A Sneak Peek at Eric Schlosser's Terrifying New Book on Nuclear Weapons. The Titan II carried a W- 5. Hiroshima. Rob Schoenbaum/Zuma. Update (1/1. 6/2. The Air Force announced yesterday that it had suspended and revoked the security clearances of 3. Malmstrom base in Montana after it came to light that they were cheating—or complicit in cheating—on monthly exams to ensure that they were capable of safely babysitting the nuclear warheads atop their missiles. Eleven launch officers, two of whom where also implicated in the cheating episode, were targeted in a separate investigation of illegal drug use. Then again, as you're about to discover, they've lied about that in the past. On January 2. 3, 1. B- 5. 2 packing a pair of Mark 3. North Carolina. In the cockpit of the rapidly disintegrating bomber was a lanyard attached to the bomb- release mechanism. Intense G- forces tugged hard at it and unleashed the nukes, which, at four megatons, were 2. Hiroshima. The other weapon's failsafe mechanisms—the devices designed to prevent an accidental detonation—were subverted one by one, as Eric Schlosser recounts in his new book, Command and Control: When the lanyard was pulled, the locking pins were removed from one of the bombs. The Mark 3. 9 fell from the plane. The arming wires were yanked out, and the bomb responded as though it had been deliberately released by the crew above a target. The pulse generator activated the low- voltage thermal batteries. The drogue parachute opened, and then the main chute. The barometric switches closed. The timer ran out, activating the high- voltage thermal batteries. Carl Gustav Jung was born July 26, 1875, in the small Swiss village of Kessewil. His father was Paul Jung, a country parson, and his mother. A SIMPLE QUESTION: Submitted by reader Rudy Schultz – St. HOW COULD STANLEY ANN DUNHAM HAVE DELIVERED BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA JR. IN AUGUST OF 1961 IN. Viridiana, a young nun about to take her final vows, pays a visit to her widowed uncle at the request of her Mother Superior.
The bomb hit the ground, and the piezoelectric crystals inside the nose crushed. They sent a firing signal.. Unable to deny that two of its bombs had fallen from the sky—one in a swampy meadow, the other in a field near Faro, North Carolina—the Air Force insisted that there had never been any danger of a nuclear detonation. This was a lie. Here's the truth: Just days after JFK was sworn in as president, one of the most terrifying weapons in our arsenal was a hair's breadth from detonating on American soil. It would have pulverized a portion of North Carolina and, given strong northerly winds, could have blanketed East Coast cities (including New York, Baltimore, and Washington, DC) in lethal fallout. The only thing standing between us and an explosion so catastrophic that it would have radically altered the course of history was a simple electronic toggle switch in the cockpit, a part that probably cost a couple of bucks to manufacture and easily could have been undermined by a short circuit—hardly a far- fetched scenario in an electronics- laden airplane that's breaking apart. The anecdote above is just one of many . Easily the most unsettling work of nonfiction I've ever read, Schlosser's six- year investigation of America's . It's critical reading in a nation with thousands of nukes still on hair- trigger alert. In sections, Command and Control reads like a character- driven thriller as Schlosser draws on his deep reporting, extensive interviews, and documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act to demonstrate how human error, computer glitches, dilution of authority, poor communications, occasional incompetence, and the routine hoarding of crucial information have nearly brought about our worst nightmare on numerous occasions. While casual readers will learn a great deal about the history and geopolitics of our nuclear arsenal, Schlosser's central narrative is built around a deadly 1. Damascus, Arkansas, where the W- 5. Titan II. He puts us on site as the catastrophe unfolds, offering an intimate window on the perspectives and personalities of those involved. It's a gripping yarn that shows how the military concept of . An entire generation, as Schlosser told me recently, is blissfully unaware of the specter of nuclear devastation. But Command and Control will leave readers of any age with a deep unease about our ability—to say nothing of, say, Pakistan's—to handle these weapons safely. Schlosser wrote the book in the hope of reviving America's long- dormant debate about . It's just a tease, but it'll give you a taste of what's in store. The book is available September 1. And don't miss my chat with Schlosser about his epic project, and why he believes . They were planning to do a routine maintenance procedure on a Titan II missile. They'd spent countless hours underground at complexes like this one. But no matter how many times they entered the silo, the Titan II always looked impressive. It was the largest intercontinental ballistic missile ever built by the United States: 1. It had an aluminum skin with a matte finish and U. S. AIR FORCE painted in big letters down the side. The nose cone on top of the Titan II was deep black, and inside it sat a W- 