WEBVTT - Are broken arrows a problem? 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:04.520 San Francisco. We're coming to see you soon. Yeah, we're 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:08.720 gonna be there on Saturday, January Chuck. And since it's 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:12.479 San Francisco, we're gonna be wearing nothing but appropriately placed 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:15.680 clumps of rice roni. It is the San Francisco treat. Yes, 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.000 and we're the San Francisco treat too whenever we're in town, 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:20.000 So everybody should come see us. That's right. It's part 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:22.520 of Sketch Fest as always. We love performing there. You 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:24.239 can go to s Y s K live dot com 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:28.400 for details or s F sketch Fest dot com. Uh. 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:30.280 And if you're around Sunday night you can come see 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:33.080 me do movie Crush Live and a very small fun 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:35.680 venue where you can shake my hand. Very nice, So 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:38.200 come see us, everybody. You won't regret it. We're pretty 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:42.040 sure that's correct. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:50.599 production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:53.600 welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:57.280 Chuck Bryant, there's guest producer Roll over there. Uh. And 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:03.080 that makes this Stuff you Should Know um, featuring Chucks, 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:11.480 John Travolta, and me as Christians Later. Lowell is Frank Whaley. 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:16.240 Was he in that? Yep? He had the great line, 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:20.600 are you ready for it? I don't know what's scarier 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:24.520 losing a nuclear bomb? He didn't. He didn't say this 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.839 with this much reservation. He really delivered the line. Um. 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:29.840 He also didn't comment on his own line while he 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:33.960 was giving it, or that it happened so often there's 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:37.280 a name for it. Yeah, that's a good line. It's 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:39.760 a great line. It's it's a long, clumsy line. But 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:41.760 he delivered it really well. You know, I don't know 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.839 that I ever saw broken arrow Oh I didn't either. 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:47.080 I was just alive in the nineties, so I was 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:49.720 cognizant of it. Yeah. I thought at first you were 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:56.240 talking about Saturday Night Fever with Christians. Later sure, no, No, 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:59.240 I wasn't. Do you remember we talked about Sarah like 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:01.520 fever must have in the Disco episode where it turns 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:03.440 out that the article it was based on was just 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:07.880 totally fabricated. Remember that's right. That's such a great soundtrack, man, 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:11.600 maybe one of the all time best. Yep, But we're 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:15.720 here to talk about broken arrows, and uh, I got 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:18.680 this idea. This was one of my commissions, was because 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.880 I had um, I had someone on movie Crush. Then 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:26.560 we did Doctor Strange Love, the great great movie from 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:30.840 Stanley Kubrick, which factors into this stuff some And he 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:34.840 brought in a stack of papers and just said here 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:36.920 for your desk, and it was a list of all 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:40.240 the broken arrow incidents. And there were a lot more 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.280 than thirty of them, So I don't know if what 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.160 all was included. We'll get into some of the terminology 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:47.600 of what kind of falls under the banner of a 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.679 broken arrow. But but a broken well, we should just 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:54.680 go ahead and tell everyone what a broken arrow is, Yeah, 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:57.160 we should. As defined by the Department of Defense and 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.000 a little bit from the Air Force, is an accident 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:04.519 involving a nuclear weapon or warhead or nuclear component, or 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:08.760 an unexpected event involving nuclear weapons that could result in 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:17.200 um accidental or unauthorized launching, firing, what else, uh, detonation, Yeah, 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:23.440 jettising them, sending them, uh damage to him, accidentally dropping them. 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:25.440 And I mean, I've got to say, I don't know 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:28.600 what's worse, accidentally dropping a nuclear bomb or that it 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:33.600 happens so frequently. There's a name for it. Thank you, 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:36.280 Mr Whaley. Sure you can go to your trailer. Now, 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:39.360 so that's a I mean, that's a broken arrow. And 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:42.160 like there's a if you've seen that movie Broken Arrow, 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:47.760 it's um about Christians later foiling John Travolta, um after 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:51.200 he steals a nuclear bomb. That's actually technically not a 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:55.040 broken arrow from what we know. That's called an empty quiver, 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:58.680 which works with the broken arrow. But I thought it 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:01.400 had to do with a stolen nuclear bomb, which led 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:03.640 me to think, like, hey man, we've basically already done 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:05.640 this one. We did how easy is it to steal 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:09.760 a nuclear bomb? Remember that? Okay, this is really very 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:14.040 much different. This is basically when a US military personnel 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.080 screws up big time as far as a nuclear bomb 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:21.920 is concerned, or there's some terrible accident with a nuclear bomb. 