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<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="186658" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Sandia-National-Laboratories">Sandia National Laboratories</keyword> revealed this month that it strapped <keyword id="48020" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Rockets">rockets</keyword> to a semi-truck and slammed it into the lab's new <keyword id="50845" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nuclear-weapons">nuclear weapons</keyword> transporter.</li><li>The experiment was conducted this summer and was designed to test the reliability of the new Mobile Guardian Transporter, a third-generation <keyword id="46652" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Truck">truck</keyword> built to safely move nuclear weapons and materials.</li><li>"The transportation mission is a critical component of an effective nuclear deterrent," Jim Redmond, a Sandia senior program manager, <a href="https://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labnews/articles/2020/10-09/MGT_test.html">said in a statement</a>.</li></ul><p>Sandia National Laboratories rocketed a semi-truck into a new tractor trailer built to safely transport nuclear weapons this summer, <a href="https://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labnews/articles/2020/10-09/MGT_test.html">the lab announced earlier this month</a>.</p><p>In its largest crash test in about two decades, Sandia used rockets to propel a semi down a track into a prototype of the new Mobile Guardian Transporter, <a href="https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/articles/then-and-now-secure-transportation">expected to eventually replace the Safeguards Transporter fielded in the 1990s as a replacement for the earlier Safe Secure Transport</a>. The latest vehicle is an all-new design, although specifics are limited.</p><p>Once it is fielded, the third-generation Mobile Guardian Transporter will be used by the National Nuclear Security Administration's Office of Secure Transportation to move nuclear weapons.</p><p>The purpose of the kinetic test was to ensure that the new transporter could survive a crash.</p><p>"The transportation mission is a critical component of an effective nuclear deterrent," Jim Redmond, a Sandia senior program manager, <a href="https://www.sandia.gov/news/publications/labnews/articles/2020/10-09/MGT_test.html">said in a statement</a>. "It provides needed assurance to the American public and our allies of the safety and security of our stockpile. You've got to be able to ship nuclear assets safely and securely or you don't have a deterrence program."</p><p>As The War Zone, <a href="https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37156/new-nuke-transporting-tractor-trailer-tested-by-launching-another-semi-at-it-using-rockets">which reported the testing Tuesday</a>, notes, modern nuclear weapons are hard to set off accidentally, but were a less secure vehicle to get in an accident, there is the possibility that the weapons could be damaged or that potentially hazardous materials could be released.</p><p>Redmond said that the last time Sandia conducted a test like this was about 20 years ago and involved slamming a truck into a fixed barrier.</p><div type="image" title="MGT" height="540" width="1108" msid="78778211" hostid="261"></div><p>It took the team at Sandia six months to prepare for the crash test, which was over in a matter of seconds. "I was glad to see the rockets fired; I was glad to see it was successful," Redmond said. "It was tense."</p><p>Sandia has not revealed many details about the capabilities of its all-new Mobile Guardian Transporter, but there is a good chance it features special security measures similar to those that its predecessors had to not only protect nuclear weapons and materials from accidents but also prevent theft.</p><p>For example, the walls of the Safeguards Transporter release a sticky foam that can immobilize intruders. The vehicles can also electrocute someone trying to gain access without authorization. And the Safe Secure Transport could release tear gas, <a href="https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37156/new-nuke-transporting-tractor-trailer-tested-by-launching-another-semi-at-it-using-rockets">The War Zone reported</a>.</p><p>The nuke transport vehicles are also protected by armed guards, and National Nuclear Security Administration maintains a Special Response Force that could be called up in an emergency.</p>

A US lab used rockets to launch a semi-truck into a new tractor trailer built to transport nuclear weapons

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Solar-powered <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-spy-balloon-synthetic-aperture-radar-discord-documents-pentagon-2023-4">balloons</a> are recording <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gold-miner-discovers-mummified-squirrel-mangled-fur-ball-yukon-2023-4">mysterious</a> sounds below human hearing in the stratosphere.</li><li>The unknown crackling could be the sound of distant thunderstorms, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/eta-aquarids-meteor-shower-shooting-stars-how-to-watch-peak-2023-4">falling meteors</a>, or <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-climate-change-is-making-plane-turbulence-worse-2023-3">turbulence</a>.</li></ul><p>Daniel Bowman sends cell phones into the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stratosphere-shrinking-greenhouse-gas-emissions-climate-change-2021-5">stratosphere</a> aboard solar-powered hot-air balloons. You might be surprised what sounds they record up there.</p><p>These <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-tracking-suspected-chinese-spy-balloon-spotted-over-montana-2023-2">balloons</a> listen to the Earth from a dozen miles up, but not in frequencies that the human ear can detect. They're recording in infrasound — below the human hearing range. They've captured the sound of cities bustling below, earthquakes rumbling, wind turbines spinning, and a mysterious crackling that scientists can't identify yet.</p><p>"In the infrasound domain our planet is very rich," Bowman, a scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, told Insider. "I think one of the reasons humans can't hear infrasound is because we'd go nuts if we could."</p><p>Take the sound of the ocean, which you can hear alongside the mystery sound in the recording below. This is 19 days of infrasound recordings, sped up by 4,400 times.</p><p>The first thing you hear is the sound of ocean waves crashing, far below. That's the sighing sound in the background. If you could hear that with your own ears, it would be as loud as watching TV, and it would go on for days.</p><p>Then there's a flurry of crackling and rustling. That's the mystery sound.</p><p>It could be turbulence, distant thunderstorms, or meteors burning up as they plummet through the atmosphere. According to Bowman, this noise also appeared in the last infrasound balloon program in the 1960s.</p><div type="image" title="pentagon shaped white balloon with boxes dangling from a string below rises into a blue sky with whisps of cloud" height="1500" width="2000" msid="100197957" hostid="261" sizebytes="44376"></div><p>"We've been picking it up 50 years ago and we're still picking it up, still don't know what it is," Bowman said.</p><p>Almost every flight picks up unidentified sounds, according to Bowman.</p><p>"It's not like there's something inherently mysterious or really profoundly different up there. It's more due to our own ignorance," he said.