5. American missile. The warhead had a yield of nine megatons—about three times the explosive force of all the bombs dropped during the Second World War, including both atomic bombs. The silo was eerily quiet, and mercury vapor lights on the walls bathed the missile in a bright white glow. Day or night, winter or spring, the silo always felt the same. It was eerily quiet, and mercury vapor lights on the walls bathed the missile in a bright white glow. When you opened the door on a lower level and stepped into the launch duct, the Titan II loomed above you like an immense black- tipped silver bullet, loaded in a concrete gun barrel, primed, cocked, ready to go, and pointed at the sky. The missile was designed to launch within a minute and hit a target as far as 6,0. In order to do that, the Titan II relied upon a pair of liquid propellants—a rocket fuel and an oxidizer—that were . The missile had two stages, and inside both of them, an oxidizer tank rested on top of a fuel tank, with pipes leading down to an engine. Stage 1, which extended about 7. Stage 2, the upper section where the warhead sat, was smaller and held about one fourth of those amounts. If the missile were launched, fuel and oxidizer would flow through the stage 1 pipes, mix inside the combustion chambers of the engine, catch on fire, emit hot gases, and send almost half a million pounds of thrust through the supersonic convergent- divergent nozzles beneath it. Within a few minutes, the Titan II would be 5. The two propellants were extremely efficient—and extremely dangerous. The fuel, Aerozine- 5. As a liquid, Aerozine- 5. As a vapor, it reacted with the water and the oxygen in the air and became a whitish cloud with a fishy smell. This fuel vapor could be explosive in proportions as low as 2 percent. Inhaling it could cause breathing difficulties, a reduced heart rate, vomiting, convulsions, tremors, and death. The fuel was also highly carcinogenic and easily absorbed through the skin. The missile's oxidizer was classified as a . Under federal law, it was classified as a . In its liquid form, the oxidizer was a translucent, yellowy brown. Although not as flammable as the fuel, it could spontaneously ignite if it touched leather, paper, cloth, or wood. And its boiling point was only 7. Fahrenheit. At temperatures any higher, the liquid oxidizer boiled into a reddish brown vapor that smelled like ammonia. Contact with water turned the vapor into a corrosive acid that could react with the moisture in a person's eyes or skin and cause severe burns. When inhaled, the oxidizer could destroy tissue in the upper respiratory system and the lungs. The damage might not be felt immediately. Six to twelve hours after being inhaled, the stuff could suddenly cause headaches, dizziness, difficulty breathing, pneumonia, and pulmonary edema leading to death. Gideon Kendall. Powell and Plumb were missile repairmen. They belonged to Propellant Transfer System (PTS) Team A of the 3. Strategic Missile Wing, whose headquarters was about an hour or so away at Little Rock Air Force Base. They'd been called to the site that day because a warning light had signaled that pressure was low in the stage 2 oxidizer tank. If the pressure fell too low, the oxidizer wouldn't flow smoothly to the engine. But it was far more likely that a slight change in temperature had lowered the pressure inside the tank. Air- conditioning units in the silo were supposed to keep the missile cooled to about 6. If Powell and Plumb didn't find any leaks, they'd simply unscrew the cap on the oxidizer tank and add more nitrogen gas. The nitrogen maintained a steady pressure on the liquid inside, pushing downward. It was a simple, mundane task, like putting air in your tires before a long drive. Powell had served on a PTS team for almost three years and knew the hazards of the Titan II. During his first visit to a launch complex, an oxidizer leak created a toxic cloud that shut down operations for three days. He was 2. 1 years old, a proud . Accompanying Powell was his on- the- job training. Plumb had been with the 3. He wasn't qualified to do this sort of missile maintenance or to handle these propellants. Accompanying Powell and watching everything that Powell did was considered Plumb's . Plumb was 1. 9, raised in suburban Detroit. Although an oxidizer low light wasn't unusual, Air Force technical orders required that both men wear Category I protective gear when entering the silo to investigate it. It had a white detachable bubble helmet with a voice- actuated radio and a transparent Plexiglas face screen. The suit was off white, with a long zipper extending from the top of the left shoulder, across the torso, to the right knee. You stepped into the RFHCO and wore long johns underneath it. The black vinyl gloves and boots weren't attached, so the RFHCO had roll- down cuffs at the wrists and the ankles to maintain a tight seal. The suit weighed about 2. The RFHCO backpack weighed an additional 3. The outfit was heavy and cumbersome. It could be hot, sticky, and uncomfortable, especially when worn outside the air- conditioned silo. But it could also save your life. The stage 2 oxidizer pressure cap was about two- thirds of the way up the missile.
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