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:27.760 But um, it's not something that's going to lead to war, right, 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.000 It's not like an accidental launch of a nuclear weapon 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:34.360 against the Soviet Union back in the Cold War. It's 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:38.960 dropping a nuclear bomb on your toe. That's a broken arrow, basically. Yeah, 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.120 And I've always thought broken arrow. I was wrong. I 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:44.240 thought it kind of only meant that you lose a 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:49.159 nuclear warhead somehow. Well, that's what Travolta's lies. He's the 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:53.839 father of lies. That's what he teaches us. Yeah, we've 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:56.840 been misled by Travolta. Yeah, have you seen him? He's 0:04:56.880 --> 0:04:59.919 he's gone bald. Now have you seen him? Good for 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.800 a man? Has he? Yeah? He finally just just ripped 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.440 off the old rug said this is me, and he's 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.719 got a great being. He looks fantastic. Oh, I'm sure 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:12.320 I'm happy for him. That's good because he's been hiding 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:16.240 that for decades. So, uh, we should talk about a 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:20.039 few other points of terminology that might pop up. There's 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:24.320 something called a pinnacle level incident, and that basically means 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:27.400 that any kind of incident where it's so big that 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:30.360 it really goes up all the way up the military 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:33.400 chain to the very top. Yeah, it's a big deal. 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:37.640 In other words, it's a big deal as travel towards. Uh. 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:39.560 And there's a few more incident codes that I think 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:43.560 are pretty interesting. Um, there's one called a nuke flash, 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.359 and that means an accident or incident that could be 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:51.279 the precursor to the trigger of nuclear war. That's a 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:53.440 big one. That's the Yeah, that's the one where there's 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:58.120 like somebody accidentally sets off an intercontinental ballistic missile toward Russia. 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:01.400 That is like one that can lead to you nuclear war. 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:03.800 And did you read that as new flash? I read 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:13.440 it as nut flash. That's funny. Uh. What about front burner? Yeah, 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:18.000 front Marina is triggered by any hostile It is pinnacle 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.240 level and it is triggered by any hostile attack against 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:27.680 US forces. Uh. And it's not necessarily a nuclear incident. No, 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.200 but um, it can be. It can lead to a 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:32.920 nuclear war. So it's kind of considered part of that 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:37.240 whole family of nuclear jargon. Yeah. And also, don't think 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:39.440 I said it's a hostile attack by someone that we're 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:42.840 not already at war with. That is a big caveat, 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:46.919 because I guess if you're if you're already at war's 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:51.800 front burner, front burner, there's another front burner. Yes, that's 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:54.560 that's a good point to make, dude. Um there's also 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:58.760 empty Quiver, which is that's the name that should have 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:02.240 been given to the travolt A Slater movie. Um, that's 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:06.760 where the nuclear weapons stolen. Um. And I gotta say, 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.080 I don't know what's scarier than a nuclear weapon can 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:11.840 be stolen, or that it happens often enough that there's 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.720 a name for it. Uh, do we go over bent 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:18.680 spear yet? No, not to be confused with burning spear. No, 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.200 a bent spear is an incident, nuclear incident that's a 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.360 big deal, but it's not pinnacle level. And this is 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:30.240 like if someone violated a regulation or a procedure or 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:35.000 something when you're storing or transporting a nuclear weapon. Like 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:38.960 it's like a three Stooges level type of nuclear accident 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.480 um where nothing, nothing, really bad results from it. Uh, 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.560 it's just somebody screwed up. And Ed gave this example. 