Our story is set in the peaceful countryside of Arkansas , here underneath an anonymous white lid there was an entire missile facility , the base 374-7 , with the most terrible nuke owned by U.S.A. ( the a-bomb w53) .
On 18 September 1980 some technicians should have gone there and see if everything worked properly. During the servicing one of them , made a 4 kg bolt fall down by mistake , this bolt tore the basis of the rocket and a lot of fuel started to spurt out , and here is the problem .The fuel started to sprout out because the rocket itself was relatively light and thin . Actually, most of the weight of a rocket is due to the fuel . The rocket had two tanks with two different liquids , since during a hypothetical crisis it should have set off in a few seconds. The only thing needed to activate them is that the two fuels got in contact .
The fuels utilized were hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide and
beside the fact that they are extremely toxic (they produce an orange
-red soot), that could have happened because
of the leak of the first tank. The unload basis of the rocket wouldn't be able
to hold the weight making the other tank fall triggering the reaction. And I want to remind you that on that rocket there was the strongest nuke owned by U.S.A..
The nuke named w53 had a power of 9
megatons and it would have created a flaming sphere with a diameter of 5,5 km ,
everything in a range of 15 km would have been wiped out , and the energy
released would have killed everyone in a range of 30 km (without considering the fallout ) .
Everyone in a range of many kilometers was
evacuated and vice president Walter Mondale himself, who was there, was evacuated without knowing what was
happening . The following day two technicians , I would say goners , were sent
to the base because they had to open a valve in order to make the toxic gases
accumulated come out but the gases in
contact with oxygen inflamed and everything exploded except the bomb
that was hurled 50 mt away , I can't even imagine the anxiety of those
technicians .
You
would say after this crisis things got better, but not with the Reagan presidency. More and more nukes were built
until fortunately in 1993 new safety measures were issued. For example, new security systems were applied to avoid the unintentional triggering of the
nuke but the arsenal remained almost identical. The fact that terrorizes me is
that at the time there were 52 of these nukes in the U.S.A. and thousands of missiles that could set off
and wipe out nations in a few hours .
I hope you enjoyed this story which I personally
find rather thought-provoking and I also
find rather strange that practically no
one knows this story though only 40 years have passed.
Till next month , bye bye.
GIORDANO C., 4sc
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