
Armored Car Used to Potentially Block Minuteman-Missile Launch (1987) - molecule
http://articles.latimes.com/1987-10-29/news/mn-17348_1_minuteman-missile
======
ghayes
> The theory, according to the spokesman, is that the cover is blown aside so
> rapidly that a vehicle parked atop it with brakes off will be left hanging
> in thin air--like yanking a tablecloth out from under dishes--and then drop
> straight down, in hopes of keeping the launching missile from going
> anywhere.

Feels like something Adam Savage might enjoy testing out.

~~~
kabdib
As long as they don't attempt the usual "Well, that was fun and educational,
now let's see if we can _really_ make it explode..."

------
cromwellian
I like that an article from 1987 is freely available on the web. I wish most
of the news organizations that have historic content locked up in libraries
and microfilm would do this.

~~~
Maxious
The National Library of Australia is progressively digitising it's collection
of historical newspapers (some coverage from 1803 to 2007).
[http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper?q=](http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper?q=)

------
devinmontgomery
Love this: _The procedure has never been tested, he added._

------
lucaspiller
> The spokesman said an Air Force investigation established the troubles began
> with the failure of the navigation guidance unit inside the missile. That is
> not unusual, he said, because the guidance units have a finite life and must
> be replaced periodically.

There must be more to it than that... "Fire!" "Err, Sir, the guidance unit has
just indicated it needs to be replaced"

------
zebra
Interesting military hacking. Is it wise to unveil this missile exploit?

~~~
scdlbx
If you can maliciously drive an armored car onto a missile silo in a military
base, you have already owned the military base.

~~~
nnq
...with all sorts of drones / driverless cars around nowadays, you can imagine
some of them could be remotely hacked and made to land or park themselves more
or less inconspicuously atop a silo at the right time. You don't need to "hack
a silo" (which, I hope, is really not possible!) anymore to incapacitate the
adversary from delivering a nuclear strike, just hack any random device that
can be moved around at the right time. Hopefully you can't use the same tricks
to _trigger_ a missile launch, so overall the new situation might have
increased humanity's chances of long term survival :)

Now it would be obvious, but in a future with god knows how many small little
e-critters swarming around everywhere doing god knows what... yeah, bad I idea
to share, but someone in a foreign military paid to have such an idea would've
already had it anyway :)

~~~
trouserpants
> more or less inconspicuously

I'm going to have to go with "far, far less" on that.

------
ck2
So how old are our nuclear missiles now?

And what happened with the massive cheating going on inside the unit that is
supposed to maintain and run them?

~~~
mikeyouse
The 'youngest' nuke is now over 21 years old. Due to the terms of the nuclear
non-proliferation treaties, we no longer conduct any actual testing, so it's
all computer-simulation based.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockpile_stewardship](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockpile_stewardship)

------
Semiapies
I wonder what sort of armored car it was. An APC, some kind of secure
transport...?

------
Zigurd
It could never get past that super-secure launch code.

~~~
kybernetyk
Weren't the codes 00000000 for 20 years? :)

[http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/11/nearly-
two-d...](http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/11/nearly-two-decades-
nuclear-launch-code-minuteman-silos-united-states-00000000/)

~~~
commander_ahab
That code was only used past numerous safeguards that required multiple access
codes/keys. The actual activation code was trivial compared to the layers of
security necessary to use it.