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.600 I had not heard of this one, but apparently in 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.400 two thousand seven there was a burning spear. I'm sorry 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:56.400 that was genuine. There was a bent spear incident um 0:07:56.480 --> 0:08:01.000 where six armed nuclear warheads were loaded on a B 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:05.280 fifty two and they walked away slapping the dust off 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.720 of their hands and turned in for a good night's 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:10.640 rest and did not leave a guard. These six armed 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:13.160 nuclear warheads were left aboard a B fifty two that 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.040 was unguarded overnight and the next morning they flew him 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:20.360 across the country as scheduled. Okay, so nothing happened. No, 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:22.320 it's like one of those ones where you find that 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:26.160 you've bitten down to your cuticles because you're just so 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:28.880 mortified at the idea of how bad things could have gone. 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:33.400 But they just just we just narrowly averted crisis. All right, 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:38.320 Are there any of these other terms that matter to you? No? Okay, 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:43.280 all right, well we'll talk about We'll go over some 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:48.719 broken arrows later and some actual incidences. Um, but we 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:51.760 should talk a little bit just about nuclear weapons. Uh. 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:54.800 They are very much classified as to where they are, 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:59.719 and the Upper Brass basically has an exception to that 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:04.760 where if there is an incident and it presents a 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:08.079 hazard to the public, like boy, we need to get 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:09.720 people out of there, and we actually need to cop 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:12.600 to this thing. Uh, then that is an exception where 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:16.680 you can reveal that they're like surprised you're living near 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.839 some nuclear warheads. He didn't realize it. But over there 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:24.120 in that silo, it is it is not wheat I get. 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.440 I get the impression. Also, where you know, seven hundred 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:31.600 and fifty soldiers suddenly converge on a farm field where 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:35.000 a plane went down, Um, it's it's usually kind of 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:37.720 already old news to the locals that there's a nuclear 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:41.319 bomb somewhere in play, especially if this happens to take 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:45.000 place during the fifties or the sixties, which were the 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:50.880 the worst decades in American history for near miss nuclear accidents. Yeah, 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.240 and it's interesting. I never really uh, I kind of 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.400 just thought like, oh, it's because technology, and that's sort 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.520 of true, and that uh, in the fifties and sixties, 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:04.079 if you wanted to drop a nuclear bomb, that's why 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:06.400 they say drop a nuclear bomb, because you were literally 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.280 doing that. It was not attached to some missile on 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:11.880 some base. It was in the belly of a plane 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.440 and you flew over a site and opened doors and 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:20.480 dropped a bomb. Yes, the right, that's how you delivered 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:24.839 a nuclear bomb. And so because planes were so intimately 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.120 connected with delivering a nuclear bomb. Early on in the 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:31.079 Cold War, there was a guy who took over Strategic 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.040 Air Command and I think ninety seven, and he was 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:36.720 an old bomber pilot and he said, look, man, here's 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:41.199 our new strategy. We're going to keep bombers loaded with 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:44.960 nuclear bombs in the air at all times. There will 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.960 always be multiple B fifty twos flying around with loaded 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:54.080 nuclear weapons all the time, ready within striking distance of Russia. 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:57.400 And so this thing was called Operation Chrome Dome, where 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.720 pairs of B fifty twos would take off for twenty 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.960 four hour missions. They would refuel in the air. There 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:06.720 would be multiple pilots aboard so that they could trade 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:09.560 off shifts because they would stay aloft for twenty four hours, 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:11.760 and then before they came back to base the land 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.040 at the end of twenty four hours, another pair would 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:17.800 have taken off. And from what I saw, UM, at 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:21.040 the minimum of Operation Chrome Dome, there were always at 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:23.679 least four B fifty twos in the air flying these 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:28.240 routes like near Russia. UM, usually there was twelve in 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:30.640 the air. And then during the Cuban Missile Crisis, at 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:33.760 the height of Operation Chrome Dome, there were seventy five 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:37.559 B fifty twos in the air with nuclear weapons ready 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:40.880 to strike at any given time. And because there were 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:46.280 so many planes taking off and landing constantly with nuclear bombs, 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.160 the chances of an accident with one of these nuclear 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:54.120 bombs escalated tremendously. And that was these decades, the decades 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:59.480 that Operation Chrome Dome lasted, UM when these nuclear weapon problems, 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:03.400 what we call broken arrows, really kind of stepped up. Yeah, 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:05.800 and I mean that's if you've seen Doctor Strangelove, that's 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:08.720 what that uh, you know, there's kind of three parts 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:11.240 to the story. In one part is up in the 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:13.760 air in one of these bomber planes. And that's what 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:16.920 Slim Pickens and James Earl Jones are doing up there. 