from the apply-twice-a-day-until-the-second-head-and-third-arm-have-gone dept.
Russia explosion: Five confirmed dead in rocket blast
Five people were killed and three injured following a rocket explosion on an Arctic naval test range in Russia on Thursday, state nuclear company Rosatom confirmed. Rosatom said the accident occurred during tests on a liquid propellant rocket engine. The three injured staff members suffered serious burns in the accident. Authorities had previously said that two people died and six were injured in the blast at the site in Nyonoksa.
The company told Russian media that its engineering and technical team had been working on the "isotope power source" for the propulsion system. The Nyonoksa site carries out tests for virtually every missile system used by the Russian navy, including sea-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and anti-aircraft missiles.
Authorities in Severodvinsk, 47km (29 miles) east of Nyonoksa said that radiation levels shortly after the blast were higher than normal for about 40 minutes but returned to normal. Locals have rushed to buy medical iodine, with pharmacies' stocks of iodine reported to be running out in the cities of Arkhangelsk and Severodvinsk. The rush for iodine was reported earlier by a news website for the Arkhangelsk region, 29.ru.
Also at The Guardian, NBC, and CNN.
See also: U.S.-Based Experts Suspect Russia Blast Involved Nuclear-Powered Missile
Update: Russia Confirms Radioactive Materials Were Involved in Deadly Blast
In a statement released at 1 a.m. Saturday, Russia's nuclear energy company, Rosatom, said five employees had died, in addition to the two military personnel previously confirmed dead, as a result of a test on Thursday morning involving "isotopic sources of fuel on a liquid propulsion unit."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by fustakrakich on Saturday August 10 2019, @09:04PM (7 children)
It is the problem of our modern times. Airplanes crashing, bombs blowing up... oh, wait, they're supposed to do that, but further downrange, right? Tolerances on the machine are getting too loose. I mean, the strongest part of the paper towels is at the perforations. What's up with that?
Good to see all this military stuff falling apart. We will achieve peace through incompetence.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @09:08PM (6 children)
North Korea is probably the only country with working nuclear bombs. When is the last time the US, Russia, China, etc even tested one of theirs?
(Score: 1) by barbara hudson on Saturday August 10 2019, @09:32PM (5 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @10:54PM (4 children)
This was a nuclear propulsion system, it wasn't meant to explode.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday August 10 2019, @11:43PM (2 children)
I'm no nucular physicist, but I have a hard time believing it was a propulsion system. Maybe it was a light-yield nuke or a long-term power source for the electronics? Guess it's plausible that a small controlled nucular detonation could be an efficient powerplant.
(Score: 4, Informative) by deimtee on Sunday August 11 2019, @08:51AM
Maybe some variation on NERVA. That had an Isp of about 1200 using liquid H2, and would have been good enough for an SSTO (Single Stage To Orbit). Seems like that would be good enough for a SSTI (Single Stage To Impact).
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Wednesday August 14 2019, @12:45AM
See this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm24PtuhEg4 [youtube.com]
Explains how it actually IS a propulsion system.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 11 2019, @01:45AM
For certain definitions of "not meant to explode", maybe.
The US had nuclear powered SCRAM jets long ago. Get the craft moving fast by conventional means, then light off the nuclear engine, and it goes god-awful fast. The problem was, they couldn't turn it off and land the jet. Secondary problem would probably have been, if the jet landed it would be far to radioactive to work on. Forget about the wikipedia entry - we DID fly one, and crashed it into the sea because we couldn't recover it.
So, if the Russians are using liquid fuel rockets to get this thing airborne, then switch to the nuclear engine, they're just going to drive that warhead directly to the target, then detonate. There won't be any separation or anything. Your engine becomes part of the explosion, guaranteed. Maybe they force the engine to go critical on purpose, to increase the yield? Maybe they even use the engine to trigger the warhead? Hell, I dunno, but the US abandoned nuclear powered jets long ago. I suppose we could start research again to be "competitive".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 10 2019, @09:59PM (11 children)
I'd rather have a Geiger counter than iodine but maybe that's just me.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @11:21PM (2 children)
So you can gormlessly stare at it while getting irradiated?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 10 2019, @11:30PM (1 child)
I was thinking more so you could check the water to see if it's irradiated and not drink it if it is.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @03:47PM
The Square Law and Half Life are your main defenses to help you avoiding radiation sources.
