
Russia Says Five Died in Blast Where Radiation Spike Reported - pseudolus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-10/russia-says-five-died-in-blast-where-radiation-spike-reported
======
eitland
The combination of

\- a missile test

\- involving “isotope power sources in a liquid propulsion system”

sounds seriously bad.

Am I reading too much between the lines or is this related to the crazy
nuclear propulsion ICBM idea they threw out a while ago?

~~~
madaxe_again
Not ICBM, cruise missile, and it ain’t crazy (well, from a technical
standpoint - as a weapon, it’s totally crazy Dead Hand stuff) - see Project
Pluto.

What’s being reported, given the context of their proclamation about nuclear
powered missiles a while back, I think it’s a reasonable supposition in the
absence of further information that they had _something_ go very wrong with a
static fire of a nuclear ramjet - probably not a nuclear detonation, but I
wouldn’t be surprised if they a) had a supercritical moment and b) sprayed the
reactor guts over a substantial area.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pluto)

~~~
elliekelly
> I think it’s a reasonable supposition in the absence of further information
> that they had something go very wrong with a static fire of a nuclear ramjet
> - probably not a nuclear detonation

Can you explain this a bit more for those of us who know almost nothing about
missiles/nuclear weapons. If I'm understanding the Project Pluto wikipedia
correctly a ramjet isn't able to fire from a standstill and a nuclear ramjet
would require both initial forward motion and then a nuclear detonation (not
sure if that's the right word, perhaps just "reaction").

So I guess my question is, how would they safely static fire these types of
missiles for testing purposes? Assuming Russia's project uses a similar setup
to Project Pluto and has conventional rocket boosters to get the missile to
ramjet speed is that what they'd be static firing - the boosters? And if
they're testing the boosters attached to the nuclear ramjet without allowing
the ramjet's reactor to go critical what would have to go wrong with the
static fire that would result in radiation?

~~~
LorenPechtel
If the ramjet didn't go critical it wouldn't be of much use. The key number
when you are talking about an operating reactor is called the multiplication
factor--when an atom fissions __on average __how many other atoms will be
split by the neutrons released from that fission.

When this number is less than one things just peacefully sit there. If an atom
fissions the chain soon dies out. If this number is more than one things get
hotter and hotter until it comes apart. If this were the whole story there
would be no nuclear power, but there's one very useful detail--a small number
of those neutrons are not emitted at once. This gives you a margin to control
things.

When the immediate neutrons are enough to cause more than one fission you have
the state known as prompt critical, you have lost control, the reactor will
run wild and destroy itself. (An atom bomb is the same idea, except rather
than just edging past 1 a bombmaker pushes the ratio as high as possible so it
takes a city with it in destroying itself.) I am aware of two cases where
reactors had issues with control rods and crossed the prompt critical line,
both were immediately destroyed. SL-1 and Chernobyl.

The zone between critical and prompt critical gives you a way to control
things. You have time to turn the heat up or down as needed. A nuclear ramjet
is going to be designed to operate at a very high power density, it's going to
be a lot closer to the line than a reactor is normally run. Stick one toe over
the line and you get what SpaceX calls a RUD.

Alternately, it might have run too hot, something softened or melted and the
core shape changed to cross the prompt critical line, same outcome.

~~~
elliekelly
Interesting, so because a nuclear ramjet runs closer to the line there’s less
time to make adjustments and control things to prevent RUD. I guess that makes
testing all the more difficult/dangerous.

Thanks for such a thorough explanation that I could actually follow! Much
appreciated.

------
flippyhead
I find it really hard to ever know what's real when it comes to Russia.

~~~
inflatableDodo
Anything that can be reliably measured. Height of pile of dead journalists,
that kind of thing.

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paulcarroty
> “short-term increase in radiation”

Guess they are lying like in 1986.

~~~
cjblomqvist
Well, the big difference now is that there aren't lots of radiation from
external readings, so I doubt there's a big disaster such as Chernobyl. We
also have better instruments nowadays.

Of course, different winds could mean it won't be picked up by Northern Europe
like last time.

~~~
SECProto
For comparison, here [1] is a wiki article on a different recent radioactive
release from Russia (of Ruthenium-106). International parties detected it very
quickly, but it took a fair time to trace it back to it's probable source at
the Mayak facility. This current event seems in some ways more serious, in
other ways less, but a bit better in terms of the transparency in the Russian
governmental response (they've at least acknowledged it).

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_radioactivity_increas...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_radioactivity_increase_in_Europe_in_autumn_2017)

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michaelwilson
And they said there'd be no Season 2 of Chernobyl.

------
hindsightbias
NASA film on nuclear rocket development in the 60’s
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=eDNX65d-FBY](https://youtube.com/watch?v=eDNX65d-FBY)

------
est31
Slightly related: this arte documentary about nuclear weapons:

[https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/082249-000-A/the-new-cold-
war/](https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/082249-000-A/the-new-cold-war/)

TLDW:

* Russia has comparatively poor capabilities in traditional weapons so they use nuclear weapons to compensate.

* USA is developing nuclear weapons for submarines that they can park at the coast of strategically important places without having to bother with criticism from the host country.

* With Trump in office, European states are wondering about whether to launch a European nuclear program for self defense.

* Baltic states are hard to defend, easy to invade. The NATO presence in the Baltics serves mainly the goal to appease the local population than to prevent any serious invasion attempt.

~~~
jbattle
I thought the Baltic strategy was to have a force in place that the Russians
would have to kill to get the baltics. That force couldn't stop the Russians
but their defeat would cause a casus belli that gives NATO enough domestic
political capital to go fully to war with Russia.

~~~
est31
That's probably a component as well.

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nradov
Additional details here:

[https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29356/russia-admits-
my...](https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29356/russia-admits-mysterious-
missile-engine-explosion-involved-nuclear-isotope-power-source)

------
wazoox
Putin announced in 2018 that they had nuclear-powered missiles that can fly
almost indefinitely (and also hypersonic cruise missiles, supersonic nuclear
torpedoes, and a couple of other terrifying doom machines). Historically, when
the Russians officially disclose the existence of weapon, it's real.

~~~
dvh
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval)

370km/h. Under water.

~~~
bitL
That's pretty old design. Doesn't China have a supersonic submarine/torpedo
now?

~~~
wazoox
When the Kursk went under, there were reportedly Chinese officials onboard.
They were almost certainly there to see a demonstration of super-cavitating
torpedoes, and it didn't end well. So who knows what they decided afterward.