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:20.720 They are just manning a flight that is flying close 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:24.680 to the Soviet border and uh, hoping that they just 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.320 land and take off again the next day and fly 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.760 and it's boring and they land again, and like I said, 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:32.520 the ideas, you do this over and over and over 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:35.480 and nothing ever happens. Um. But of course in Strangelove 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:37.840 things go wrong. Um. But that yeah, that's what they 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:41.360 were doing up there. Yep. So that's operation Chrome Dome 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:46.240 and UM. Eventually the we developed innercontinental ballistic missiles, those 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:48.760 ones that you talked about, like in in the ground 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:53.079 in a base. They were capable of striking Moscow from Kansas. 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:56.440 When we developed those in the sixties, we said, okay, 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.280 we don't need this Chrome Dome strategy any longer. But 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:03.280 also because there were so many accidents, and because the 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:06.680 accidents were so costly bad and yet still just near 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:10.920 misses from a nuclear explosion. UM, the idea of this 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.360 chrome dome strategy was like, we we can't do this anymore. 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.839 This it's just too too risky. Basically, should we take 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:19.920 a break? I believe so, Charles, all right, we're gonna 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:21.480 take a break and we'll talk a little bit about 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:23.920 the nuts and bolts of how a nuclear bomb works 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:51.280 right after this. All right, Chuck. So if you're I 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:55.559 think we should do a nuclear um bomb episode someday, 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:57.600 where do we go over? This? Was it during the 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:02.960 meltdowns episode? Yeah? It must have been like a fission reaction, yeah, 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:06.640 because it does seem pretty pretty familiar, it doesn't it. Yeah, 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.600 because you know what a nuclear bomb is is is 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:18.439 detonating and instigating or causing always starting stuff a fission reaction. Um. 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:21.600 Well that was the early ones, right yeah. Yeah, So 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:26.240 how this works as a nuclear reaction is plutonium and 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:31.320 uranium UM being compressed and smashing into other plutonium and 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:37.560 uranium to get a nuclear fission reaction going right. Uh? 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:40.680 And the early uh, I guess h bombs is what 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:45.760 they call them initially, right, hydrogen bombs? Well, atomic bombs, 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:48.960 I think initially yeah, atomic bombs who were very rudimentary, 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:54.600 rudimentary Wow, Yeah, tried to dress them up by adding 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:58.680 an extra syllable, but they were still rudimentary. They were rudimentary. Uh. 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:02.240 And in fact, the UH, the very first bombs that 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:07.400 were dropped on Hiroshima actually fired a gun type mechanism 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:11.800 to set off this reaction. Right, It was like, yeah, 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.920 they would shoot uranium at uranium and that that would 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:18.080 set off the fission reaction, and like, you can produce 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:22.720 a pretty substantial um explosion like they did over her 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:28.080 Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Right, And but compared to the other 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:30.360 way that they later quickly figured out, I believe in 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.040 the fifties they moved over I think those were the 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:37.880 hydrogen bombs thermonuclear bombs where they used fusion, where it 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:42.640 was an implosion that pressed the material, the plutonium or 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.600 or the uranium together to create this nuclear reaction. That's 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:49.160 when you got something in the yield of mega tons, 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:53.680 millions and millions of tons worth of TNT explosive power, 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:57.600 where the one in Hiroshima was like fifteen kilo tons, 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:01.560 like fifteen thousand tons of t n T. Yeah, and 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.960 thank god they hadn't figured that out at that point. Yeah, 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:09.120 because those earliest broken arrow ones were like, dude, if like, 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:11.640 if this had been like a fusion bomb, who knows 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:14.520 what would have happened, although I can't tell if if 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:17.480 one was safer than the