Well one should include 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash where we bombed ourselves but fortunately the safety switches held; it's not clear what would have followed if one of the bombs had gone off.
And one really should give all credit to Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov for disobeying orders in 1983 in order to forestall a retaliatory strike, and Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, the 2nd in command on the Soviet nuclear submarine in 1962 who refused to sign off on his commander's order to launch their nuclear torpedoes. We should perhaps have national holidays in their honor as we would not otherwise be here.
Presumably other incidents were kept out of the public eye.
This is why we need to completely dismantle the US nuclear weapons system, down to the level of China's (which is 290 warheads, not loaded onto missiles). Russia will follow if we move first and are loud about it; everyone knows nukes are no good. Right now there is too much possibility of accidents, though certainly less than in the days of the deranged Curtis LeMay.
I first heard about the 1960 moon alarm from the guy who figured it out. They had not realized that like the midnight sun, the moon could appear on the northern horizon. And they thought the inverse fourth power law for radar return signal strength was sufficient to not worry about the moon. But its such a big target that it matters.
"For want of a nail..." I agree with your list, but what scares me most is something could really have gone wrong had it not been for one or two people not on your list, and mostly unknown to history books, behind the scenes, making intelligent and quick decisions and giving advice to the people on your list, either not to take the radar seriously this time, not to launch a missile, not to escalate a probable mistake, not to call the president, not to call the premier...to wisely wait because they had experience with either the engineering systems or the geopolitics to take an educated risk. To say amidst the imminent threat and against the anxiety in the room, that maybe waiting was the best option. I worry what people in those positions are like today after a generation of politicians have maligned government service and political workmanship. Are we still getting excellent people into positions where small probability, big impact decisions must be made at a moment's notice by people who understand big pictures? I hope so. I have no real reason to doubt that the best people are still in those roles (and I pray for them and thank them for the jobs they do), but I worry we are making those jobs look less attractive to future generations.
Well one should include 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash where we bombed ourselves but fortunately the safety switches held; it's not clear what would have followed if one of the bombs had gone off.
And one really should give all credit to Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov for disobeying orders in 1983 in order to forestall a retaliatory strike, and Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov, the 2nd in command on the Soviet nuclear submarine in 1962 who refused to sign off on his commander's order to launch their nuclear torpedoes. We should perhaps have national holidays in their honor as we would not otherwise be here.
Presumably other incidents were kept out of the public eye.
This is why we need to completely dismantle the US nuclear weapons system, down to the level of China's (which is 290 warheads, not loaded onto missiles). Russia will follow if we move first and are loud about it; everyone knows nukes are no good. Right now there is too much possibility of accidents, though certainly less than in the days of the deranged Curtis LeMay.
I first heard about the 1960 moon alarm from the guy who figured it out. They had not realized that like the midnight sun, the moon could appear on the northern horizon. And they thought the inverse fourth power law for radar return signal strength was sufficient to not worry about the moon. But its such a big target that it matters.
"For want of a nail..." I agree with your list, but what scares me most is something could really have gone wrong had it not been for one or two people not on your list, and mostly unknown to history books, behind the scenes, making intelligent and quick decisions and giving advice to the people on your list, either not to take the radar seriously this time, not to launch a missile, not to escalate a probable mistake, not to call the president, not to call the premier...to wisely wait because they had experience with either the engineering systems or the geopolitics to take an educated risk. To say amidst the imminent threat and against the anxiety in the room, that maybe waiting was the best option. I worry what people in those positions are like today after a generation of politicians have maligned government service and political workmanship. Are we still getting excellent people into positions where small probability, big impact decisions must be made at a moment's notice by people who understand big pictures? I hope so. I have no real reason to doubt that the best people are still in those roles (and I pray for them and thank them for the jobs they do), but I worry we are making those jobs look less attractive to future generations.