Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the
Speaker 1: tech are you? It is time for a classic.
Speaker 2: Episode, and this one is a bit of a sobering one.
Speaker 2: It is called Close but.
Speaker 1: No Nuclear War.
Speaker 2: It originally published on May seventeenth, twenty seventeen, and it's
Speaker 2: all about some close calls the world got into a
Speaker 2: few times over the last few decades.
Speaker 1: Enjoy. Let's go to basic science on this one. So
Speaker 1: I'm going to start fundamental. I know you guys know this,
Speaker 1: but I feel like it's always important to start from
Speaker 1: the base and build your way up. So you probably
Speaker 1: are familiar with this from elementary school science and atom
Speaker 1: consists of a nucleus orbited by one or more electrons,
Speaker 1: and the nucleus contains one or more protons and possibly
Speaker 1: some neutrons. Electrons have a negative charge, protons have a
Speaker 1: positive charge, and neutrons have no charge at all because
Speaker 1: their credit is bad. Now, if you know the rules
Speaker 1: about electromagnetic charges, you remember that opposites attract and the
Speaker 1: same charges repel each other. So that raises a question,
Speaker 1: how can an atom have a nucleus with two or
Speaker 1: more protons in it and not just break apart? If
Speaker 1: you have two positively charged particles sub atomic particles protons
Speaker 1: that close to each other, how come they don't just
Speaker 1: push against each other and the nucleus just pop splits apart.
Speaker 1: And then we would just end up with hydrogen atoms,
Speaker 1: because a hydrogen atom is just a proton and an electron,
Speaker 1: your basic hydrogen atom. That would all make sense, right
Speaker 1: if the entire universe was just hydrogen. Why do we
Speaker 1: have nucleuses or nuclei I should say nuclei with multiple protons. Well,
Speaker 1: to answer this question, we have to turn to the
Speaker 1: Standard Model of physics, which is mostly how we think
Speaker 1: the universe works. Mostly, the Standard model doesn't quite incorporate everything.
Speaker 1: It doesn't explain absolutely everything. Gravity is a big mystery
Speaker 1: with the Standard model. We consider it one of the
Speaker 1: four fundamental forces, but we don't really have all the
Speaker 1: mechanisms explained under the Standard Model of physics. It does, however,
Speaker 1: give us a pretty good idea of what's going on.
Speaker 1: It's held up to lots of experimentation and observations, so
Speaker 1: The standard model says that stuff like protons and neutrons
Speaker 1: are made up of even smaller particles called quarks, which
Speaker 1: is not as I learned the sound made by a Dirk.
Speaker 1: Quarks are the smallest building block we know of right now,
Speaker 1: and you can't split them up into smaller things. That's
Speaker 1: as small as you can get, at least as far
Speaker 1: as we know at the moment. Anyway, there's a force
Speaker 1: that holds these quark particles together to form larger particles
Speaker 1: called hadrons, among which are protons and neutrons. Those are
Speaker 1: both types of hadrons. There are lots and lots of
Speaker 1: other ones as well, and this force is called the
Speaker 1: strong nuclear force. It's also what binds nuclei together so
Speaker 1: that they don't go splitting up all over the place,
Speaker 1: and out of the four fundamental forces of our universe,
Speaker 1: this is the strongest. However, it also takes effect over
Speaker 1: the smallest distance. The range is incredibly small. It's on
Speaker 1: the sub atomic scale, so while it's very strong, it
Speaker 1: doesn't reach very far. There's also a weak nuclear force.
Speaker 1: The physicist Enrico Fermi theorized that the weak nuclear force
Speaker 1: was what he was observing when he saw certain atoms
Speaker 1: undergoing what is called beta decay. Has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with Siamese fish. Beta decay is about a neutron or
Speaker 1: a proton atoms nucleus switching sides. Essentially, a neutron will
Speaker 1: change it into a proton, and it will expel an
Speaker 1: electron in the process, so you've got a neutrally charged particle,
Speaker 1: it expels an electron. It becomes positive as a result,
Speaker 1: And to make matters a bit more confusing, we call
Speaker 1: this electron that gets expelled a beta particle, so it
Speaker 1: is an electron, but specifically a beta particle. Another subatomic
Speaker 1: particle also forms in this process. It's called an antineutrino.
Speaker 1: So this type of beta decay is called beta minus decay. However,
Speaker 1: there's also a beta plus decay. That's when you have
Speaker 1: the opposite happen, where a proton becomes a neutron as
Speaker 1: opposed to a neutron becoming a proton. Beta plus decay
Speaker 1: products include not just the brand new neutron. It also
Speaker 1: includes a subatomic particle called a positron and a neutrino.
Speaker 1: So you get antineutrinos and electrons with one, and you
Speaker 1: get positrons and neutrinos, with the other anyway weak. The
Speaker 1: nuclear force explains this process of nuclear decay, this particular
Speaker 1: type of nuclear decay. They're a couple of others as well.
Speaker 1: So when atoms decay, one of the byproducts is also energy.
Speaker 1: They give off energy as they decay, they radiate it.
Speaker 1: So this is the source of radiation. That's why we
Speaker 1: call it nuclear radiation. Not all atoms do this because
Speaker 1: some of them are perfectly stable. That means that they're
Speaker 1: not going to decay into some other form because they're
Speaker 1: already stable. They're not there's nothing for them to get
Speaker 1: more stable. It's kind of like if you were to have,
Speaker 1: you know, a stack of things and they fall over
Speaker 1: to a certain point, they're not going to fall anymore
Speaker 1: because they're flat against the ground. That's as far as
Speaker 1: they go. That's kind of the same idea. Now, in
Speaker 1: the case of nuclear weapons, the elements we use, their
Speaker 1: atoms need just the right push in order to have
Speaker 1: their nuclei split, and when that happens, the split nuclei
Speaker 1: shoot off a few neutrons, and that ultimately is the
Speaker 1: secret sauce to nuclear weapons. So here's how it all works. Well,
Speaker 1: let's say you get yourself a whole bunch of a
Speaker 1: particular large, unstable atom. Let's say, for argument's sake, it's oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, uranium two thirty five, which is essentially
Speaker 1: weaponized uranium. It also actually it's out there in nature.
