T O P

  • By -

tramster

Probably just scrap metal at this point, right?


MaryADraper

From the Wikipedia page... The U.S. Navy periodically revisits the site to determine whether wreckage has been disturbed and to test for the release of any fissile materials from the submarine's nuclear reactor or two nuclear weapons. Except for a few photographs taken by deep-water submersibles in 1968 and 1985, the U.S. Navy has never made public any physical surveys it has conducted on the wreck. The last photos were taken by Robert Ballard and a team of oceanographers from Woods Hole using the submersible Alvin in 1985. The U.S. Navy secretly lent Ballard the submersible to visit the wreck sites of the Thresher and Scorpion. In exchange for his work, the U.S. Navy then allowed Ballard, a USNR officer, to use the same submersible to search for RMS Titanic.\[25\]\[26\] Due to the radioactive nature of the Scorpion wreck site, the U.S. Navy has had to publish what specific environmental sampling it has done of the sediment, water, and marine life around the sunken submarine to establish what impact it has had on the deep-ocean environment. The information is contained within an annual public report on the U.S. Navy's environmental monitoring for all U.S. nuclear-powered ships and boats. The reports explain the methodology for conducting deep-sea monitoring from both surface vessels and submersibles. These reports say the lack of radioactivity outside the wreck shows the nuclear fuel aboard the submarine remains intact and no uranium in excess of levels expected from the fallout from past atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons has been detected during naval inspections. Likewise, the two nuclear-tipped Mark 45 torpedoes that were lost when the Scorpion sank show no signs of instability.\[citation needed\] The plutonium and uranium cores of these weapons likely corroded to a heavy, insoluble material soon after the sinking. The materials remain at or close to their original location inside the boat's torpedo room. If the corroded materials were released outside the submarine, their density and insolubility would cause them to settle into the sediment.\[27\]


NotReallyJohnDoe

Interesting. I wonder why they don’t try to recover it. It’s eventually going to fail.


Otsid

Rather implies that they believe the corrosion will leave them safe to be buried in the sediment


KIAA0319

This is true. If you want to go down the rabbit hole of conventional munitions lost at sea that could devastate London, check out SS Richard Montgomery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery?wprov=sfla1


Infinite_Research_52

I can think of worse things to happen to Sheerness.


s1ravarice

It staying there in its current state?


SSrqu

You'd certainly feel it exploding but it wouldn't hurt much but fish


Zaziel

The wiki article indicates it could shatter most windows in the nearby town of 20,000 people…


The_Best_Yak_Ever

Hey, it's cool though. We put up a buoy with a sign on it, so I think we can cross that off the ol' to-do list!


MaryADraper

There is probably a greater risk of environmental damage from trying to recover it. We probably also decided that Russia couldn't recover it, so we don't need to worry about them grabbing it. I don't know if we had the capacity to recover the sub/torpedos at that time. In the 80's, the US Navy did develop a system for recovering military assets from the deep ocean - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyaway\_Deep\_Ocean\_Salvage\_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyaway_Deep_Ocean_Salvage_System) The US has 6 nuclear weapons lost in accidents that have never been recovered - [https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/us-military-missing-six-nuclear-weapons-180032](https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/us-military-missing-six-nuclear-weapons-180032)


DankVectorz

Going to need to something bigger than that to lift a submarine. Something more like this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_Explorer


SoulCartell117

Wow, she's beautiful. Fate: Scraped 😭


x31b

Instead of Howard Hughes, today they’d have Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos pretend to be the backers.


ravel-bastard

I would suspected probably be Larry Ellison, the Oracle founder. He [already has major ties with the CIA](https://gizmodo.com/larry-ellisons-oracle-started-as-a-cia-project-1636592238)


x31b

I’m sticking with my two for Project Azorian II. I have Larry slotted for the villain in the next Bond movie. I could see him having sharks with frickin laser beams.


restform

I'd imagine musk to be a pretty strong candidate given his working relationship with the US military & govt and ITAR clearance already. Not familiar with what kind of work bezos has done with the military, with that said bezos does have a history in deep sea recoveries..


wdwerker

The one that was jettisoned off the coast of Georgia has been searched for repeatedly. It is assumed to be buried deep in the sand and silt. Questions remain about whether the core was installed in the bomb.