TheBackyardScientist: How 'Bright' is Deadly Radiation [youtube.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MostCynical on Saturday August 10 2019, @11:25PM (3 children)
The locals know they've been exposed. Doesn't matter how much exposure, they just know they need to do something.
If they could afford to move away from nulear testing, they would have done so by now.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday August 10 2019, @11:29PM (2 children)
Damn, how much does shoe leather cost over there nowadays?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @10:04AM (1 child)
Using shoe leather to gain distance from harm has a few side effects. One, rather severe, is that not showing up for work tends to be frowned upon and result in not getting paid. Follow that chain a bit furter and you see that no money leads to no food. Which is, in itself, a health risk. There is no social network, and don't count on the government to smile on people bailing out of their designated housing zone.
So, shoe leather costs, perhaps, not a lot of money but could cost you your life when using it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 12 2019, @03:32PM
Not as quickly as ten types of cancer all at once or just outright radiation poisoning. The halflife on this stuff was apparently relatively quite short, so avoidance would be a more effective and probably less costly solution.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by driverless on Sunday August 11 2019, @01:22AM (2 children)
You need to explain that in a bit more detail: KI will only protect the thyroid against I-131. I-131 is a fission product of uranium and plutonium with a very short half-life. So unless you're in close proximity to a recent nuclear detonation, taking KI isn't going to do anything for you. As you say, a Geiger counter is vastly more useful, because it's highly unlikely that the cause of the spike was I-131.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 11 2019, @02:02AM
That as well but I was mostly thinking it would be better to avoid anything more radioactive than a banana entirely. Simplifies things.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday August 12 2019, @09:25PM
I had understood it will also protect the thyroid against all Iodine radioisotopes. The idea is that all (or near enough) the iodine receptors are taken so the remaining iodine passes out the kidney. Though 131 is the chief one to protect against.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @06:56AM
(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Saturday August 10 2019, @10:05PM (5 children)
Only 7 dead .... Nothing to worry about, Comrade. We haven't had a bad accident since Chernobyl ... Well maybe that's not a good example ...
Anyway, if we find it's worse than they say we can get Putin's bitch to send Moscow Mitch over to help out ...
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @10:16PM (2 children)
7 that they admit to.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10 2019, @10:44PM (1 child)
7 Russians. The rest were Ukrainians, Jews and other nonentities.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @01:34AM
Jews made up 80% percent of the Soviet Government. They most certainly are not considered non-persons in Russia, that is reserved for their own native populations.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday August 10 2019, @10:42PM
Perhaps, we'll have a working engine to explore the solar system? The one Mask would be able to copy, eventually?
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @01:06AM
The Russians have had few accidents over the years. A few are much bigger than Chernobyl.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQCfOjhguO0 [youtube.com]
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/samira-goetschel/ozersk-city-40-russia_b_9857470.html?guccounter=2 [huffingtonpost.ca]
The USSR left a wake of contamination across many areas in Georgia, Siberia, Poland, Germany, and the Baltics.
That they even admit it is wildly better than what they used to do.
(Score: 3, Informative) by garfiejas on Saturday August 10 2019, @10:56PM (8 children)
More about it over here https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29356/russia-admits-mysterious-missile-engine-explosion-involved-nuclear-isotope-power-source [thedrive.com]; basically a cruise missile with a rocket powered ram-jet that once up to speed uses air over an exposed nuclear reactor to power itself up to a few weeks of flight time...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday August 10 2019, @11:31PM (1 child)
Project Pluto [jalopnik.com] (another commentator mentioned it just last week)
Should have know some "fearless leader" would have been insane enough to actually build one.
Well, on the bright side as least we have solved the question of where the Great Filter [youtube.com] is.
Right in front of us
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @01:04AM
unless
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday August 10 2019, @11:55PM (3 children)
It appears the engine tested was not nuclear ram-jet, which has no liquid mentioned in the announcement.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Sunday August 11 2019, @04:16AM (2 children)
Don't be so sure. It mentioned an "isotopic sources of fuel" and a number of liquid fissile material nuclear reactors have been built. I haven't heard any speculation about the fissile material being liquid but it's not completely impossible.
I'm guessing that's just them muddying the waters, though. It appeared that several structures that had been at the previous Skyfall (nuclear propulsion cruise missile) test site had been moved to this site during the past year.
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday August 12 2019, @02:42AM (1 child)
I am not sure at all, but from what I hear, Russia built nuclear ram-jet which basically heats *air* by isotopes which is used as propellant and hence provides unlimited flight time, but within the atmosphere.