other. And Ed rightly points 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:20.280 out the reason all these were near mrs was because 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:23.560 along the way, scientists thought, we need to include some 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:27.160 fail safes here so that if something does go wrong, um, 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:32.520 a cascading string of multiple failures have to happen in 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:35.360 a certain order for this thing to actually go off, 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:38.240 or you have to make it so it's purposefully happens 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:40.200 in this order to actually go off, and that if 0:16:40.240 --> 0:16:43.800 one thing doesn't happen in this this cascade, then the 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:47.080 thing won't actually have a nuclear detonation. And the the 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:51.480 fact that the scientists worked in these safety mechanisms, that's 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:56.000 what kept like South Carolina and North Carolina from having 0:16:56.200 --> 0:17:00.920 entire town's level the nuclear explosions accidentally. That's because what 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.240 happens now with this implosion that it is this nuclear 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:09.040 material is packed and surrounded by high explosives, just regular 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:13.040 conventional explosives, and this is you know, these things go 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:15.760 off and they create a big boom in and of 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.719 themselves that is very dangerous. But like you said, there 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:21.560 are so many safety features built in and unless you 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:25.720 have that um, that exact implosion pattern that you need, 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:30.760 it might be scary. But uh, these high explosive going 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:34.280 off don't necessarily mean that there will be that fusion reaction. 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:37.879 And if it gets shot, like let's say somebody, you know, 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:42.040 somebody bombs your bomb, that doesn't doesn't necessarily mean and 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:45.119 probably means it won't happen. It will it will again 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:47.200 be a big boom, and but it will break apart 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.240 that nuclear material and just scatter it around. It's not 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:52.399 going to compress it. And the way you need to 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:56.040 create that fission reaction. No, And that's that's what a 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:58.520 dirty bomb is. It's where you're you're not creating a 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:02.280 nuclear explosion, but you're explo osian is spreading radioactive material 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:05.400 that contaminates an area, which is bad enough, but it's 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.760 not nearly as bad as an actual sustain nuclear explosion. 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.600 And because the the nuclear bombs were made in such 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:14.639 a way, like you said, that explosive pattern has to 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:19.040 happen exactly just so you're probably not going to get 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:23.040 that same pattern if that those explosives go off from 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:26.320 hitting the ground after being dropped fifteen thousand feet or 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:29.040 in a burning in a jet fuel fire from a 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:31.879 crash jet. They will still explode, like you were saying, 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.280 but it's not going to create that nuclear explosion. It 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.760 still will make you bite your finger nois cuticle though, Yeah, 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.440 it'll it'll go up that pinnacle chain, right. Um. I'm 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.560 also not sure about how bombs are now, but I 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.520 know that for a while and maybe that's still still 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:53.240 the case. They're just physically distanced, like those explosives are 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:57.920 are not right next to the nuclear capsule, and that 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:02.720 distance can actually help event those nuclear explosions. Yeah. Or 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:06.880 there's like um an electra, an electronic circuit that has 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:10.120 to be completed for the detonator to go off, and 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:14.080 so if even if it's exposed to flames or impact, 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:16.840 it's still not going to go off because it's detonated electronically. 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:20.240 There's like more safety systems that they worked in. But 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:23.040 initially one of the earliest ones they had with those 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:26.240 imploding h bombs was that they just simply wouldn't put 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:28.879 the core of the nuclear material that was to be 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.280 imploded in the bomb. It really just be like a 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:37.320 five thousand or you know, twenty thousand ton bomb of 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:41.840 high high yield explosives, of high explosives, but the nuclear 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:46.560 core wasn't plugged into the center, so it might be 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:50.040 on the same plane, but it wasn't plugged in. And 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:53.200 at least some cases in other cases in the the 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:57.800 military used that the the core wasn't inserted into the 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:02.480 bomb at the time excuse very frequently to basically say 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:05.440 there was really no chance of this becoming a nuclear explosion. 