</p><div type="image" title="view from below two people looking at equipment in their hands against a blue sky. The man wearing a checkered blue shirt holds a white styrofoam box and the woman in a blue shirt holds a colorful assembly of little panels" height="1500" width="2000" msid="100197958" hostid="261" sizebytes="160612"></div><p>The world of infrasound is vast and largely unmapped. In the lower parts of the atmosphere, sound bends upwards, so the stratosphere is the perfect place to hear the hidden sounds of the planet — even from events thousands of miles away.</p><p>Bowman started using these balloons to listen for the rumblings of volcanoes, hoping to contribute to understanding them better and maybe even improving early-warning systems for eruptions. But it turns out there's even more to hear in the stratosphere.</p><h2>Anyone can fly an eavesdropping balloon</h2><div type="image" title="two people in white hardhats walk across a brown field holding the string of a giant inflated grey balloon" height="2000" width="1500" msid="100197959" hostid="261" sizebytes="150908"></div><p>Big atmospheric balloons may have gotten a bad rap after <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mystery-objects-military-most-likely-private-companies-recreation-research-2023-2">the Pentagon shot down at least one</a> of them on suspicion that it was a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-more-balloons-unidentified-objects-shot-down-military-2023-2">Chinese spy balloon</a>.</p><p>But Bowman wants to see more people flying infrasound-recording stratosphere balloons.</p><p>"This is something that a group of middle schoolers could do," he said. "The more eyes in the sky, or ears in the sky we get, the more we learn."</p><p>He estimates that his research team has flown 100 of these balloons, each one made of just $50 of materials that you can buy at a hardware store.</p><p>Weather balloons are often designed to rise up and up and up, gathering data all the way, until they pop, then parachute to the ground. To gather sound recordings, though, Bowman needs his balloons to hang out in the stratosphere. They also need to move at the speed of the wind, so it doesn't roar past and drown out the faint noises he wants to catch.</p><p>That's why he builds his hot-air balloons out of dark material that absorbs energy from the sun, but only enough to rise to the stratosphere and stay there.</p><p>"Our balloons are basically giant plastic bags with some charcoal dust on the inside to make them dark. We build them using painter's plastic from the hardware store, shipping tape, and charcoal powder from pyrotechnic supply stores. When the sun shines on the dark balloons, the air inside heats up and becomes buoyant," he explained in a <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/988280">press release</a>.</p><div type="image" title="two people in white hardhats squat and stand on a blue tarp with a large grey deflated balloon watching a flying grey balloon in the distant sky" height="1128" width="1500" msid="100197960" hostid="261" sizebytes="118866"></div><p>At sunset, the balloon cools and comes back down.</p><p>"You don't have to worry about balloons that just keep on going, off into places they shouldn't go," Bowman said.</p><p>He thinks anyone can build such a balloon by securing an old cell phone to it, recording infrasound with the RedVox app, and sending it into the stratosphere.</p><p>Just don't forget one crucial step:</p><p>"In the current environment, I highly recommend reaching out to the [Federal Aviation Administration] and notifying the FAA of your intent to launch a balloon, so that they know what it is and so that it is not misinterpreted," he said.</p>

Balloons detect mysterious sounds in the stratosphere below the human hearing limit. Scientists can't explain.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale Air Force Base hosted an Aircraft Monitor and Control test for the B-52H Stratofortress between August 24 and 26.</li><li>The test is done every five to 10 years to demonstrate the <keyword id="146704" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="B-52">B-52</keyword>'s ability to provide the required voltage levels to use the AGM-86 air-launched cruise missile.</li></ul><p>The 2nd Bomb Wing hosted an Aircraft Monitor and Control test for the B-52H Stratofortress August 24-26, 2020.</p><p>The test is performed every five to 10 years to demonstrate the capability of the B-52 to provide the required voltage levels for the mission configuration in the AGM-86 air-launched cruise missile interface (ALCM).</p><p>Barksdale's preparation started a month prior to the test date with the selection of the aircraft and a complete missile operational check.</p><div type="image" title="Air Force B-52 nuclear bomb" height="1406" width="2500" msid="78129932" hostid="261"></div><p>"Nuclear compatibility certification is based upon compliance with the design criteria defined by Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center (AFNWC) Surety and Certification Division (NTS), which measures key parameters of the B-52H's ability to communicate with the AGM-86B missile," said Mahmoud Rasouliyan, 2nd Maintenance Group director of operations. "Successful certification of the platform will allow the B-52 to continue to support the nuclear triad."</p><p>The equipment for testing is attached to the warhead and is able to record timing and voltages across the warhead, missile and aircraft. The required sample size for this test will meet a historical Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) requirement of two B-52 aircraft.</p><div type="image" title="Air Force B-52 nuclear bomb" height="1406" width="2500" msid="78129936" hostid="261"></div><p>"After a successful loading of 20 missiles, our 2nd Operations Group aircrew members were able to flex their schedules and perform the engine run portion of the test ahead of schedule to meet the SNL test points," said Rasouliyan. "The next day, the aircraft was towed into the Weapons Load Training facility for the AFNWC/NTS power requirements. Upon completion of the NTS' test, the SNL team continued with their final testing requirements."</p><p>Due to Hurricane Laura, all AMAC test requirements were accomplished one day earlier than planned and all of the main test points were successfully captured by the SNL and AFNWC/NTS teams.</p><p>The test data will be analyzed to compare against previous data in order to monitor changes in the baseline, thus indicating a design issue created by aging, aircraft modification or a combination thereof.</p><div type="image" title="Air Force B-52 nuclear bomb" height="1406" width="2500" msid="78129939" hostid="261"></div><p>"We test on aircraft to ensure that the data we are collecting is from a weapon system that is representative of the fleet," said Ben Post, Sandia National Labs aircraft compatibility department B-52 electrical lead.</p><p>"Prior to these testing activities, we have not captured waveforms during an AMAC test of a max loaded B-52's ALCM configuration. We want to prove that it works functionally and then check the signals that we're capturing here to make sure the values match what the specification allows."</p><p>Sandia, the engineering arm of the nation's nuclear weapons enterprise, is responsible for the non-nuclear components of US nuclear weapons.</p>

B-52 bombers in Louisiana tested their ability to drop nuclear bombs