Russia is also developing nuclear engines for space travel where there is no free propellant. In fact the second biggest Russia's airline S7 promised to open scheduled flights to Mars and they plan to use nuclear engine. https://www.wired.com/2016/03/russia-thinks-can-use-nukes-fly-mars-90-days-can-find-rubles/ [wired.com]
https://tass.com/science/1030739 [tass.com]
It appears that the explosion involves the second type of engine.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Monday August 12 2019, @03:14AM
If it was a nuclear thermal rocket they were testing, then the propellant of choice would be hydrogen due to the low molecular weight leading to a high exhaust velocity and thus a high Isp. Liquid hydrogen would match with the liquid fuel statement.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday August 11 2019, @01:29AM
A direct-cycle nuclear engine sounds highly unlikely, given that not even someone like Kim Jong-Un would be crazy enough to try and run one of those. Maybe it's an RTG? OTOH why would you use something like that when a reserve battery provides more power at a much faster rate? Nuclear sources really aren't much good for delivery large amounts of power at once unless you make them impractically large for anything that has to be airborne.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @07:03AM
Fuuuuuuuuuuuck yeah, where do I get one?!
Fuckin' Reavers, man!
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Sunday August 11 2019, @12:35AM
Either they're testing motors with live nuclear warheads, which is amazingly stupid, or they're figuring out how to use nukes to drive rockets, which is pretty scary. Unless their using warheads to propel their rockets, I'm not aware of any potential rocket fuels that are radioactive.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @10:21AM (3 children)
Modding #878515 as Touché and #878620 as Flamebait reveals much more truth about Soylent than should be revealed.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @02:01PM (1 child)
What, that biased people moderate? I look at the mods here as a curiosity, but I won't let the moderators decide what I get to read.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 12 2019, @03:36PM
All people are biased. Quantity, diversity of opinion, and having folks who can look at things objectively despite their bias is how you solve that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Sunday August 11 2019, @06:34PM
Don’t say that about those one or two moderators. You’ll just make them angry.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Rich on Sunday August 11 2019, @02:47PM (2 children)
If the radiation was locally high for about 40 minutes, and no radiation has been detected in neighbouring countries, it looks like it was a neutron activated isotope, maybe gaseous. A guess is that they had some kind of fission powered reaction engine, which dismantled after a power excursion. If that happens very shortly after startup, there will be little fission residue to detect. Ugly enough for the operators, but magnitudes below an NPP blowing up after a thousand gigawatthours. The measured radiation would therefore be from the propellant. I had a very quick look at the Wikipedia table of isotopes sorted by half-life, but I couldn't find any conclusive candidate in the 100-to-10000 second range.
A Pluto-style direct cycle ramjet would mostly irradiate N and O of the atmosphere, but the isotopes above the common ones are stable too, so no major radiation through neutron capture. If they used a silicon based ceramic matrix for the reactor cell, Si-31 would roughly be in the ballpark, but if that was released, so would be longer life decay products - unless there is some ablation and the activity came from regular operation mode rather than the accident.
The press also reported about "liquid" being involved, so it might have been a NERVA-style thing. With LH2 as propellant, there might me miniscule amounts of Tritium in the plume. But hardly enough to be the reason for the measurement. Also, what purpose might such an engine serve? A surprise flight to mars?
Or, as the base seems to be associated with the Navy, and the "liquid" hint did not explicitly designate a propellant, maybe some kind of long-range high-speed torpedo (Shkval-style)?
Any thoughts on the seen radiation profile and the "liquid"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 11 2019, @07:43PM (1 child)
Dismantled? Is that a euphemism for exploded?
(Score: 2) by Rich on Sunday August 11 2019, @08:41PM
Well, it might just have fallen apart, leaving its core exposed with a runaway reaction, melting down or sublimating away and exceeding some radiation limits for operators while doing so. Although from experience with cutting-edge military propulsion trials, we can assume there was a high probability of a rather explosive dismantling.
Keep in mind that military reactors run weapons grade material, not that 3% enriched stuff for proliferation-panicky pussies. They don't want the dead weight around, or the hassle with regular refueling. They have refueling cycles of a quarter century, compared to the yearly top up of NPPs. That might actually help with the waste isotope mix, but hope for heaven if something goes really bad. In theory, some wave breeder might yield the same result when decade-long endurance is desired (which it is not with a reaction engine, btw), but I guess with their budget they just go the easy route. So, expect stuff to properly blow up when reaction control fails in such an arrangement.