Speaker 1: It is not the most common form of uranium in
Speaker 1: nature because it is by its very nature unstable. It
Speaker 1: will decay on its own over a very long period
Speaker 1: of time. The more common form of uranium in nature
Speaker 1: is uranium two thirty eight, but for weapons you want
Speaker 1: uranium two thirty five. It's an isope of uranium. Isotopes
Speaker 1: are forms of an element that have the same number
Speaker 1: of protons, because if you change the number of protons,
Speaker 1: you change the element itself, so it has to have
Speaker 1: the exact same number of protons from isotope to isotope,
Speaker 1: but has a different number of neutrons. So, as another example,
Speaker 1: carbon twelve is a type of carbon that has six
Speaker 1: protons and six neutrons. Carbon fourteen is different. It's got
Speaker 1: six protons and eight neutrons. It's also radioactive, meaning it
Speaker 1: will decay into a more stable form or another a
Speaker 1: more stable atom, and give off energy in that process
Speaker 1: as well. As some neutrons. So uranium two thirty five
Speaker 1: has ninety two protons and one hundred forty three neutrons.
Speaker 1: The half life of uranium two thirty five is seven
Speaker 1: hundred million years now half life. What that means is
Speaker 1: that if you had a chunk of uranium two thirty five,
Speaker 1: so you've got a whole bunch of these uranium two
Speaker 1: thirty five atoms, it's statistically probable that after seven hundred
Speaker 1: million years past, half of those atoms would decay have
Speaker 1: decayed to other more stable atoms. Statistically speaking, this is
Speaker 1: all about probability, not about a definite future. That's the
Speaker 1: thing you have to remember about half life. It's about probability,
Speaker 1: not definitive outcomes. Uranium two thirty eight, that more common
Speaker 1: form of uranium I talked about, has a half life
Speaker 1: of four point five billion years. So while uranium two
Speaker 1: thirty five is seven hundred million years half life, that's
Speaker 1: a long long time, I mean, particularly for human species. Right,
Speaker 1: four point five billion years leaves it in the dust.
Speaker 1: All right, So back to uranium two thirty five. Fermine
Speaker 1: was able to create a controlled nuclear reaction using uranium
Speaker 1: two thirty five. So what he did was he took
Speaker 1: a He took low speed neutrons and fired them at
Speaker 1: atoms of uranium two thirty five in order to break
Speaker 1: the isotope part splitting it. That's what we call nuclear fission.
Speaker 1: We're splitting an atom. In this process, the atom gives
Speaker 1: off heat and radiation as well as generating new atoms. Right,
Speaker 1: because you split it into two or more components. Also
Speaker 1: in that process, it shoots off some extra neutrons, so
Speaker 1: those go spinning off. Now that means that if you
Speaker 1: had enough uranium two thirty five, and you had a
Speaker 1: means of making sure those neutrons that gave off could
Speaker 1: hit those other atoms of uranium two thirty five, you
Speaker 1: could continue this reaction. It becomes a chain reaction. The
Speaker 1: neutrons that get fired off hit other uranium two thirty
Speaker 1: five atoms, which then produce more free neutrons flying outward,
Speaker 1: which can hit more uranium two thirty five atoms, and
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. And each time you're doing this,
Speaker 1: it's generating more and more heat and energy and radiation.
Speaker 1: And thus, if you were to do this in an
Speaker 1: uncontrolled way, you get a bomb. If you do it
Speaker 1: in a controlled way, you can have a nuclear power plant.
Speaker 1: Our power plants are based off nuclear fission because that's
Speaker 1: the type of nuclear power we have found to be sustainable.
Speaker 1: Right now, there's a real push to make nuclear fusion
Speaker 1: a sustainable means of generating electricity, but right now it
Speaker 1: is very difficult to create a sustainable version of that.
Speaker 1: We can we can start nuclear fusion, but generally speaking,
Speaker 1: we tend to put as much or more energy into
Speaker 1: the system as we're getting out of it, and so
Speaker 1: that doesn't really work if you want a sustainable form
Speaker 1: of generating electricity. If you're spending more than you take in,
Speaker 1: you go broke eventually. Anyway, this uncontrolled chain reaction could
Speaker 1: be more of a bomb situation, although to be fair,
Speaker 1: in nuclear weapons it's still very much a controlled system.
Speaker 1: It's just controlled in a way to release annormous amount
Speaker 1: of energy in a very destructive way.
Speaker 2: We'll be back with more about close calls with nuclear war,
Speaker 2: a fun filled topic after these quick messages.
Speaker 1: Now, this requires enriched uranium. It requires a lot of
Speaker 1: uranium two thirty five. You need a really high concentration
Speaker 1: of uranium two thirty five because uranium two thirty eight
Speaker 1: doesn't accept neutrons as readily. So if you shoot neutrons
Speaker 1: at uranium two thirty five, you're it's much easier to
Speaker 1: split that than if you were to fire it off
Speaker 1: at uranium two thirty eight. So weapons grade uranium is
Speaker 1: typically about ninety percent uranium two thirty five. This is
Speaker 1: a much higher concentration than you would find out in nature.
Speaker 1: So with these nuclear bombs, you have to make sure
Speaker 1: that the fuel is kept in separate subcritical masses to
Speaker 1: prevent premature detonation. So you obviously don't want this thing
Speaker 1: to go off before you intend it to, or else
Speaker 1: you're going to destroy yourself. To make it explode, you
Speaker 1: need the bomb to achieve what is called critical mass.
Speaker 1: This is the minimum amount of mass you need of
Speaker 1: fissionable material to create a nuclear chain reaction sufficient enough
Speaker 1: to act as a weapon. So over at HowStuffWorks dot Com,
Speaker 1: we have an article all about this about how nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons work, and it contains a really helpful analogy. It says,
Speaker 1: imagine that the fissionable material, the stuff that you are
Speaker 1: going to split, is represented as a bunch of marbles
Speaker 1: inside a circle. If the marbles are really close together,
Speaker 1: then you shoot a marble into that circle, it's going
Speaker 1: to hit against a couple of other marbles. If you've
Speaker 1: used enough force, it's going to create a little chain reaction.