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sandialabs/17373114191/">Sandia Labs/Randy Montoya</a></span></p><p class="caption">A Sandia National Laboratories engineer performs a final diagnostics check on a data recorder for an impact test on the nose assembly of a mock B61-12.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>The Air Force hit a major milestone with its B61-12 nuclear weapon in October.</strong></li><li><strong>The weapon is slated to replace four older variants of the B61 nuclear bomb, which was introduced in the 1960s.</strong></li><li><strong>The new weapon will have more capabilities, and some critics have said it will trigger an arms race.</strong></li></ul><p>The Air Force said earlier this month that the <span>Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center was granted permission in October to start production of the new guided tail-kit assembly for the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb - a weapon the military hopes will replace older nuclear bombs for a range of missions.</span></p><p><span>"This marks the completion of a highly successful development effort for the tail kit," Col. Dustin Ziegler, the director for air-delivered capabilities at the AFNWC, said in an Air Force <a href="https://www.kirtland.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1705434/nuclear-bomb-kit-reaches-major-milestone-for-production-phase/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">release</a>. </span></p><p><span>The AFNWC got approval to conclude the engineering and manufacturing-development phase of the tail-kit assembly after passing an Air Force review. </span></p><p><span>The decision to enter the next phase, known as Milestone C, marked the end of developmental flight tests. The program office said it had finished the 27-month test program in 11 months with 100% success on all of the 31 bomb drops it conducted, according to the release.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>National Nuclear Security Administration</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>"The flight tests demonstrated the system works very well in its intended environment," Col. Paul Rounsavall, AFNWC senior materiel leader for the B61-12 TKA at Eglin Air Fore Base in Florida, said in the release. "This development effort brought the first-ever digital interface to the B61 family of weapons and demonstrated the B61-12 TKA's compatibility with the Air Force's B-2 and F-15 aircraft." </span></p><p><span>"In addition, the TKA achieved greater than five times its required performance during developmental testing and is ready to start initial operational test and evaluation," Rounsavall added.</span></p><p><span>Ziegler said the accelerated schedule and other efforts to mitigate risk led to a savings of more than $280 million in development costs.</span></p><p><span>During the production phase, the testing environment will more closely match real-world environments.</span></p><p><span>The AFNWC is based at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico and is responsible for coordinating all aspects of nuclear materiel management for Air Force Materiel Command. It has about 1,100 personnel assigned to 18 locations worldwide, including Kirtland and Eglin and Ramstein in Germany, the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ramstein-air-base-in-germany-got-its-biggest-ammo-delivery-since-1999-2018-10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">US military's largest base outside the US</a>.</span></p><h2><span>Deterrent or arms race?</span></h2><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B61_nuclear_bomb#/media/File:B61_nuclear_bomb_-_inert_training_version.jpg">USAF</a></span></p><p class="caption">An inert training version of a B61 in an underground Weapons Storage and Security System vault at Volkel Air Base, Netherlands. An access panel on the warhead is open, showing the interface for actions such as PAL (safety/arming) and variable yield setting.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>The B61-12 is the latest version of the B61 nuclear weapon that was introduced in the 1960s. The program is supposed to supplant four B61 variants - B61-3, B61-4, B61-7, and B61-10 - by overhauling and replacing their non-nuclear components and extending the B61's service life.</span></p><p><span>The B61 would fill a number of functions - including earth-penetrating attacks, low-yield and high-yield attacks, above surface detonation, and bunker-buster options - with one weapon.</span><span></span></p><p>"The main advantage of the B61-12 is that it packs all the gravity bomb capabilities against all the targeting scenarios into one bomb. That spans from very low-yield tactical 'clean' use with low fallout to more dirty attacks against underground targets," Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-air-force-tested-an-upgraded-earth-penetrating-nuclear-bomb-2018-8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told Warrior Maven</a> earlier this year.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Sandia National Laboratories/Randy Montoya</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><span>Development engineering for the B61-12 began in early 2012, with the first development flight test in summer 2015, when the weapon was dropped from an F-15E fighter. </span></p><p>The first production unit in the B61's life extension program is scheduled to be finished in 2020, with the full production run <a href="https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/b61-12-nuclear-bombs-guided-tail-kit-approved-for-p-454286/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">completed</a> by 2025. Current plans are to certify it on the B-2 Spirit and the F-15E and F-16 fighters, as well as the F-35 fighter and the B-21 Raider bomber.</p><p>Critics have said the B61's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-weapons-life-extension-us-russia-2015-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cost is exorbitant</a> and that its development will trigger an arms race, as other nuclear-armed countries, namely Russia, seek to deploy more and newer weapons to counter it.</p><p>Retired Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz, who was Air Force chief of staff from 2008 to 2012, argued in 2014 that the weapon would have a "<a href="https://fas.org/blogs/security/2014/01/b61capability/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stabilizing</a>" effect, telling Kristensen that its <span>improved capabilities would increase its deterrence effect because adversaries would be more convinced the US was willing to use nuclear weapons if necessary.</span></p>     <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-bomb-launch-procedure-us-government-president-2017-11">Here's how easy it is for the US president to launch a nuclear weapon</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

The Air Force just hit a major milestone with the US military's upgraded, highly precise nuclear bomb

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/1120651">Sandia National Laboratories</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>"Sometimes, stuff happens..." is the title of a photo in a <a href="https://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/1120651" target="_blank">slideshow</a> on "challenging design projects" from <a href="http://www.sandia.gov/about/index.html" target="_blank">Sandia National Laboratories</a>. The image appears to show a nuclear-capable air-launched cruise missile that's been dropped off a trailer and run over by a truck, two experts told Business Insider, raising concerns about the possibility of an accident involving a nuclear weapon.</p><h3>Let's take a close look at the picture:</h3><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/1120651">Sandia National Laboratories and Business Insider</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The Air Force told Business Insider the photo was dated, as the uniforms worn by airmen in the picture were phased out in 2011. It said it conducted an internal investigation but shared no conclusions with Business Insider.</p><p>Current officials at Sandia said the photo was at least 15 years old and that they are "confident that what you see there is either a training aid or a non-nuclear cruise missile." However, Sandia refused to establish how it knew the missile was non-nuclear. Sandia said it didn't know when or where the picture was taken, or what happened in the photo.