B-52 Nearly Caused A Nuclear Catastrophe by mindslight on Sunday September 22, 2019 @03:40PM (#21043458)

The militaries' stewardship of nuclear weapons really puts the modern state surveillance panopticon into perspective. Collateral damage of tens of thousands of civilians accidentally dying in a fireball because these weapons "had" to be developed quickly so "the evil guys" didn't get ahead. And a similar dynamic where only civilian oversight can impart prudence, but the military works to escape any such oversight, so the only check is leaked anecdotes decades later.

Our trajectory seems bleak nowadays, but really we should be thankful the powermongers are just playing with data rather than inventing new weapons of mass destruction. With hope that topic will resolve itself with pervasive encryption.

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Re:A Burning B-52 Nearly Caused A Nuclear Catastrophe by acqq on Sunday September 22, 2019 @05:39PM (#21044130)

> we should be thankful the powermongers are just playing with data rather than inventing new weapons of mass destruction.

Just playing with the data?

https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2019-04/news/trump-budget-bo...

"Consistent with the recommendations of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the Trump administration’s fiscal year 2020 budget request would continue plans to expand U.S. nuclear weapon capabilities."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

"Donald Trump suggested firing nuclear weapons into hurricanes to prevent them hitting the US, reports in Washington claim.

The president is said to have raised the idea of bombing hurricanes with senior Homeland Security and national security officials on numerous occasions, dating back as far as 2017."

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Re:A Burning B-52 Nearly Caused A Nuclear Catastrophe by mindslight on Sunday September 22, 2019 @06:43PM (#21044452)

I was speaking at the level of novel technologies, not new implementations of existing technologies. New designs of nuclear weapons have a better opportunity to spend the time engineering safeguards against senseless failures, or at least we'd hope.

Note that I also wasn't speaking on the deliberate outcomes of mutually assured destruction, or the perhaps-even-worse outcome of some actor using a small number of nuclear weapons and getting away with it.

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Re:A Burning B-52 Nearly Caused A Nuclear Catastrophe by phs318u on Sunday September 22, 2019 @11:02PM (#21045612)

One might argue that use of a nuclear weapon - as intended - qualifies as a “senseless failure”, just not of the weapon.

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Re:A Burning B-52 Nearly Caused A Nuclear Catastrophe by zaroth on Sunday September 22, 2019 @07:41PM (#21044724)

The rumor that Trump suggested nuking hurricanes presumes that Trump would know of the history behind research around nuking hurricanes.

> “I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them?” the president evidently interrupted, according to Swan’s source. “They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?”

Really, in this alternate reality Trump is asking about disrupting the eye wall of a hurricane with super-heated air? I think both Trump lovers and haters can actually agree this is entirely not credible (for each their chosen reasons).

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