Speaker 1: That's what we're talking about with fissionable material and a
Speaker 1: nuclear bomb. But if you fire a marble off into
Speaker 1: a circle and all the individual marbles are further apart
Speaker 1: from each other, it's less likely that you're going to
Speaker 1: be able to set off that nuclear chain reaction because
Speaker 1: even if you hit another marble, it's far enough away
Speaker 1: from its fellow marbles that you're not likely to make
Speaker 1: it a consistent, persistent nuclear chain reaction. And so that's
Speaker 1: really the difference between critical and subcritical masses. Now. To
Speaker 1: start the whole reaction, nuclear weapons typically use a pellet
Speaker 1: of polonium and beryllium separated by a piece of foil.
Speaker 1: When the subcritical masses come together, as in when a
Speaker 1: bomb is set to detonate, and more about that in
Speaker 1: a second, it causes the polonium to emit alpha particles,
Speaker 1: and an alpha particle, in case you're curious, is a
Speaker 1: pair of protons and a pair of neutrons that are
Speaker 1: bound together. The alpha particles make contact with a beryllium,
Speaker 1: which cause it to transform into an isotope of beryllium
Speaker 1: and emit neutrons. So the beryllium changes into a different
Speaker 1: type of beryllium, a different isotope of beryllium, and it
Speaker 1: ejects these neutrons as part of it. Those ejected neutrons
Speaker 1: then become the starting point for the nuclear chain reaction.
Speaker 1: Now surrounding your enriched uranium two thirty five is a
Speaker 1: casing called a tamper. That's what's designed to contain the
Speaker 1: energy of the nuclear fission until it's time to release
Speaker 1: it in the form of the nuclear explosion. And typically
Speaker 1: it's uranium two thirty eight that ends up redirecting those
Speaker 1: free neutrons back into the core so that they can
Speaker 1: more efficiently impact other uranium two thirty five atoms, and
Speaker 1: it aids in the continuation of fission. The more fissionable
Speaker 1: material gets activated, the more efficient the bomb is, and
Speaker 1: the bigger the explosion you get as a result. Now,
Speaker 1: one way to detonate a nuclear weapon is with the
Speaker 1: uranium bullet method. So typically you have the tamper, which
Speaker 1: you know as this container of some sort kind of
Speaker 1: like it's usually kind of a cylinder shape because you're
Speaker 1: fitting it inside a larger form factor of a bomb,
Speaker 1: and that's what's made of uranium two thirty eight. Inside
Speaker 1: of this you have a sphere of uranium two thirty five,
Speaker 1: and in the center of the sphere is your neutron generator,
Speaker 1: in other words, your little pellet of polonium and brillium.
Speaker 1: You've got a tube leading down into the center of
Speaker 1: the sphere. At the other end of the tube are
Speaker 1: some explosives, and inside the tube is a bullet of
Speaker 1: uranium two thirty five. So when it's time to detonate
Speaker 1: the bomb, you explode the explosives. These are conventional explosives,
Speaker 1: not nuclear explosives. That propels the uranium two thirty five
Speaker 1: bullet and a very high rate down the tube, colliding
Speaker 1: with the pellet and thus initiating the neutron generator, which
Speaker 1: shoots out neutrons and thus starts to fission the uranium
Speaker 1: two thirty five. This fissioning activity happens in an instant,
Speaker 1: like the fraction of a fraction of a fraction of
Speaker 1: a second, but in that fraction each time this is
Speaker 1: happening so so fast that energy builds and builds and
Speaker 1: builds and builds, until it's greater than what the bomb
Speaker 1: itself can contain. And then it explodes. It takes place
Speaker 1: so fast that it's like billions of a second. You
Speaker 1: want to be super careful with that, obviously, because it's
Speaker 1: a massive amount of destruction. Now, there's another method for
Speaker 1: detonating a nuclear weapon called the implosion method, in which
Speaker 1: high explosives around the tamper. So again that uranium two
Speaker 1: thirty eight, typically explosive surrounding it create a powerful shock
Speaker 1: wave when they go off. So the explosive go off
Speaker 1: creates a shockwave generated into the center of this that
Speaker 1: compresses the tamper and thus compresses the fissionable core inside
Speaker 1: the tamper, and that triggers the fissioning reaction, and you
Speaker 1: get the same result as the one I mentioned earlier. Now,
Speaker 1: in World War Two, we dropped two atomic bombs. We
Speaker 1: the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. One
Speaker 1: of them called Little Boy, and that was a uranium
Speaker 1: bullet style bomb. The other was called Fat Man, and
Speaker 1: that was an implosion style bomb, and it also used
Speaker 1: plutonium two thirty nine as its core, not uranium, but
Speaker 1: plutonium two thirty nine. Later, a guy named Edward Teller,
Speaker 1: who we've talked about on tech stuff before, improved the
Speaker 1: yield of nuclear weapons using what is called the boosting method.
Speaker 1: This combines fusion reactions with fission bombs. The fusion reactions
Speaker 1: would create the neutrons which then would trigger the fission
Speaker 1: reactions at a really high rate, so more efficiently, so
Speaker 1: you get more of the fissionable material to split, thus
Speaker 1: generating more energy, and nearly ninety percent of American nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons follow that particular design. But then you've also got
Speaker 1: fusion bombs. Now, fusion is when you fuse two atoms
Speaker 1: together and you still get a big release of energy
Speaker 1: in this process. Essentially, these bombs fuse hydrogen isotopes including
Speaker 1: deuterium and tritium together and that ends up releasing an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of energy. So to explode a bomb of
Speaker 1: this type, you reverse the roles of fusion and fission.
Speaker 1: You know, I just mentioned that to make a really
Speaker 1: efficient fission bomb, you could incorporate fusion into it as
Speaker 1: well well. In this case, you're talking about using fission
Speaker 1: reactions in order to fuel a fusion reaction, which will
Speaker 1: generate the massive amount of energy for the bomb. So
Speaker 1: the fission bomb would create an implosion shockwave, kind of
Speaker 1: like the explosives I talked about in the previous example
Speaker 1: with fat Man, and in that shockwave you would also
Speaker 1: get a release of X rays. That's one of the
Speaker 1: types of energy you would get as a release from
Speaker 1: a fission reaction. The X rays will end up heating
Speaker 1: the tamper, which you still have, just like you would
Speaker 1: with the other types of nuclear weapons, and that would
Speaker 1: still be uranium two thirty eight typically inside of which
Speaker 1: is a fuel of lithium deuteride, and that would end
Speaker 1: up heating up because of the X rays. The X
Speaker 1: rays heat up the lithium deuteride. The shockwave would compress
Speaker 1: the lithium deuteride by a factor of like thirty It's
Speaker 1: crazy how compressed it gets. And also inside the tamper
Speaker 1: is a plutonium rod which would start to fission as
Speaker 1: a result of all this, and that would release more
Speaker 1: heat more neutrons. Those neutrons would combine with the compressed
Speaker 1: lithium deuteride to fuel to create tritium, so you would
Speaker 1: then have enough temperature and pressure to support fusion reactions.