</p><p>"By putting that picture in the presentation about nuclear-weapon safety, the obvious implication is that this was an accident involving a nuclear weapon," <a href="https://twitter.com/AtomicAnalyst" target="_blank">Dr. Stephen Schwartz</a>, an expert on nuclear programs from the <a href="http://www.miis.edu/academics/researchcenters/nonproliferation" target="_blank">Middlebury Institute</a> and the man who first spotted the image, told Business Insider. </p><p>"Otherwise you could use any type of accident picture. There are other pictures of well known-nuclear accidents one could use going back into the 1950s," Schwartz said.</p><p>Eric Schlosser, the author of "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illusion/dp/0143125788/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1484849100&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=Command+and+Control%3A+Nuclear+Weapons%2C+the+Damascus+Accident%2C+and+the+Illusion+of+Safety" target="_blank">Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety</a>," has chronicled countless nuclear accidents in the history of the US's nuclear arsenal. He agreed with Schwart'z assessment.</p><p>"That sure doesn't look good," he said.</p><p>In response to their assessments, Business Insider contacted a former official in the weapons department of Sandia. The official said the object in question was not an air-launched cruise missile - or a missile at all - but rather an external fuel tank.</p><p>Yet this explanation did not hold up to experts' scrutiny.</p><h3>Below are some examples of external fuel tanks, which jets carry to extend their range:</h3><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Google Images Search</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h3>Compare them to the trapezoidal shape of the AGM-86, the US's nuclear-capable air-launched cruise missile:</h3><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>US Air Force</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>This photo compares the shapes of the objects. Note the ridge towards the nose of the object near where the truck seems to have run it over. That ridge is consistent with the AGM-86. Additionally, the object appears to have an air intake toward the tail, which no external fuel tank for a jet would have.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>US Air Force and Sandia National Laboratories</span></p><p class="caption">Note that these fuel tanks are completely round with pointy ends. Other shapes of fuel tanks exist for other planes, but none feature air intakes.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Schwartz concluded that the object was in fact some older version of the AGM-86, which has undergone slight redesigns over time.</p><h3>So was it a nuclear or nuclear-capable missile?</h3><p>No one seems to know for sure. The US did manufacture conventionally armed AGM-86 missiles, and the US has certainly made training aides that look like the AGM-86.</p><p>But of countless photos of known incidents Sandia could have picked to represent an accident with a munition, Schwartz said he found it curious that Sandia selected this image. </p><h3>Could the missile have detonated?</h3><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-86_ALCM#/media/File:Loading_three_AGM-86_ALCMs.jpg">Senior Airman Kristoffer Kaubisch or Senior Airman Andrew Crawford</a></span></p><p class="caption">Loading an AGM-86 ALCM on a B-52 at Minot Air Force Base. These updated AGMs have a slightly different shape than the earlier ones pictured above.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Schwartz said that, as alarming as the picture was, the US's nukes are so stable and responsibly made that even if you drop one off a trailer and run it over with your truck, "it will not cause it to detonate with a nuclear yield."</p><p>"The worst-case scenario, and it doesn't look like it happened, would be the conventional high explosives detonate and scatter plutonium across the area," said Schwartz, who explained that nuclear cruise missiles contain both a conventional explosive and a nuclear core. The nuclear core would certainly not have been armed in this situation, thereby eliminating a nuclear detonation as a possibility.</p><p>"Clearly just the front section with the radar and altimeter" were smashed, said Schwartz, who added that the nuclear core sits further back in the missile.</p><p>"Conventional high explosives are somewhat unstable," he said, "but obviously there was no fire here and pure crushing wouldn't necessarily cause an explosion."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sandialabs/16973060809/">Sandia Labs/Randy Montoya</a></span></p><p class="caption">Sandia Labs mechanical engineer Ryan Schultz adjusts a microphone for an acoustic test on a B61-12 system.</p></div><p></p></div></div>"The next worst thing would be - is the weapon a loss? is it possible to repair the missile?" Schwartz said.</p><p>Nuclear missiles, even training aides, can cost millions. So while the accident at worst posed a small risk of an explosion that would spread radioactive materials (not a nuclear detonation), it was likely still a costly mistake.</p><p>"Something happened and it wasn't the weapon's fault," Schwartz said.</p><p>According to Sandia, this picture was included in the slideshow to demonstrate an immutable fact about even the most responsible pursuits: "Human error can occur despite concerted efforts to achieve 100% safe operations."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-nuclear-nnsa-national-nuclear-security-appointee-2017-1">There will be no one in charge of America's nuclear arsenal when Trump takes office</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="trNGsxOTE6G_HN8B4UjEApylGhZr5WI1" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Unexplained photo appears to show nuclear-capable missile that fell off a truck and got run over, experts say

<p><em><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Shutterstock</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></strong></em></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>President Donald Trump has reportedly suggested <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;ved=2ahUKEwiuhI_F9aDkAhVK1VkKHeaeADkQ0PADMAB6BAgDEAU&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Ftrump-suggested-nuking-hurricanes-to-stop-them-from-hitting-us-2019-8&amp;usg=AOvVaw09XhKgnQmBNa539jTgk_uY">dropping nuclear bombs into hurricanes</a> to stop the storms from hitting the US.</li><li>According to Axios, Trump posed the question to advisors during a briefing, saying something along the lines of: "They <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=5&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=2ahUKEwiuhI_F9aDkAhVK1VkKHeaeADkQFjAEegQIBxAB&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fclimate-change-hurricanes-why-storms-are-wetter-stronger-slower-2019-7&amp;usg=AOvVaw3FArqHXxSmOqHPYMUGzTo7">start forming</a> off the coast of Africa, as they're moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can't we do that?"</li><li>According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this idea is impossible, since there simply isn't a nuclear bomb powerful enough to disrupt a hurricane.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>"Why don't we nuke them?" President Donald Trump reportedly asked during a White House briefing about hurricanes, according to reporting by <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-nuclear-bombs-hurricanes-97231f38-2394-4120-a3fa-8c9cf0e3f51c.html?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=twsocialshare&amp;utm_campaign=organic">Axios</a>.</p><p>Trump was advocating for a nuclear solution to the tropical storms that hit the southeastern US, according to Axios.