Novat1993

One of the 6 weapons is burried in a field somewhere. It dropped out of an airplane at high altitude, but was not armed. They never found it, so the gov just bought the land and sealed it off to the public.


musashisamurai

They did find it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash You may be thinking of another incident where the bomb was lost offshore. In this case, it was jettisoned to avoid an explosion during an emergency landing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_collision


phareous

According to the Wikipedia, they only found part of it and could not locate the secondary explosives


trucorsair

Primarily that to set off a nuclear warhead as the torpedo, you have to first set off the conventional explosives. The Scorpion rests at ~10,000 feet and the surrounding sea temperature is 23.3 F or -4.8 C. At those temperatures the conventional explosives are relatively inert. Also as it was a tritium booster weapon, as the tritium has decayed the yield, if it was somehow successfully detonated would be well below 11Kt. As for corrosion, the plutonium core is likely heavily corroded further disrupting the propagation of a detonation wave, thus there is no compelling reason to recover the warheads.


ADtotheHD

The tritium in the warheads have gone through 4.55 half-life timeframes since the sinking of the Scorpion. Not only that, but tritium decays into helium-3, which is actually a neutron absorber. If those warhead casings have managed to stay airtight after all of these years, the vast majority of the tritium has decayed into what is essentially poison for a nuclear weapon. Hard to say if the fission primary would even function as intended when its boosted core is mostly neutron absorbing gas.


trucorsair

Assuming that the gas injection system actually works after all this time.


ADtotheHD

IDK enough about how the warheads actually functioned I guess. I knew that the boosted weapons had the gas injected into a hollow opening within the fissile pit, but I thought it was just held in there. Is that not the case? Was it in a separate holding tank that injected the gas in before launch or prior to detonation?


trucorsair

A separate tank so that the gas can be more easily extracted and refilled without having to get too deep into the warhead


ADtotheHD

That makes sense. Pretending for a moment that none of that gas has leaked, I guess it presents two scenarios for an unplanned detonation. 1. The gas injector doesn't work anymore and none of it injects. 2. It does work as intended, and a bunch of Helium-3 gets injected. There is very little information available regarding the yield of warheads without the booster, but the few snippets I can find via terrible AI search says that a boosted American warhead has a yield of about 500 tons of TNT without it's Tritium. Another article regarding boosted warhead on British Polaris missiles was similar. If that information is accurate, it sure seems like in either scenario, the detonations would effectively be duds. If the gas didn't inject, we're talking about a half-kiloton explosion. Not small, but a far cry from the 11kt it would normally be and more akin to a non-nuclear bomb like the MOAB than to a nuclear one. If the gas did inject it seems like it might not even create a chain reaction and simply blow itself apart. I have no idea how much gas goes into one of these weapons, but for arguments sake let's just say it's 1 gram, for easy math. I said above that the Tritium has gone through 4.55 half-lifes since the sinking. I don't think my math is exact, but with that said there would be around 0.046875 grams of tritium left, replaced by 0.953125 grams of Helium-3, a neutron blocker. It stands to reason that injecting a neutron blocking gas into a fission device isn't great for creating sustained fissions.


trucorsair

Technically a detonation that produces a sub-yield is called a “fizzle”. See Operation Redwing Yuma film at 4:30 [video of a fizzle](https://youtu.be/sqVpAFmSVN0?si=udVGiXUibz0WHrMh)


DoctorBre

> At those temperatures the conventional explosives are relatively inert. Chemically inert or stable, not ordinance-ly inert. I had to read it a few times to get your meaning.


SnooChipmunks6620

Are you saying the warhead is a dial a yield?


trucorsair

Not at all, it is a boosted warhead. Tritium has a half-life of approximately 12yrs. Since these weapons have been down there 56yrs or 5 half-lives (considering they were a few years old when they sunk to the bottom of the sea), over 97% of the original tritium has decayed. The 11kt yield is not going to happen…. Maybe 30-50 tons of TNT equivalent but not full yield.