Speaker 1: That's one of the problems with nuclear fusion power plants
Speaker 1: is that you have to create such an intense amount
Speaker 1: of pressure and temperature that the energy you pour in
Speaker 1: is equal to or greater than the energy you're getting
Speaker 1: out of the actual fusion. Well, in a bomb, that's
Speaker 1: not so much a concern. You want to generate as
Speaker 1: much of this heat and pressure as you possibly can,
Speaker 1: so because the fission reactions are creating that tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of heat and pressure, nuclear fusion can actually occur, and
Speaker 1: you start getting tritium deuterium and deuterium deuterium reactions, and
Speaker 1: that generates even more heat and more radiation, which is
Speaker 1: enough to induce fission in the uranium two thirty eight tamper.
Speaker 1: So remember the uranium two thirty eight tamper doesn't typically
Speaker 1: fission in most of these bombs, it requires so much
Speaker 1: energy to do that. But these fusion bombs can actually
Speaker 1: eat that kind of energy. The combination of all that
Speaker 1: energy is enormous, and then the bomb explodes, releasing it
Speaker 1: into the environment. Now, at the point of explosion, you
Speaker 1: would easily imagine there's an intense release of an incredible
Speaker 1: amount of heat, and the blast also creates a really
Speaker 1: powerful pressure wave moving outward from the point of explosion.
Speaker 1: Then on top of that, you've got the radiation, the
Speaker 1: energy being radiated out like gamma rays and other very
Speaker 1: harmful forms of radiation, followed by radiation fallout, which is
Speaker 1: typically radioactive dust and debris that originated inside the bomb itself.
Speaker 1: Stuff close to the hypocenter, which is another term for
Speaker 1: ground zero, would be vaporized because of the temperatures involved.
Speaker 1: We're talking three hundred million degrees celsius or five hundred
Speaker 1: million degrees fahrenheit. Further out from the center, the pressure
Speaker 1: wave could cause entire buildings to collapse because it's so powerful,
Speaker 1: and the heat is still intense enough to cause fatalities.
Speaker 1: It's hot enough to burn people alive even if you're
Speaker 1: not right there at the point of explosion. The further
Speaker 1: out you go, the less effect those initial events will have.
Speaker 1: The heat will become less intense the further out, The
Speaker 1: pressure wave less effective further out, but there are a
Speaker 1: lot of secondary problems that could still be life threatening,
Speaker 1: including things like fallout, radiation fallouts going to spread really
Speaker 1: far and will continue to spread based upon prevailing winds
Speaker 1: of the area, and also stuff like fires. The heat
Speaker 1: is going to be hot enough to generate a lot
Speaker 1: of fires in a lot of areas, and that could
Speaker 1: end up being a very prevalent and immediate danger to you.
Speaker 1: So that's cheerful. Right. Nuclear weapons are terrifying, There's no
Speaker 1: question about it. They can wak devastation greater than anything
Speaker 1: humans have ever witnessed. And since World War Two, many
Speaker 1: have worked really hard to make sure no more nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons see use ever again. But we've had a whole
Speaker 1: lot of close calls, and I'm gonna go more into
Speaker 1: that in just a minute, but first, let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break to thank our sponsor. All Right, We're gonna
Speaker 1: start with probably the closest we've ever been to getting
Speaker 1: into a full on nuclear confrontation. There were other events
Speaker 1: that happened before this, and there are other events that
Speaker 1: happened after this, and I'll cover some of those later on,
Speaker 1: but let's start with the granddaddy, the big one. That
Speaker 1: would be October nineteen sixty two, when the United States
Speaker 1: of America and the then Soviet Union were at the
Speaker 1: height of the Cold War. So you had these two
Speaker 1: powerful countries standing in opposition to each other, and both
Speaker 1: were building up their respective militaries and arsenals in an
Speaker 1: effort to stay on top or at least not fall
Speaker 1: behind their great rival. It's a pretty terrifying time for everybody,
Speaker 1: whether you lived in the Soviet Union or the United
Speaker 1: States or one of countless other nations that felt helpless
Speaker 1: because these two giants were posturing against each other. And
Speaker 1: one could argue, we're sort of returning to that kind
Speaker 1: of world now, but that's really a discussion for a
Speaker 1: different show anyway. In October nineteen sixty two, an event
Speaker 1: called the Cuban Missile Crisis happened. This was a nuclear
Speaker 1: game of chess between the White House and the Kremlin,
Speaker 1: and it was the closest the United States and the
Speaker 1: USSR ever got to a full fledged nuclear conflict on
Speaker 1: both sides. This at least, this was the closest anyone
Speaker 1: got that wasn't the creation of a computational error. More
Speaker 1: on those types of close calls in a little bit.
Speaker 1: So to catch you guys up on some history in
Speaker 1: case you don't know about the Cuban Missile crisis, the
Speaker 1: government in Cuba was Communist and that was something that
Speaker 1: made the United States government really nervous. So the US
Speaker 1: attempted to overthrow the Cuban government. But that was a
Speaker 1: total disaster. That was the Bay of Pigs invasion, as
Speaker 1: well as some other events that were around that time. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union had reached an agreement with Cuba. The
Speaker 1: Soviet Union would install nuclear missiles and nuclear aircraft nuclear
Speaker 1: capable aircraft in Cuba as a deterrent to US invasions,
Speaker 1: and it would also serve as a handy launchpad for
Speaker 1: a strike against the US should things devolve into a
Speaker 1: nuclear war. Now, the United States got wind of that plan,
Speaker 1: and President Kennedy issued a warning to the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: and essentially said, hey, stop putting stuff in Cuba. Man,
Speaker 1: it's not cool, especially nuclear stuff, all right. On October fourteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, American spy aircraft captured images of what
Speaker 1: was clearly medium and intermediate range ballistic nuclear missile sites
Speaker 1: under construction in Cuba, and they were close to being finished.