</p><p>Sources who heard the president's private remarks told Axios that Trump asked senior officials something along these lines of, "They <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=5&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=2ahUKEwiuhI_F9aDkAhVK1VkKHeaeADkQFjAEegQIBxAB&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fclimate-change-hurricanes-why-storms-are-wetter-stronger-slower-2019-7&amp;usg=AOvVaw3FArqHXxSmOqHPYMUGzTo7">start forming</a> off the coast of Africa, as they're moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can't we do that?"</p><p>The concept of nuking a hurricane isn't new: During the late 1950s, one scientist <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015077324005&amp;view=1up&amp;seq=78">floated the idea</a> of using nuclear explosives to "modify hurricane paths and intensities."</p><p>But <a href="https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5c.html">an article</a> by hurricane researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) debunks that idea. They wrote that it's impossible to disrupt a hurricane with a nuclear bomb, since we don't have powerful enough bombs, and because the explosives wouldn't shift the surrounding air pressure for more than a split-second.</p><h2>How a hurricane forms</h2><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-a-storm-surge-2018-9?utm_source=markets&amp;utm_medium=ingest" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hurricanes</a> are vast, low-pressure cyclones with wind speeds over 74 mph that form over warm water in the mid-Atlantic Ocean. When warm moisture rises, it releases energy, forming thunderstorms. As more thunderstorms are created, the winds spiral upward and outward, creating a vortex. Clouds then form in the upper atmosphere as the warm air condenses.</p><p>As the winds churn, an area of low pressure forms over the the ocean's surface and helps feed a hurricane's cyclonic shape.</p><p><em><strong>Read More:</strong> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-hurricanes-why-storms-are-wetter-stronger-slower-2019-7" data-analytics-position="20">Here's why hurricanes are getting stronger, slower, and wetter.</a></em></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Shayanne Gal/Business Insider</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>If any part of this weather cycle dissipates - either the warm air or the area of low pressure - the hurricane loses strength and breaks down.</p><p>So <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015077324005&amp;view=1up&amp;seq=78">in 1959</a>, Jack Reed, a meteorologist at Sandia National Laboratories, raised the possibility of disrupting hurricane-forming weather conditions using nuclear weapons. </p><p>Reed theorized that nuclear explosives could stop hurricanes by pushing warm air up and out of the storm's eye, which would enable colder air to take its place. That, he thought, would lead to the low-pressure air fueling the storm to dissipate and ultimately weaken the hurricane.</p><p>Reed suggested two means of delivering the nuke into the hurricane's eye.</p><p>"Delivery should present no particular problem," <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015077324005&amp;view=1up&amp;seq=93">Reed wrote</a>. </p><p>The first delivery method, he said, would be an air drop, though "a more suitable delivery would be from a submarine." </p><p>A submarine, he suggested, could "penetrate a storm eye underwater" and "launch a missile-borne device" there before diving to safety. </p><p>But <a href="https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5c.html">according to the NOAA researchers' article</a>, there are two issues with Reed's idea. </p><h2>Hurricanes emit a mind-boggling amount of energy </h2><p>Hurricanes are extremely powerful: A fully developed hurricane releases the same amount of energy as the explosion of a 10-megaton nuke every 20 minutes, <a href="https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5c.html">the NOAA article says</a> . That's more than 666 times bigger than the "Little Boy" bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Time Life Pictures/US Army Air Force/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Aerial view of the mushroom cloud of smoke as it billows 20,000 feet in the air, following the United States Air Force's detonation of an atomic bomb over the city of Hiroshima, Japan, August 6, 1945.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>So in order to match the energetic power of a hurricane, there would need to be almost 2,000 "Little Boys" dropped per hour as long as the hurricane remained a hurricane.</p><p>Even the largest nuke ever exploded - a 50-megaton hydrogen bomb known as Tsar Bomba, which the Russians detonated over the Arctic Sea in 1961 - wouldn't be enough. </p><p>What's more, the NOAA article points out, once an explosive's initial high-pressure shock moves outward, the surrounding air pressure in the hurricane would return to the same low-pressure state it was in before. And the shock wave that a nuke produces travels faster than the speed of sound.</p><p>So unless we were able to detonate nuclear explosives in the eye of the hurricane on a continuous basis, we wouldn't be able to dissipate the low-pressure air that keeps the storm going.</p><p>Say, for example, that we wanted to downsize a <a href="http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutsshws.php">Category 5</a> hurricane like Katrina (with winds around 175 mph) to a <a href="http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutsshws.php">Category 2</a> storm with winds around 100 mph. We would need to add more than half a billion tons of air to a hurricane with an eye 25 miles in diameter, the NOAA article concluded. A nuke couldn't do that. </p><p>"It's difficult to envision a practical way of moving that much air around," the authors wrote.</p><p>Plus, even a Category 2 hurricane can devastate property and infrastructure if it makes landfall.</p><h2>Nuclear fallout would spread</h2><p>The NOAA article also explains that if we were to nuke a hurricane, radioactive fallout would spread far beyond the bounds of the hurricane.</p><p>"This approach neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems," the authors wrote.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>NOAA</span></p><p class="caption">On July 13, the first hurricane of the 2019 season, Barry, made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-survive-nuclear-attack-fallout-radiation-2017-6">Fallout</a> is a mixture of radioisotopes that rapidly decay and emit gamma radiation - an invisible yet highly energetic form of light. Exposure to too much of this radiation in a short time can damage the body's cells and its ability to fix itself - a condition called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-lessen-the-effects-of-radiation-poisoning-from-a-nuclear-disaster-2011-3">radiation sickness</a>.</p><p>Land contaminated by fallout can become uninhabitable. After the Chernobyl nuclear power plant blew up in 1986 and spread toxic radiation into the air, people were forced to abandon a 1,500-square-mile area. </p><p>If the US were to attempt to disrupt a hurricane a nuke, radioactive fallout could spread to island nations in the Caribbean or states bordering the Gulf of Mexico.</p><p>"Needless to say, this is not a good idea," the NOAA article concluded.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-causes-hurricanes-irma-harvey-jose-sahara-africa-easterly-atlantic-2017-9">Most hurricanes that hit the US and Caribbean islands come from the same exact spot in the world</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Trump reportedly suggested fighting hurricanes with nukes. Here's what would really happen if we set off a bomb in the eye of a storm.