[deleted]

[удалено]


trucorsair

It oxidizes, normally it is nickel plated to prevent this as the fitting and tolerances are very tight to make an efficient weapon.


tearans

Reasoning goes like: do not disturb old shit, so it does not start to stink


-NotAnAstronaut-

First: fail how? Water is such an excellent radiation shield that it is a chosen material for shielding in nuclear reactors today. The torpedoes sank in an unarmed state, a nuclear weapon doesn't just "go of" spontaneously without something causing the nuclear material to meet or exceed critical mass. This entire wreck is perfectly safe sitting on the bottom of the ocean. Second, recover how? The wreck sits at a depth of approx 9800ft. The only option are systems like the Glomar Explorer, which was too expensive to operate. Either way, you've now recovered a nuclear payload in a state of corrosion out of a naturally occurring shield. What the fuck are you going to do with it now? Safely dispose of it? It was perfectly safe and not affecting anything at the bottom of the ocean.


jec6613

Alvin can get them, but getting it out is tricky in a submarine hull that's crushed like a beer can to something like half it's original length. You'd need to cut apart or otherwise pick up the entire submarine.


Zimmonda

Whatever nuclear material is active/radioactive down there simply isn't going to do enough to be a major concern without a detonation.


Legio-V-Alaudae

Water is an amazing insulator of radiation. Just a few feet, less than 10, is almost as good as lead. The warheads can't spontaneously detonate, and the rads are harmless so far down.


jar1967

If they did recover it, announcing it would be admitting they had the technology to perform salvage operations at that depth. Which isn't something I see the Navy doing.


The-Copilot

The radioactive material is inside of the reactor, which is designed to hold it, inside of a giant metal box at the bottom of the ocean. The reactor is definitely off, and it's been decades now, so there is no chance of a critical failure blowing up the sub. The nuclear weapons also wouldn't have been armed. There probably isn't much movement to the water at those depths, so it can sit there undisturbed forever. Trying to recover it would be extremely expensive and possibly have a higher chance of contaminating the area. It's probably just safer to leave it alone even if it sounds lazy or reckless.


NotReallyJohnDoe

Is it really designed to withstand the bottom of the ocean? TIL. That makes much more sense.


nattetosti

That’s a pretty scary [citation needed] right there


TheDulin

Water is a very good sheild agaibst radiation. Even if the cores were just sitting on the ocean floor they'd only really impact an area a few meters in diameter. That's why spent nuclear fuel is stored in water-filled holding tanks - to keep it cool and to keep the radiation contained.


mechmind

So the plan is to test it annually and only take action when we detect a leak? Seems like a terrible idea. I bet they know exactly where the Torpedoes are. Much safer to move them before they start to leak


WarrenPuff_It

More like monitor the site frequently and allow it to become buried by degradation and sediment deposits. And if you think it seems safer to move them, where do you think they should be moved?


Amerlis

Makes sense. If the nuclear materials are worthless and there is no environmental threat, leave them be until the sea floor buries it all. Why go to the trouble of retrieval only to have to bury it again in some deep concrete bunker.


WarrenPuff_It

Exactly.


mechmind

Not in my back yard.


atreyal

Not really. Salvage ops could cause it to disintegrate halfway up. Then you have nuclear material spread over miles of the ocean floor instead of contained in a wreck. Sounds like they are also hoping that the corrosion takes care of it as well. Either way it is better left alone then trying to dredge it up 50 years later when everything is super brittle and would fall apart easily.


historianLA

You don't really know much about nuclear weapons. They aren't actually that radioactive. They also don't have much that 'leaks'. They are a core of solid radioactive material surrounded by conventional explosives. When they degrade they don't create evil green ooze. They would just oxidize in place and everything surrounding them would oxidize too entombing the radioactive material.


Repostbot3784

They are so old at this point trying to move them would probably cause a leak.  They are still inside the sunken submarine, they arent just laying there on some sand.


x31b

All of the control electronics are shot. The non-nuclear high explosives are probably inert now. But the plutonium or enriched uranium and the lithium deuteride would be fine. It would give a competent country a great head start not having to build a reactor or centrifuges to make the fissile materials.


Jak012398

Right??…


KnotSoSalty

The nuclear initiators are long gone by this point. Pollonium 210 only has a half life of 138 days. The plutonium could possibly be salvaged if the casings haven’t rusted away. The most likely scenario is though that they have. Plutonium will react with sea water and corrode so the most likely scenario is that theirs nothing left.


chibstelford

TIL that plutonium rusts


THElaytox

my fun fact is that two armed thermonuclear warheads (3.8Mton each) were dropped on Goldsboro, NC, neither went off and only one was recovered. and iirc on the one that was recovered they realized 2 of the 3 main safety mechanisms had failed, so we were one safety away from accidentally nuking Wayne County with an H bomb.


uid_0

Let's not forget about [the one off Tybee Island, GA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_collision).


buckyVanBuren

Dropped one on Mars Bluff, SC too.