Speaker 1: They were on the fast track, and thus the Cuban
Speaker 1: Missile crisis was born. Kennedy ordered what he called a
Speaker 1: naval quarantine on Cuba on October twenty second. Now this
Speaker 1: was essentially a blockade, except they didn't call it a blockade.
Speaker 1: They gave it the name quarantine because blockade suggests an
Speaker 1: act of war, and they didn't want that to be
Speaker 1: the case. And it's amazing to me how word choice
Speaker 1: can somehow make two things that are essentially the same
Speaker 1: legally distinct. But I digress. The Soviet Union wasn't just
Speaker 1: trying to poke the United States in this case. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just an instance of them saying we're trying to
Speaker 1: get the edge on you. The Soviets were concerned because
Speaker 1: the United States had Jupiter missile systems stationed in Turkey,
Speaker 1: so they were within striking range of the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: and the Soviet Union wanted those missiles out of Turkey.
Speaker 1: Installing missiles in Cuba would kind of level things out,
Speaker 1: but simultaneous, simultaneously rather escalate tensions, you know that super fun,
Speaker 1: awesome combo. So while you had the president of the
Speaker 1: United States and the premiere of the Soviet Union arguing
Speaker 1: with each other and trying to convince each other to
Speaker 1: back off, things were getting really really tense around and
Speaker 1: inside Cuba. And what most folks didn't know for a
Speaker 1: really long time was that the area around Cuba was
Speaker 1: host to four secret submarines. Soviet submarines armed with nuclear
Speaker 1: tipped torpedoes, and these submarines were told to use those
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons in the event that the Americans attacked Cuba
Speaker 1: and attempt another invasion, which was an option that the
Speaker 1: White House was seriously considering at the time, and several
Speaker 1: of the President's advisors were actually advocating for an air
Speaker 1: strike against Cuba. So imagine if that air strike had happened,
Speaker 1: and these submarine commanders were following orders that would have
Speaker 1: initiated a nuclear strike against the United States, and then
Speaker 1: October twenty seventh, nineteen sixty two happened. So conditions were
Speaker 1: not great. Cuba, in case you're not aware, is much
Speaker 1: warmer than the USSR, and the submarines were ill equipped
Speaker 1: to deal with that heat. They ran on diesel engines,
Speaker 1: and they had battery power as well, and accasionally they
Speaker 1: would have to resurface to recharge their batteries. The air
Speaker 1: conditioning systems were not very good on these submarines, and
Speaker 1: they would fail pretty frequently, so it would get stiflingly
Speaker 1: hot and stuffy inside of them. And then you had
Speaker 1: this constant tension of aggression surrounding these crews, plus the
Speaker 1: directive that you were to launch a nuclear attack against
Speaker 1: one of the most powerful nations on the planet in
Speaker 1: the event of any sort of military aggression against Cuba,
Speaker 1: and it was pretty much a cocktail for disaster. On
Speaker 1: top of that, you would know that any attack you
Speaker 1: made against the United States would be returned against the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, there would be a retaliatory strike, and that
Speaker 1: this would initiate a full global conflict. So it was
Speaker 1: serious business. Now. Making matters worse than that, as if
Speaker 1: you can imagine such a thing, was the fact that
Speaker 1: the Soviet subs didn't have any con tact with their headquarters.
Speaker 1: They could not get in contact with Moscow. The best
Speaker 1: they could manage was picking up radio signals from a
Speaker 1: civilian broadcast station in Florida, So they're getting all their
Speaker 1: news from a US source in Florida, not from headquarters.
Speaker 1: American forces eventually spotted the submarines, so they did what
Speaker 1: was under the rules for Americans at the time, which
Speaker 1: was if they spotted submarines in the area, they set
Speaker 1: off signaling charges. Now, signaling charge is an explosive, so
Speaker 1: they were setting off explosives in the ocean near the submarines. Now,
Speaker 1: the purpose of the explosions was not to cause any
Speaker 1: damage to the submarines. They were supposed to be harmless,
Speaker 1: and in fact they were in this case harmless. They
Speaker 1: did not cause damage to the submarines. What they're supposed
Speaker 1: to do is essentially be the equivalent of knocking on
Speaker 1: someone's door saying, hey, I know your home. Come to
Speaker 1: the door, except in this case it's hey, I know
Speaker 1: you're in there surface, because otherwise we're going to consider
Speaker 1: it a threat. So obviously increasing tensions even further. So
Speaker 1: you would imagine that setting explosions off near nuclear armed
Speaker 1: submarines is potentially a disastrous idea, and it could have been.
Speaker 1: But no one fired any nuclear weapons at that stage,
Speaker 1: and that's amazing. It was super close. Tensions could not
Speaker 1: have been higher without any actual fighting U but no
Speaker 1: one pulled the trigger on that. Now, the US had
Speaker 1: moved to def Con three earlier in October. So deaf
Speaker 1: con stands for defense condition, and there are five levels
Speaker 1: of deaf con and they get worse the lower the
Speaker 1: number is, so Defcon five is the best. Defcon one
Speaker 1: is the most dangerous. So the lower the number, the
Speaker 1: closer the un US is to maximum combat readiness. So
Speaker 1: In other words, Defcon one means the US is ready
Speaker 1: to commit some massive military power in an act of war.
Speaker 1: Level three means increase enforce readiness above normal readiness. So
Speaker 1: that was the level they were at earlier in October,
Speaker 1: was an increased level of readiness. As I recorded this,
Speaker 1: we stand at Defcon four. Defcon four means normal increased
Speaker 1: intelligence and strengthened security measures, so normal readiness, but we're
Speaker 1: paying way more attention than we would be at Defcon five.
Speaker 1: Defcon five just means normal peacetime readiness. Sure would be
Speaker 1: nice to be there, but for the United States, the
Speaker 1: actions of North Korea and Russia recently have made this complicated.
Speaker 1: So we've been at Defcon four, oh in China two
Speaker 1: to some extent. Anyway, by October twenty seventh, the United
Speaker 1: States had decided to bump this up to Defcon level two,
Speaker 1: which is further increase in force readiness but less than
Speaker 1: maximum readiness, which I don't know how you determined that.