<p>If you brought all 7.3 billion people in the world into one area, we'd <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/02/the-entire-world-fits-in-new-york-city/">fit into New York City</a> (though it would be a bit cozy).</p><p>But our movements could have a big implication on the world around us. So, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/everyone-on-earth-jumps-at-the-same-time-2016-4">Business Insider's video team</a> investigated what would happen if everyone on Earth jumped at the exact same time. They enlisted astrophysicist <a href="http://www.pmsutter.com/#intro">Paul Sutter</a> at The Ohio State University and physicist <a href="https://cfwebprod.sandia.gov/cfdocs/CompResearch/templates/insert/profile.cfm?snl_id=8719">Mark Boslough</a> at Sandia National Laboratories to help them think through the scenario.</p><p>To start, the experiment would work best if everyone were all in the same location. Then, everyone could be instructed to jump one foot into the air at the exact same time.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>There would be a whole lot of energy released when everyone landed back on the ground.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>BI video</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Some of that energy would go back into our shoes. The rest would disperse out into the air and ground, leading to some harrowing consequences:</p><ul><li>There would be a <strong>huge sound</strong> like an applause. At 200 decibels (the loudest possible <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/1997/12/cool-sounds-200-decibels">sound ever created</a> on Earth), it could shatter ear drums. For context, a jet engine produces 150 decibels of sound at takeoff, and our pain threshold is at 120 decibels. </li><li>The ground would begin to <strong>shake</strong>, and if the jump happened near the coast, it could trigger a tsunami with 100-feet-tall waves.</li><li>The shaking could also lead to an earthquake falling in the 4-8 magnitude range. That means it could be anywhere from a light shake to one that could cause some major destruction to bridges, railways, electric lines, and buildings. </li></ul><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>Despite all this happening on the ground, though, the effects wouldn't be felt in outer space. Sorry, but more than 7 billion jumping people aren't a good way to shift the Earth's orbit, no matter how cool it would be. </p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/everyone-on-earth-jumps-at-the-same-time-2016-4">Here's what would happen if everyone on Earth jumped at the same time</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="wzeXJ5MjE6vbznicq62bDqi0sFj_5sE1" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Here's what would happen if all 7 billion people on Earth jumped at the exact same time

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image"></div><p></p></div>A new hypersonic weapon developed by the U.S. military exploded shortly after liftoff from an Alaska test facility during a long-awaited flight test early Monday, the Pentagon said.</p>
<p>No one was injured in the incident, which occurred shortly after 4 a.m. ET at the Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska, said Maureen Schumann, spokeswoman for the U.S. <keyword id="6354810" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Defense">Defense</keyword> Department.</p>
<p>"The weapon exploded during takeoff and fell back down the range complex," Schumann said.</p>
<p>The weapon was developed by Sandia National Laboratory and the U.S. Army, as part of the military's "Conventional Prompt Global Strike" technology development program, which is seeking to build a weapon that can destroy targets anywhere on earth within an hour of getting data and permission to launch.</p>
<p>Schumann said officials from the program, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Missile Defense Agency were conducting an extensive investigation to determine the cause of the accident.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)</p>

Experimental US Hypersonic Weapon Explodes During Flight Test

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>David Ramos/Getty</span></p><p class="caption">Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg</p></div><p></p></div></div>Facebook's head of engineering, Jay Parikh, just announced that Facebook is working on a second, faster networking switch in its ongoing effort to invent a whole new kind of computer network.</p><p>It's another lob thrown at market leader, Cisco, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-shot-at-cisco-just-got-deadly-2015-3">following up on the news of the first switch, </a>released in last spring.</p><p><span>The new switch is a 100-gigabit switch, which is lot faster than the first one, Parikh told attendees at </span>Structure tech conference going on this week in San Francisco.</p><p>In March, Facebook released a 40 gigabit switch.</p><p>Facebook's new 100G switch won't be a shock to Cisco, as it's <a href="http://www.delloro.com/news/white-box-vendors-pause-in-data-center-ethernet-switch-market-in-2q15-according-to-delloro-group">been rumored for a while</a>, but it still won't be making Cisco happy. Cisco is the world's largest maker of network switched, and it's right now fighting what it calls "white box" switches, of which Facebook's is a prime example.</p><p>These switches perform well and can cost less, because they move fancy features from the hardware and into software.</p><h2>Giving and selling to anyone who wants it</h2><p>Facebook isn't just inventing this device for its own internal use. It is helping these switches become commercially available products from contract manufacturers for anyone to buy. </p><p>Facebook also invented and is freely sharing its own software to run the switch (an equally important part) called FBOSS.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Facebook</span></p><p class="caption">Facebook Wedge switch</p></div><p></p></div></div>Plus, Facebook made its switch compatible with commercial software from two startup competitors to Cisco, Cumulus and Big Switch.</p><p>The ultimate goal is to make networks faster and more open, so customers don't have to wait for the vendor to change things but can do hack their own network gear themselves.</p><p>This is increasingly important in the cloud computing world, where data centers and networks change fast.</p><p>Facebook is also donating the designs for its switch to the Open Compute Project, as it's done with all off the hardware it invented.</p><p>OCP is an open source hardware consortium Facebook launched a couple of years ago that has since became a major force in the hardware industry. It's a group of hardware customers and hardware manufactures that is doing for the data center what Linux did for software. </p><p>All OCP designs are free for anyone to take, use, and modify. Then companies can get the modified hardware built by an increasingly large roster of manufacturers who are certified to build OCP designs.</p><p>Like all open source projects, community members tend to share their tweaks and ideas back to the community and it's just one big kumbaya for folks running big data centers.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Facebook" title_caption="Facebook Wedge network switch" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/53a22b3cecad04e163c8398e-960/facebook-wedge-switch.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://code.facebook.com/posts/681382905244727/introducing-wedge-and-fboss-the-next-steps-toward-a-disaggregated-network/">Facebook</a></span></p><p class="caption">Facebook Wedge network switch</p></div><p></p></div></div>Facebook says it's been its own guinea pig with its first switch and is now using it extensively.