Dontreallywantmyname

Im probably being pedantic over hyperbole but, I don't think the safeties failing means the bomb goes off just that it's in a state where it could potentially go off.


feralnycmods17

Godzilla angrily leaving bad reviews for his missing door dash order.


OldCatPiss

I was feeling Akira vibes then Godzilla saves us.


hellishafterworld

Considering that *four* submarines disappeared or sank in 1968, you might be onto something.


raptorsango

If I remember correctly there is a nuclear depth charge somewhere off of Seattle that we lost in the 50’s as well. A lot easier to drop this stuff than raise it back up.


ElJamoquio

No I only left one down there


afMunso

I'm suddenly curious about the number of nuclear related accidental close calls there've been globally. We may never know how close we've been to wiping ourselves out.


SpaceOpsCommando

Command and Control by Eric Schlosser talks about several of these incidents. It’s dense, but is an interesting read.


afMunso

Thanks, I will definitely be checking that out.


TropicRayder

My Grandfather served on the Scorpion a few weeks before it had gone under, all of his friends on the crew had rose tattoos, now he's the only one remaining.


mmuffley

Damn. I was gonna thunderball it from my disco volante.


jar1967

I suspect those MK 45 torpedos were recovered decades ago. The US Navy has the technology to do it and if they did it they wouldn't go public with it.


ErabuUmiHebi

There are several nuclear weapons located at undivable depths beneath the ocean.


Hydraulis

There are an alarming number of nuclear warheads still unaccounted for.


jec6613

It's a big reason the US is so hot on replacing nukes with conventional weapons that can do the same job. We used to have them in everything before precision weapons were available, because close enough counts with a nuke.


jec6613

It's a big reason the US is so hot on replacing nukes with conventional weapons that can do the same job. We used to have them in everything before precision weapons were available, because close enough counts with a nuke.


BubbaGumpScrimp

Sub Brief?


nonlawyer

The US, French, Israelis and Soviets each lost a sub in 1968.  Could just be a wild coincidence but my personal conspiracy theory is the Cold War hotted up a little bit under the waves that year.


MaryADraper

There were no Soviet subs nearby. We would have seen/heard them on SOSUS. It's definitely an unsupported conspiracy hypothesis. This boat had a lot of maintenance issues before being underway. This video goes through possible reasons why the Scorpion sank and debunks any silliness around Soviet/Cold War hot action - start at 28:38 for the Soviet stuff - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0Kf906TH1M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0Kf906TH1M) He runs through all the hypotheses for the incident starting around the 21:00 mark.


tsk05

The second sentence in the disappearance section of the wiki says their last message was: >Lt. John Roberts was handed Commander Slattery's last message that he was closing on the Soviet submarine and research group, running at a steady 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph) at a depth of 350 ft (110 m) "to begin surveillance of the Soviets."


nonlawyer

I mean if there was actual evidence it wouldn’t be a conspiracy theory now would it lol


ActedCarp

So you’re making assumptions off literally no evidence?


RomulanRepublic

You can almost say that he is not a lawyer with those arguments /s (The joke is his username)


Fit_War_1670

If there was evidence it wouldn't be fantasy.... I get that some "conspiracies" turn out to be true but 99.999% of them are bullshit.


rypher

You’re being downvoted a lot…. almost too much


Fit_War_1670

Id have to guess that the government knows exactly where this thing sank. Chances are(unless the info has been leaked) that YOU don't know exactly where it is. The ocean is very large trying to find a sunk(sank?) sub in it would be nearly impossible. Kinda like Russells teapot.


heisbrandon

The article gives the coordinates.


hellswarrior31

They know where it is now, but I don't think they did when it sank. I believe this is the submarine that was found by the same guy who found the titanic. He had new tech he wanted to use to find the titanic and the navy said they would fund it for some set time (think it was like 180 days) and if he found the submarine he could use any remaining time to look for the titanic. As I recall he found the submarine very fast and moved on to the titanic.