Speaker 1: If you just ask people, Hey, are you guys ready,
Speaker 1: And if they say yes, and you say are you
Speaker 1: as ready as you can be and they say no,
Speaker 1: then I guess maybe that's it. Anyway, I would say,
Speaker 1: if we were to translate this, this would come into
Speaker 1: you know, yo hold me back, bro level. That would
Speaker 1: be essentially what Defcon level two is is YO hold
Speaker 1: me back. So you're ready to swing your fist, but
Speaker 1: you're not actively swinging your fist. And it shows that
Speaker 1: the tensions were really at a high point. So it
Speaker 1: was not a sure thing that cooler heads would actually
Speaker 1: prevail on that day in October on those Soviet submarines.
Speaker 1: I'm thankful they did, though, but it was never a
Speaker 1: sure thing. Now, in the end, Soviets remove their missiles
Speaker 1: and bombers from Cuba and later the United States of
Speaker 1: their Jupiter missile installations from Turkey, and apparently that had
Speaker 1: been the plan the whole time. The United States was
Speaker 1: already planning on removing those missile installations in Turkey, which
Speaker 1: was one of the demands the Soviet Union had had, saying, hey,
Speaker 1: if we're going to pull out a Cuba, you got
Speaker 1: to pull out Turkey. But the US didn't agree upon
Speaker 1: it as a point of negotiation, even though they had
Speaker 1: already planned on doing that. So that was interesting that
Speaker 1: the US had planned on removing those missiles, but they
Speaker 1: did not agree to having that be part of the
Speaker 1: terms to settle this crisis, maybe because it might have
Speaker 1: made the country look weak or something. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't pretend to understand global politics. The point is
Speaker 1: that both the United States and the USSR backed off
Speaker 1: from the button and opened up a channel of communication
Speaker 1: that still exists to this day, this hotline between the
Speaker 1: Kremlin and the White House, though there are times when
Speaker 1: one site isn't that eager to take the other side's calls. Oh,
Speaker 1: and by backed off, I don't mean that things calmed
Speaker 1: down right away. The US Strategic Air Command or SAC
Speaker 1: remained at deaf Con two from October twenty third, nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two to November fifteenth, nineteen sixty five, so more
Speaker 1: than three years. Only then did it quote unquote posture
Speaker 1: down to deaf Con three because it was scary. Now.
Speaker 1: I recorded a few other shows that also tie into
Speaker 1: this same era in various ways. For example, the space
Speaker 1: race was largely an extension of the Cold War. In fact,
Speaker 1: you could argue that without the Cold War we never
Speaker 1: would have been to the moon. Both the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: and the United States were racing to send people into
Speaker 1: space and to the moon, and it was in part
Speaker 1: an effort to prove that they that their country was
Speaker 1: technologically superior to the rival country. But there was also
Speaker 1: an element of intimidation involved. So essentially, if you could
Speaker 1: send a rocket into orbit, you could also send a
Speaker 1: rocket all the way around the Earth and hit a
Speaker 1: target on the other side, like say the United States
Speaker 1: from the Soviet Union, or the Soviet Union from the
Speaker 1: United States. So in part, the space race was a
Speaker 1: way of saying, hey, we have the capability of wiping
Speaker 1: you off the planet, so don't push us. The thing
Speaker 1: was both sides were making that argument at the same time. Again,
Speaker 1: absolutely terrifying, although we got some awesome stuff out of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, the space race gave us tons of technology
Speaker 1: and pushed our scientific understanding of our solar system quite
Speaker 1: a bit, so it's not like it was all bad,
Speaker 1: but the motivations behind it were largely motivated by politics
Speaker 1: and military goals. Luckily we were able to leverage that
Speaker 1: into ways that were not indirectly connected to conflict. But yeah,
Speaker 1: once the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit. Sputnik was
Speaker 1: the satellite, the first man made satellite in orbit around
Speaker 1: the Earth. All it did was really beep, but amateur
Speaker 1: radio operators in the United States picked up the beeping,
Speaker 1: and it caused quite a bit of panic because suddenly
Speaker 1: everyone realized that if the Soviet Union could launch something
Speaker 1: into orbit, they could probably launch something all the way
Speaker 1: to the United States. The innerconnal in the intercontinental Ballistic
Speaker 1: missile or ICBM was essentially born at that point. Anyway,
Speaker 1: let's go back to close calls with nuclear war, because
Speaker 1: that's really what we're here to talk about. And let's
Speaker 1: jump ahead to November ninth, nineteen seventy nine. That's when
Speaker 1: the North American Aerospace Defense Headquarters, or NORAD for short,
Speaker 1: went bonkers. I would say that they went ballistic, but
Speaker 1: luckily they didn't, because that would have been a terrible,
Speaker 1: terrifying punt. In that case, according to the computer systems
Speaker 1: over at NOORAD, a huge missile attack from the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union was on its way to targets within the United States.
Speaker 1: And this is what we often in the technology world
Speaker 1: would call a bad thing. So nor AD was following
Speaker 1: protocol and they sent an alert to high level command
Speaker 1: posts and the tippy top of US military leadership, and
Speaker 1: immediately the command was given to put ICBM crews on
Speaker 1: the highest possible alert, and nuclear bomber crews were scrambled
Speaker 1: to their aircraft to prepare for takeoff. The airborne command Post,
Speaker 1: which is the aircraft that the President of the United
Speaker 1: States is supposed to be a board in the event
Speaker 1: of a massive attack. This is what creates a mobile
Speaker 1: base of operations. It took off, so the airborne Command
Speaker 1: Post took off into the atmosphere. The President wasn't on
Speaker 1: it at the time, which seems like a bit of
Speaker 1: an oversight, but it did take off. So for more
Speaker 1: than five incredibly tense minutes, United States operators were scouring
Speaker 1: satellite data to confirm that the Soviets had indeed launched
Speaker 1: missiles against the United States. They had the information from
Speaker 1: the NORAD computers, but they wanted, obviously to confirm that
Speaker 1: information with satellite data, but they couldn't find any data
Speaker 1: to confirm it. United States leaders decided magnanimously not to
Speaker 1: launch a full scale retaliation, which is a good thing
Speaker 1: because it would have turned out that they would have
Speaker 1: been committing a first strike. There was nothing to retaliate against.
Speaker 1: So what the heck actually happened? And the answer is
Speaker 1: pretty crazy, and it sounds like something from a movie
Speaker 1: like Airplane. It sounds like a deleted scene from a
Speaker 1: disaster spoof movie. What had happened was a technician had
Speaker 1: inserted a training tape into an operational nor AD computer.