</p><p>"In the past year, we have scaled our Wedge and FBOSS deployment in production at Facebook from a few switches to several thousand," writes infrastructure team members Jasmeet Bagga and Hans-Juergen Schmidtke wrote in a blog post about the new switch.</p><h2>OCP still spreading like wildfire</h2><p>In addition to the new switch, Facebook announced some new <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-open-compute-project-history-2015-6">progress with its OCP project</a>. Nokia, which makes a lot of hardware for the telecom industry, has now joined. </p><p>In addition, more big profile customers are starting to use and buy OCP hardware. </p><p>The Department of  of Energy plans to use OCP-based high-performance computers in three national laboratories (Los Alamos, Sandia, and Lawrence Livermore), manufactured by Penguin Computing. Yahoo Japan will use OCP hardware and Open Stack (a free open-source software built by another consortium of vendors). </p><p>More vendors are starting to offer more versions of OCP's network switches. In March, there was only one,  Accton. Two new switches from Mellanox are now approved.</p><p>And Facebook is also working with network startup Big Switch Networks to improve the free and open source version of Facebook's network switch software.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/kids-dont-use-facebook-2015-10">We asked a bunch of kids what they think about Facebook</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="ttaTNzcTrV3D2fg3UQRLRE5tNi_izNGO" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Facebook just launched another assault on Cisco

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo</span></p><p class="caption">Part of the wrecked fuselage of an US Air Force B-52 bomber where it crashed near Palomares, Spain, after colliding with a US Air Force KC-135 tanker while refueling on January 17, 1966.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>A crash involving a B-52 Stratofortress bomber over Spain in 1966 resulted in four nuclear bombs being lost for 81 days.</strong></li><li><strong>The bombs were <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060506213400/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2004/2/2004_2_28.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">not armed</a>, meaning there was no chance of a nuclear detonation.</strong></li><li><strong>The US personnel involved in the search and Spaniards in the area have lived with the legacy of the accident in the half-century since.</strong></li></ul><p><br />Early on the morning of January 16, 1966, a B-52 Stratofortress bomber took off from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina.</p><p>The bomber headed toward Europe, where it would patrol near the borders of the Soviet Union with four nuclear weapons, part of Operation Chrome Dome, a Cold War program to provide 24-hour rapid-response capabilities in case of war.</p><p>During its return to the US the next day, the B-52 was to rendezvous with a KC-135 tanker for refueling over Spain. Capt. Charles Wendorf, the 29-year-old Air Force pilot at the controls of the bomber, asked his staff pilot, Maj. Larry Messinger, to take over as they approached the refueling point.</p><p>Just after 10 a.m. on January 17, the planes began their approach at 31,000 over eastern Spain. Messinger sensed something was amiss.</p><p>"We came in behind the tanker, and we were a little bit fast, and we started to overrun him a little bit," Messinger recalled, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060506213400/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2004/2/2004_2_28.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to American Heritage magazine.</p><p><span>"There is a procedure they have in refueling where if the boom operator feels that you'</span><span>re getting too close and it's a dangerous situation, he will call, 'Break away, break away, break away,'" Messinger said. "There was no call for a breakaway, so we didn't see anything dangerous about the situation. But all of a sudden all hell seemed to break loose."</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo</span></p><p class="caption">The largest remaining piece of a US jet tanker after a collision with a B-52 bomber over southeastern Spain, January 18, 1966.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p>The B-52 collided with the tanker. The belly of the KC-135 ripped open, and jet fuel spilled into the tanker and onto the bomber. Explosions ripped through both planes, consuming the tanker and killing all four men aboard. Three men in the tail of the bomber were killed, and the four other crew members ejected.</p><p>Capt. Ivens Buchanan, strapped into his ejection seat, was caught in the fireball and burned. He crashed to the ground, but survived. Wendorf's and Lt. Richard Rooney's parachutes opened at 14,000 feet, and they drifted out to sea where fishermen rescued them.</p><p>Messinger hit his head during ejection. "<span>I opened my parachute. Well, I shouldn't have done that. I should have freefalled and the parachute would open automatically at 14,000 feet," he <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060506213400/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2004/2/2004_2_28.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. "But I opened mine anyway, because of the fact that I got hit in the head, I imagine." He drifted eight miles out to sea, where he was also picked up by fishermen.</span></p><p><span>A Spanish fisherman five miles offshore at the time <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060506213400/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2004/2/2004_2_28.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> seeing the explosion and the rain of debris. He then saw five parachutes - three with surviving crew members from the bomber; two others carrying "half a man, with his guts trailing," and a "dead man."</span><span></span></p><p><span>Soon after, on the ground in Spain, officers at Air Force bases <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/us/decades-later-sickness-among-airmen-after-a-hydrogen-bomb-accident.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">scrambled</a> to pack the troops they could find - cooks, clerks, and musicians - into buses to head toward Palomares, a coastal farming village in southeast Spain.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo</span></p><p class="caption"> The wreckage of a US Air Force KC-135 tanker that collided with a B-52 bomber over southeast Spain. Spanish officials in background are searching for bodies, January 18, 1966. </p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>"It was just chaos," John Garman, then a military-police officer, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/us/decades-later-sickness-among-airmen-after-a-hydrogen-bomb-accident.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The New York Times in 2016. "Wreckage was all over the village. A big part of the bomber had crashed down in the yard of the school."</span></p><p><span>By the evening of January 17, all the airmen had been accounted for and no villagers were hurt. But US personnel continued their search for the four nuclear bombs the B-52 had been carrying.</span></p><h2><span>Days of searching</span></h2><p><span>The bombs - each carrying 1.45 megatons of explosive power, about 100 times as much as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima - were <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060506213400/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2004/2/2004_2_28.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">not armed</a>, meaning there was no chance of a nuclear detonation. </span></p><p><span>One was recovered intact, but the high-explosives in two of them, designed to detonate and trigger a nuclear blast, did explode. The blasts left house-size craters on either side of the village, scattering plutonium and contaminating crops and farmland.