Hacker News

points by thayne 11 hours ago | 0 comments

> These fuel haulers think they got a bomb in their back, while this guy had a nuclear warhead,

Transporting a nuclear warhead is probably safer. I'm sure there are tons of safeguards to prevent an accidental detonation, and with a military escort people are more likely to be drive carefully around you.

[–] beloch 10 hours ago

Do they transport warheads fully assembled, or with cores and high explosives separate? If the latter, would they send explosives in the same shipment as cores? If disassembled components are being shipped via ground, with cores separate from explosives, the worst that could happen would be a small conventional explosion with no risk of radioactive contamination.

[–] rbanffy 10 hours ago

I think the fuel elements of the missiles (or fueled cases) would be much more dangerous than the warheads. Warheads are designed with extreme precautions so they don’t go off when they are not supposed to, but Minutemen missiles are solid rockets and solid fuel is usually quite temperamental.

[–] rsynnott 9 hours ago

Ideally, yes. In practice there have been a number of nuclear devices which can arm accidentally, though (at least as far as anyone has so far admitted) they were generally early ones.

Also, of course, even assuming that it’s ‘safe’, spreading one over the landscape is extremely undesirable.

(Also if it was an actual missile as described, you _definitely_ do not want one of those solid fuel motors going up.)