Speaker 1: The training tape contained various scenarios on it, including one
Speaker 1: in which the Soviet Union launches a full scale missile
Speaker 1: attack against the United States. And this was just to
Speaker 1: run simulations, to run what would happen in this case
Speaker 1: and how effective would a retaliatory strike be. That's all
Speaker 1: it was. But it was being run on an operational
Speaker 1: nor AD computer, which interpreted this to mean the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union had actually launched an attack, not that it was
Speaker 1: a simulation. So a training tape very nearly started World
Speaker 1: War Three. In nineteen seventy nine, the United States wisely
Speaker 1: decided that it would be a really good idea to
Speaker 1: make sure nor AD computers would not be able to
Speaker 1: run training tapes in the future, and so they NERFD it. Essentially,
Speaker 1: they removed that ability for nor AD computers to run
Speaker 1: these simulations. Now, I've got a lot more to talk
Speaker 1: about as far as FOSSE alarms and close calls go.
Speaker 1: But before I jump into that, last section. Let's take
Speaker 1: another quick break to thank our sponsor. So these sort
Speaker 1: of things happen really rarely, right, please.
Speaker 2: Not.
Speaker 1: According to Marshall Shulman, who was a State Department advisor,
Speaker 1: he said that false alerts would happen fairly regularly, which
Speaker 1: is absolutely terrifying, and in fact said they happen regularly
Speaker 1: enough that handling them almost became a matter of routine,
Speaker 1: which is troubling all by itself. And that's what Shulman said.
Speaker 1: He said, it's almost terrifying to see the level of
Speaker 1: complacency in dealing with these because they happened that frequently.
Speaker 1: I mean, you want your team to respond calmly in
Speaker 1: the wake of an alert because you want to make
Speaker 1: sure that they are going through the steps to verify
Speaker 1: that it is in fact at what it seems to be.
Speaker 1: You don't want them acting on misinformation. At the same time,
Speaker 1: you don't want them to fall victim to boy who
Speaker 1: cried Wolfe scenarios where they don't take it seriously enough.
Speaker 1: So you want to balance there, and according to Shulman,
Speaker 1: the complacency issue was getting to be a bit troubling
Speaker 1: for him. Now, just so you don't go thinking that
Speaker 1: the United States was alone and having faulty systems. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you about September twenty sixth, nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 1: That is when a Soviet satellite, part of an early
Speaker 1: detection system for missile launches, sent down a message indicating
Speaker 1: the United States had fired a nuclear missile, and then
Speaker 1: another nuclear missile, and then three more nuclear missiles, so
Speaker 1: it might have looked like an initial attack with five
Speaker 1: missiles heading toward the Soviet Union. Now, tensions were already
Speaker 1: high across the Soviet Union and the United States for
Speaker 1: other reasons. Earlier that month, the Soviet Union had shot
Speaker 1: down a South Korean passenger plane thinking that it was
Speaker 1: a military plane invading their airspace, and that's not what
Speaker 1: it was. So it was a tragic accident. But there
Speaker 1: was also a lot of worry that the United States
Speaker 1: could potentially retaliate for this, and so the first reaction
Speaker 1: could have been that this was the US's response to
Speaker 1: that act. Now, the man in charge over at a
Speaker 1: early detection center in the Soviet Union was Lieutenant Colonel
Speaker 1: Stanislav Petrov, and he held the authority to launch a
Speaker 1: retaliatory strike, but he didn't exercise this authority he deduced
Speaker 1: that a genuine attack on the Soviet Union from the
Speaker 1: United States would involve hundreds of missiles, not just five.
Speaker 1: He said, if you're going to start a war, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't launch only five missiles. It wouldn't be an enough
Speaker 1: of a quantity to knock out enough of the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union's capability to retaliate, so it would just be inviting
Speaker 1: worldwide destruction. So Petrov said, I'm pretty sure this isn't real.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stake my life and my reputation on it,
Speaker 1: and he was right. So then they began to investigate
Speaker 1: what was the cause of this false alarm, because that
Speaker 1: is what it turned out to be. So the cause
Speaker 1: was the satellite itself. It had misidentified a reflection from
Speaker 1: the top of some clouds. The sun was hitting these
Speaker 1: clouds at just the right angle for the reflection to
Speaker 1: hit the satellite, and the position the orientation of the
Speaker 1: satellite with respect to the United States made it look
Speaker 1: like this was coming from known US missile launch sites,
Speaker 1: So the satellite misidentified the reflections as missile launches, and
Speaker 1: really the satellite was in a good orbit to avoid
Speaker 1: this kind of misunderstanding. The problem was it was just
Speaker 1: the perfect set of circumstances. It was the equinox, the
Speaker 1: sun was setting, and the satellite was in a position
Speaker 1: at just the right time with clouds in the right
Speaker 1: position to cause this confusion. And normally it wouldn't have happened,
Speaker 1: and any other time of the year, the angles wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been right. It was just a coincidence. Fortunately, because
Speaker 1: there was a human being in charge who had the
Speaker 1: capacity to question the results presented by the satellite, we
Speaker 1: didn't see a nuclear strike from the Soviet Union launched
Speaker 1: at the United States as a result. Sometimes a science
Speaker 1: experiment runs the risk of plunging us into nuclear conflict,
Speaker 1: so that's exciting. So for example, there was the Black
Speaker 1: Brant twelve rocket, which was a cooperative effort between the
Speaker 1: United States and Norway. It launched out of Norway along
Speaker 1: the coastline of Norway, and it had a mission to
Speaker 1: send up a probe essentially to study the northern lights,
Speaker 1: the Aurora borealis. Norway had picked up the phone to
Speaker 1: call up their Russian neighbors and say, hey, by the way,
Speaker 1: we're going to launch this satellite, so don't freak out,
Speaker 1: but we're going to do it on such and such
Speaker 1: a day, at such and such a time, and so
Speaker 1: Russia knew about this. The only problem was that information
Speaker 1: never got to the people in charge of the early
Speaker 1: warning detection systems, so they had no knowledge of a
Speaker 1: planned scientific rocket launch. Instead, they had radar detectors looking
Speaker 1: at their screens and saying, it appears that a missile
Speaker 1: has launched, potentially from a United States submarine and on
Speaker 1: a trajectory that could take it to the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: So there was immediately a reaction that this could potentially
Speaker 1: be an early attack, and in fact there was worry
Speaker 1: that perhaps this was a warhead meant to explode to
Speaker 1: knockout radar detection so that we can then have an
Speaker 1: entire full blown attack follow it and the radar systems
Speaker 1: would be down. In the meantime, the word went up
Speaker 1: to the Krivlin and Boris Yeltsin went so far as
Speaker 1: to activate his nuclear football. The nuclear football is a
Speaker 1: device that leaders used to authorize a nuclear strike. Other
Speaker 1: radar centers and Russian satellites couldn't find any evidence of
Speaker 1: any other missile preparations, so there was no other corroborating
Speaker 1: evidence to suggest that this was in fact a legitimate
Speaker 1: missile strike aimed at the United States. So this led
Speaker 1: the Russians to conclude it wasn't actually an attack, and
Speaker 1: eventually the word got out that this was a scientific
Speaker 1: mission that had previous authorization and that Russia had been
Speaker 1: in communication with Norway the whole time. It just never
Speaker 1: got to the military side. Whoopsie Daisy almost went to
Speaker 1: full nuclear war over that. And you probably heard the
Speaker 1: story about how a flock of birds nearly initiated World
Speaker 1: War III. That was actually an oversimplification of what had happened.