</span></p><p data-para-count="315" data-total-count="1250">"There was no talk about radiation or plutonium or anything else," Frank B. Thompson, then a 22-year-old trombone player, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/us/decades-later-sickness-among-airmen-after-a-hydrogen-bomb-accident.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The New York Times in 2016.</p><p data-para-count="315" data-total-count="1250"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo</span></p><p class="caption">Nuclear-search-team members have lunch at Camp Wilson in Palomares Beach, Spain, February 17, 1966.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Thompson and others spent days searching contaminated fields without protective equipment or even a change of clothes. "They told us it was safe, and we were dumb enough, I guess, to believe them," he said.</p><p>The fourth bomb remained missing after days of searching, its absence embarrassing for the US and potentially deadly for people in the area.</p><p>The Pentagon <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060506213400/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2004/2/2004_2_28.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called on engineers</a> at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, who crunched the available numbers in order to determine where the missing bomb may have landed. The circumstances of the crash and the multitude of variables made such an estimate difficult.</p><p>Clues pointed to a sea landing for the fourth bomb, but there was little hard data to indicate where.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo</span></p><p class="caption">An H-bomb lost in the crash of two US Air Force planes in January 1966, seen during a recovery operation on April 8, 1966.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>An interview with the fisherman who watched five members of the bomber's crew land at sea yielded a breakthrough.</p><p>The "dead man" was in fact the bomb attached to its parachute, and the "half man, with his guts trailing" was the empty parachute bag with its packing lines trailing in the air.</p><p>That information led the engineers assisting the search to recommend a new search area, bringing the total area being scoured to 27 square miles - with visibility of only 20 feet in some spots.</p><p>On February 11, the Navy called in Alvin, a 22-foot-long, 8-foot-wide submersible weighting 13 tons. It had room for a pilot and two observers, carried several cameras and a grappling arm, and could dive to 6,000 feet.</p><p>Alvin's primitive technology made the search a slog. There was no progress until March 1, when they spotted a track on the seabed.</p><p>Two more weeks of searching went by before they spotted the bomb - 2,550 feet below the surface, almost exactly in the spot where the fisherman had seen it enter the water. On March 24, divers in Alvin managed to attach a line to the bomb's parachute. Just after 8 p.m., a winch on a Navy ship began to reel in the line. About an hour later, the line broke, sending the bomb back to the ocean floor.</p><p>They found it again on April 2, resting about 350 feet deeper in the same area. The Navy rigged up another retrieval plan using an unmanned recovery vehicle, but it got caught in the bomb's parachute. On April 7, the admiral leading the search ordered his crew to lift the whole thing.</p><p>The laborious process that followed, assisted by Navy frogmen, lifted the missing nuclear bomb to the surface, bringing the 81-day saga to a close.</p><p>Alvin's pilots became international heroes, but little else about the incident ended so well.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo</span></p><p class="caption">US Air Force Maj. Gen. Delmar Wilson, left, and US Navy Rear Adm. William S. Guest at Palomares Beach, inspecting the H-bomb that was recovered from the sea, on April 8, 1966.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>'<span>They told us everything was safe'</span></h2><p>US soldiers plowed up 600 acres of crops in Palomares, sending it to the Savannah River nuclear complex in South Carolina for disposal.</p><p>The US government <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060506213400/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2004/2/2004_2_28.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">paid $710,914</a> to settle 536 Spanish claims. The fisherman, who wanted his claim for finding the bomb, sued for $5 million and eventually won $14,566. Madrid, where protesters had chanted "Yankee assassins!" during the search, asked US Strategic Air Command to stop its flights over Spain. The airborne-alert program of Operation Chrome Dome was curtailed and ended for good in 1992.</p><p>The US personnel involved in the search and Spaniards in the area have lived with the legacy of the accident in the half-century since it happened.</p><p>Despite removing soil in the immediate aftermath, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/19/us-to-clean-up-spanish-radioactive-site-49-years-after-palomares-plane-crash" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tests in the 1990s</a> revealed high levels of Americum, a product of decaying plutonium, in the village. More tests showed that 50,000 cubic meters of the soil remained radioactive. The US agreed to clean up the contamination remaining in the village in 2015.</p><p>Many of the US veterans who assisted the search have said they are dealing with the effects of plutonium poisoning. Linking cancers to a single exposure to radiation is impossible, and there hasn't been any study to assess whether they have an elevated incidence of illness, but in the years since some have been ravaged by disease.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo/National Archive Record Administration</span></p><p class="caption">An unidentified US soldier looks through the material found after a US B-52 bomber collided with a tanker plane during aerial refueling, January 17, 1966.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Of the 40 veterans involved in the search who were identified <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/us/decades-later-sickness-among-airmen-after-a-hydrogen-bomb-accident.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">by The Times in 2016</a>, 21 had cancer - nine had died from it.</p><p>Many of the men have blamed the Air Force, which sent them to clean the scene with little protective gear and later fed troops the contaminated crops that Spaniards refused to eat. One military-police officer was given a plastic bag and told to pick up radioactive fragments by hand.</p><p>The Air Force also dismissed tests done at the time showing the men had high levels of plutonium contamination.</p><p><span>"It took me a long time to start to realize this maybe had to do with cleaning up the bombs," <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/us/decades-later-sickness-among-airmen-after-a-hydrogen-bomb-accident.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Arthur Kindler, who was a grocery supply clerk at the time of the incident. </span></p><p><span>He was so covered in plutonium during the cleanup that the Air Force made him wash off in the ocean and took his clothes. Four years later he developed testicular cancer and a rare lung infection; he has had cancer in his lymph nodes three times since then. </span></p><p><span>"You have to understand, they told us everything was safe," Kindler said. "We were young. We trusted them. Why would they lie?"</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-nuclear-war-mission-control-doomsday-plane-2017-9">This US plane doubles as Mission Control during nuclear war- take a look inside</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

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