For anyone who hasn’t read the article it wasn’t a bomb and isn’t enough nuclear material to make a bomb. You could maybe use it to make a dirty bomb, but there are almost certainly better options for that (E.G. scavenged radioactive sources from medical devices). It was a fairly standard radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) of the type used on many deep space probes and rarely on satellites as well as somewhat famously by the USSR in a lot of their remote installations. It’s not enough material to really make anything out of, but frustratingly it is enough to be very dangerous to anyone that found it and didn’t know what it was. There was a famous case some years back where some scavengers found one of the old Russian RTGs in an abandoned base and carried it off before they all became too sick from radiation poisoning and died.
Don’t worry though, we have lost plenty of nuclear weapons that were never recovered. Due to how SAC preferred readiness in the 50s and 60s, there’s at least a dozen American nukes in the world that have never been accounted for after their planes went down or they needed to be dropped without arming for one reason or another. Those are the ones we know about that haven’t been covered the hell up by the Air Force.
Behind the Bastards did a 5-parter on nuclear brinkmanship, it’s well worth the listen.
Your Russian story is a little off. It was strontium-90 isotope from the rtg and of the three guys who found it, only one of them died, after like 3 years of pain, suffering, and surgeries. One of the others took surgeries and like a year to recover. It’s known as the Lia incident. The poor guys were out in the winter snow way up in some woods and snow and found the two containers of strontium after seeing steam rolling off of them and no snow anywhere around them. Then decided these magical lil containers that looked old as hell and were still literally too hot to hold would be great to carry around and camp up against to keep nice and warm. It happened around 2001, but I’m sure a lot of people around the globe wouldn’t put two and two together about not messing with mystery hot boxes found in bfe.
Sr-90 that was involved in cases you mention is strong beta emitter, but Pu-238 isn’t, it’s mostly-alpha emitter, so it’ll only get dangerous if somebody ingests it, but it’s a piece of ceramic inside a strong case
speak for yourself. if it was me, I’ll turn it into a laptop battery and will never have to charge my laptop. and if used on my lap, I wont need birth control.
If you ever find an inexplicably warm object in the middle of the snowy wilderness, don’t cuddle up with it no matter how tempting it may be.
The Lia radiological accident began on December 2, 2001, with the discovery of two orphan radiation sources near the Enguri Dam in Tsalenjikha District in the country of Georgia. Three villagers from Lia were unknowingly exposed. All three men were injured, one of whom eventually died. The accident was a result of unlabeled radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) cores which had been improperly dismantled and left behind from the Soviet era.
They ate dinner and had a small amount of vodka, while remaining close to the sources. Despite the small amount of alcohol, they all vomited soon after consuming it, the first sign of acute radiation syndrome (ARS), about three hours after first exposure. Vomiting was severe and lasted through the night, leading to little sleep. The men used the sources to keep them warm through the night, positioning them against their backs,
Two days after exposure, on December 4, patient 2-MG visited a local doctor but did not mention the mysterious heating source, and the doctor assumed he was drunk.
The climbers scampered down the mountain after stashing the C.I.A. gear on a ledge of ice, abandoning a nuclear device that contained nearly a third of the total amount of plutonium used in the Nagasaki bomb.
For anyone who hasn’t read the article it wasn’t a bomb and isn’t enough nuclear material to make a bomb. You could maybe use it to make a dirty bomb, but there are almost certainly better options for that (E.G. scavenged radioactive sources from medical devices). It was a fairly standard radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) of the type used on many deep space probes and rarely on satellites as well as somewhat famously by the USSR in a lot of their remote installations. It’s not enough material to really make anything out of, but frustratingly it is enough to be very dangerous to anyone that found it and didn’t know what it was. There was a famous case some years back where some scavengers found one of the old Russian RTGs in an abandoned base and carried it off before they all became too sick from radiation poisoning and died.
That’s honestly even more infuriating, as RTGs are in short supply now.
Don’t worry though, we have lost plenty of nuclear weapons that were never recovered. Due to how SAC preferred readiness in the 50s and 60s, there’s at least a dozen American nukes in the world that have never been accounted for after their planes went down or they needed to be dropped without arming for one reason or another. Those are the ones we know about that haven’t been covered the hell up by the Air Force.
Behind the Bastards did a 5-parter on nuclear brinkmanship, it’s well worth the listen.
Your Russian story is a little off. It was strontium-90 isotope from the rtg and of the three guys who found it, only one of them died, after like 3 years of pain, suffering, and surgeries. One of the others took surgeries and like a year to recover. It’s known as the Lia incident. The poor guys were out in the winter snow way up in some woods and snow and found the two containers of strontium after seeing steam rolling off of them and no snow anywhere around them. Then decided these magical lil containers that looked old as hell and were still literally too hot to hold would be great to carry around and camp up against to keep nice and warm. It happened around 2001, but I’m sure a lot of people around the globe wouldn’t put two and two together about not messing with mystery hot boxes found in bfe.
-Used to be an emergency haz mat tech.
Sr-90 that was involved in cases you mention is strong beta emitter, but Pu-238 isn’t, it’s mostly-alpha emitter, so it’ll only get dangerous if somebody ingests it, but it’s a piece of ceramic inside a strong case
speak for yourself. if it was me, I’ll turn it into a laptop battery and will never have to charge my laptop. and if used on my lap, I wont need birth control.
Per the article:
Reminds me of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lia_radiological_accident
If you ever find an inexplicably warm object in the middle of the snowy wilderness, don’t cuddle up with it no matter how tempting it may be.
I notice how the article casually mentions that there were like 300 lost in Georgia alone
That’s how you get mutant babies.
x-men theme song begins to play in the background
it’s not the type of plutonium that is fissile, 40% of it decayed by now, and it was formed into hard, chemically resistant ceramic in the first place
No, you’re totally right. This is fine.
‘Scampered’ lol.