Speaker 1: It was a story that actually predates the Cuban missile crisis.
Speaker 1: This goes back to the Suez Canal crisis in Egypt.
Speaker 1: The Suez Canal had proven to be critical during both
Speaker 1: World War One and World War Two, and so lots
Speaker 1: of different entities wanted to have control over the canal
Speaker 1: for strategic purposes. This included the Soviet Union, Egypt, and
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom. So you had a lot of tensions
Speaker 1: in the area, and the whole conflict is way too
Speaker 1: complex to get into. I'm pretty sure the stuff you
Speaker 1: missed in history class hosts have talked to about the
Speaker 1: Suez Canal crisis in the past, and like I said,
Speaker 1: it gets super complicated, but I can talk about a
Speaker 1: series of coincidental events that nearly led us to World
Speaker 1: War Three. It happened on November fifth, nineteen fifty six.
Speaker 1: NORAD detected these coincidental events, which collectively looked like it
Speaker 1: could have been a big aggressive move by the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: like an actual massing to attack other areas of Europe
Speaker 1: and possibly launched attacks against the United States. Those coincidences
Speaker 1: included a fleet of ships Soviet ships moving from the
Speaker 1: Black Sea to the Aegean Sea. There were a large
Speaker 1: number of MiG jets reported flying over Syria. There was
Speaker 1: a report of a British bomber being shot down also
Speaker 1: in Syria, and then there was an unknown number of
Speaker 1: unidentified aircraft detected over Turkey. But each of those events
Speaker 1: turned out to not be that big of a deal
Speaker 1: once the details were learned, so it's fortunate that no
Speaker 1: one thought those collective events actually amounted to a full attack.
Speaker 1: The fleet maneuver turned out to just be a routine
Speaker 1: exercise among the Soviet fleet. It had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with any sort of aggressive act. The group of MiGs
Speaker 1: was much smaller than had been reported. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: one hundred jets. It was actually a typical escort detail.
Speaker 1: The British bomber hadn't been shot down, the aircraft had
Speaker 1: suffered a mechanical failure and they had to make an
Speaker 1: emergency landing in Syria. And the mysterious aircraft flying over
Speaker 1: Turkey turned out to be a flock of swans, which
Speaker 1: after a lengthy questioning, turned out not to be Soviet agents.
Speaker 1: And let me give you one last example of a
Speaker 1: close call. There are more besides this one, by the way,
Speaker 1: lots more, but here's one last one. On June third, ninth,
Speaker 1: defense displays at the Pentagon, the White House and a
Speaker 1: NORAD flipped out. Now they had a display of four digits,
Speaker 1: which usually read as zero zero zero zero, just four
Speaker 1: zero straight across. These were numbers to indicate any nuclear
Speaker 1: missiles that had been detected as being launched. So you
Speaker 1: want to see all zeros. There's any number besides a
Speaker 1: zero on that display, that's a big problem. The counters
Speaker 1: began to show the number two instead of zero, indicating
Speaker 1: a massive missile attack, and so to be certain, bomber
Speaker 1: crews were given orders to prepare their aircraft and missile
Speaker 1: launch systems began to warm up for a retaliatory strike,
Speaker 1: while the top brass tried to figure out if this
Speaker 1: was in fact for real z's or not. Luckily, said
Speaker 1: brass determined that it was not for realsy's and they
Speaker 1: ordered everyone to stand down. As a result, three days later,
Speaker 1: the same thing had happen again, and again everyone got
Speaker 1: prepared for a massive retaliatory strike, and two false alarms
Speaker 1: that could cause a nuclear apocalypse warranted a full look
Speaker 1: at the system. Technicians trace the problem to a single
Speaker 1: computer chip, just one computer chip in the entire system
Speaker 1: that wasn't wired correctly. So replacing that chip solved the
Speaker 1: problem and they stopped having this issue with the display
Speaker 1: giving a false indicator of missile launches. That one faulty
Speaker 1: chip could have resulted in a nuclear war or at
Speaker 1: least a nuclear strike, which is absolutely terrifying. So what
Speaker 1: is the moral of the story here, Well, one thing
Speaker 1: is that nuclear weapons are super duper scary. I'd love
Speaker 1: to see them become a thing of the past, but
Speaker 1: they're incredibly powerful and all it takes is one critical
Speaker 1: error to cause untold amounts of damage or precipitate a
Speaker 1: globally catastrophic series of events. But another lesson to take
Speaker 1: here is that we at least have been fortunate so
Speaker 1: far to have people calm enough to reevaluate a situation
Speaker 1: before committing the ultimate act of warfare. It sure would
Speaker 1: be nice if it weren't necessary to say, thank goodness,
Speaker 1: we have the right folks in the right place at
Speaker 1: the wrong time, but thank goodness we do have them.
Speaker 2: That's it for the classic episode close but no Nuclear War.
Speaker 2: I guess the takeaway from all this is, despite the
Speaker 2: close calls, we never had a nuclear war. So that's
Speaker 2: something that we should hold on to. I hope you
Speaker 2: are all well. I'll talk to you again really soon.
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