thegarnet.net

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.

//Back to [[editorials:]]//

I am not sure that maximum efficiency is a concern of militaries everywhere. I think they are more about redundancy than maximum efficiency. Canon fodder and all that.

Just watched a special “Command and Control”, on the mishaps that lead to the Sept 18, 1980 Titan II missile accident. During this and so many other accidents, they realized they really didnt know what the chances were of whether one of 25,000 nuclear devices could accidentally be detonated. Sometimes it was only a single on off switch that prevented detonation, and if somehow during a fire or collision those wires could have somehow been crossed, the switch would not have mattered..... One has to question whether militaries are capable of following best practices. We knew we only needed a couple of hundred devices to annihilate the Soviet Union, yet we have built 70,000 devices. We are now down to 9000 devices, but some involved with those mishaps say we may be even more vulnerable now because we dont think as much about nuclear now as we did then.

Then we have the whole philosophical issue of, what is clear science?  When they set off the first atom bomb they only knew they didnt know what would happen. Many thought the nuclear detonation would catch the earths atmosphere on fire, burning it off, and killing all life on earth, and yet they still carried out the experience.

thegarnet.net

User Tools

Site Tools

Page Tools