Posted on 10/26/2010 4:26:46 PM PDT by Nachum
President Obama was briefed this morning on a power failure at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming that took 50 nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), one-ninth of the U.S. missile stockpile, temporarily offline on Saturday.
The base is a main locus of the United States' strategic nuclear forces. The 90th Missile Wing, headquartered there, controls 150 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles. They're on full-time alert and are housed in a variety of bunkers across the base.
On Saturday morning, according to people briefed on what happened, a squadron of ICBMs suddenly dropped down into what's known as "LF Down" status, meaning that the missileers in their bunkers could no longer communicate with the missiles themselves. LF Down status also means that various security protocols built into the missile delivery system, like intrusion alarms and warhead separation alarms, were offline.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
We had a 12 year old SUN UNIX server at work. We had to nurse it just to keep running. Things get old and they must be updated.
Any reports of UFO activity in the area?
This was deliberate...probably the ChiComs.
That’s the FIRST thing I thought of too!
Excuse me for asking a silly question: You mean that those sites don’t have axillary power backup? Like a diesel electric generator? Something doesn’t sound quite right.
Me too. What does George Noory know, and when did he know it?
Why was this leaked? A reason to stop that program. Having problems so 0 does away with them?
Did he smile?
Dems and envior weenies will make sure we have solar power backup for the missile silos.
Hmm ... ping!
If this had happened during the Clinton Admin we would have no reason for concern because he lost the nuclear launch codes anyway !
Reading the article, it was not a power failure. They had communications network problems and could not isolate the offending launch control center, so they took the entire squadron offline and brought up LCCs one by one.
This is troubleshooting.
I suppose they could have shut them off one by one, but since all 50 missiles were FUBAR, the approach of shutting them all down first may have brought more of them back on line faster.
To most so-called journalists those are identical problems :-)
Nah, nobody remembers that.
They also wrote this: “are housed in a variety of bunkers across the base...”
Missles are housed in silos scattered across a wide area, not necessarily including the base itself.
We only have 450 ICBMs?
I know why would they even bother telling 0. Its not like he cares. He probably told them to scrap the whole base!
They’re MRVed though.
According to Wikipedia they are not currently Mirvs. Maybe its safe to not MIRV if you are not in a cold war situation?
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