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:09.320 But there's a lot of debate about just how true 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:12.600 that is in some of these instances where some of 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:16.040 these were fully armed nuclear bombs that just so happened. 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:19.840 We lucked out that the the um the pattern of 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:23.080 explosion with the high explosives didn't follow the right the 0:20:23.160 --> 0:20:26.880 right pattern to set off that that nuclear reaction. Yeah, 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.800 and again, um, these protocols came about in the sixties 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:33.119 and seventies, which is why most of these, I almost 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:37.800 all these broken arrow incidences were in the fifties and sixties. Uh. 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:40.800 In the nineteen nineties, I think in nineteen ninety there 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:44.000 was a technical report on the safety of our arsenal 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:49.840 conducted by independently by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and they 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.119 vary and this is great for for you know, the 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:55.280 general public. In dumb dums like us. They just gave 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:59.400 it like a school rating, like A through F basically 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.080 on all the all the weapons that we've used from 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:06.960 nineteen fifty to seventy six and or no, I guess 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:10.600 up until the nineties. But every weapon from fifty to 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:14.840 seventy six received a D except for one, and that 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:16.280 that one was the minute Man two and it got 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:22.200 a C plus C plus C plus, which is pretty 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:25.320 nice especially among these. But everything else got a D 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:29.600 for twenty six years. Right, that just got it just 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:32.440 goes to show you, like just how poorly these things 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:39.640 were um safety mechanized, I guess. But even still, even 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:42.040 despite you know that, like they still went to some 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:45.600 extent to make them safer, but they just hadn't gone 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:49.080 far enough. And yet despite that, we still didn't manage 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:52.160 to accidentally blow ourselves up with the nuclear bomb. Despite 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:55.360 all the broken arrows that we have gone through, which 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:57.240 will now go through, should we take a break and 0:21:57.280 --> 0:21:59.639 then go through some of these are sure? Do some 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:02.160 I can break that little word playing no, no, Well, 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:04.560 we'll take a break, all right, take a break, right, yeah, 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:34.360 We'll be right back with broken arrows. Okay, Chuck, So 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:37.639 we um we As far as we know, the military 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:40.959 will cop to thirty two broken arrows in the history 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:45.359 of the Atomic Age as far as the United States goes, um, 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:49.200 other countries have their own, and apparently the Soviet Union 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:53.680 had at least as many, if not more, than we did, 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:56.200 which if you've seen Chernobyl you know that they were 0:22:56.200 --> 0:23:00.639 probably like hundreds more. Yeah, yeah, and and possibly the 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:02.520 same for us. It makes a really good point that, 0:23:02.600 --> 0:23:06.000 you know, the once the intercontinental ballistic missiles came along 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:10.440 and we didn't need Operation Chrome Dome anymore, broken arrows 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:14.440 all but vanished. But it's also possible that the military 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:17.280 just decided, like, we're just not going to publicly announce 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:21.840 these things any longer, which is entirely possible. Who knows. 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:24.320 But as as far as it goes officially, there have 0:23:24.440 --> 0:23:29.119 been thirty two broken arrow pinnacle incidents that have happened 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:31.600 in the nation's history, and some of them are just 0:23:31.720 --> 0:23:35.000 absolute doozies. Yeah, so we'll go over some of these. Um. 0:23:35.119 --> 0:23:37.040 I guess we can start with the first one, just 0:23:37.119 --> 0:23:42.800 for nostalgia's sake. This was February a B thirty six 0:23:42.880 --> 0:23:47.800 B Peacemaker bomber uh set flight from Alaska, and this 0:23:47.880 --> 0:23:50.760 is just a training mission where they want to simulate 0:23:50.800 --> 0:23:53.679 a nuclear strike against Russia. But they did have a 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:55.800 big bomb on board. It was a five thousand pound 0:23:55.840 --> 0:24:00.440 bomb with just a conventional explosives that wasn't uh UM 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:02.280 or at least a Department of Defense in the Air 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:06.240 Force say, and we're gonna be caveating all these because 0:24:06.400 --> 0:24:08.320 you know we we can only say what they told us. 0:24:08.680 --> 0:24:11.000 But they said that there was no plutonium core on 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:14.360 the plane. Um. But this is one of the planes 0:24:14.480 --> 0:24:18.439 that took off had engine trouble. The crew bailed out 0:24:18.480 --> 0:24:20.720 and set off the bomb in the air and then 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:24.480 bailed out of the plane and the bomb luckily went 0:24:24.520 --> 0:24:27.800 off over the ocean, right. And this this kind of 0:24:27.840 --> 0:24:30.560 strikes at the core of a lot of these accidents. 0:24:30.560 --> 0:24:33.320 Like whenever you hear about um like or whenever you 0:24:33.320 --> 0:24:36.280 think about, why haven't we've been obliterated by a meteor 0:24:36.760 --> 0:24:40.120 or something, it seems like the world is just full 0:24:40.160 --> 0:24:42.760 of people, but there is way more empty land and 0:24:42.840 --> 0:24:47.160