Soviet Doomsday Device Still Armed and Ready

Just saw this on Digg...

Soviet Doomsday Device Still Armed and Ready

The Soviet doomsday device -- a giant cobalt bomb rigged to explode were Russia ever nuked, rendering the earth's surface uninhabitable -- gained fictional fame in Dr. Strangelove. However, P.D. Smith's Doomsday Men, available in the UK and due for stateside publication in December, tells the story of the real Doomsday device -- and it's still armed.

I also found this older thread:
Soviet Madness

So what do you all think about this? Is this a part of the recent 'restart' of the Cold War?

Does the United States have a similar contraption, and if so, have we at least upgraded our computers?

The Wired blog article mentioned the movie Dr. Strangelove, which is quite a classic. Has anyone seen Colossus: The Forbin Project? It is quite an interesting movie for ATSers, if you haven't.

Any thoughts?
DocMoreau


[fixed the link, I think...]

[edit on 15/9/2007 by DocMoreau]

reply to post by DocMoreau


Your link isn't working. It goes to the main blog page.

reply to post by Beachcoma


The link works now... I am not sure what I did to butcher that.

Sorry for the inconvience.
DocMoreau

Wow, one bad link sure sinks the ship.

Or this is a non news event.
DocMoreau

How does this cobalt device work, do you know? Searching on Google what I got first was the tri-cobalt devices in Star Trek, which was my first thought anyway when I read the article... wahh, again, the Star Trek analogies!

Edit: Never mind, I changed the word device to bomb and found this wiki link.

[edit on 16-9-2007 by Beachcoma]

I would worry a lot more about the US if I were you. Russia havent made a aggressive move towards another country for ages.

Also, the article you linked to says that the US have similar devices.

It wont matter. If we really get into a world war 3, I would imagine that almost every human on earth dies from radiation, water poisoning, lack of food and shelter and so on.

Its a real shame that we still act like aggressive babies on this planet. Otherwise we could join the galactic community in peace, instead of having to sit here worrying about our leaders killing this insanely beautiful planet.


[edit on 16-9-2007 by Copernicus]

I don't believe in Doomsday devices, ask yourself. What can possibly be gained from self destruction?

Its not a self destruct device. If Russia was sneaked attacked with nuclear weapons and couldnt respond in time with their own nuclear weapons, this bomb would be a "if we cant win then no one will" course of action. It would be almost equivalent to launching all their nukes. Pretty much the results would be the same.



Colossus: The forbin project. Thank you! I saw this as a kid and never heard the name of it. Ive search for it so many times with no luck. This is awesome. Now I can watch it again.

Originally posted by Copernicus
I would worry a lot more about the US if I were you. Russia havent made a aggressive move towards another country for ages.

Also, the article you linked to says that the US have similar devices.

It wont matter. If we really get into a world war 3, I would imagine that almost every human on earth dies from radiation, water poisoning, lack of food and shelter and so on.

Its a real shame that we still act like aggressive babies on this planet. Otherwise we could join the galactic community in peace, instead of having to sit here worrying about our leaders killing this insanely beautiful planet.


[edit on 16-9-2007 by Copernicus]

I'd worry somewhat about Russia. What with Putin dissolving his own government, calling for the dismembering of NATO and flying long range recon bombers close to British airspace...not to mention his nuclear missile sabre rattling a few months back.

Things are heating up in the cold conflict. Luke warm anyway.

Originally posted by Pfeil
Its not a self destruct device. If Russia was sneaked attacked with nuclear weapons and couldnt respond in time with their own nuclear weapons, this bomb would be a "if we cant win then no one will" course of action. It would be almost equivalent to launching all their nukes. Pretty much the results would be the same.

Thats pointless though. It's not in anyones best interests.

reply to post by DocMoreau


I think the jump-start of the Cold War was the Press Release from Russia that they had devised the Father of all bombs and the United States, in turn, responded with the release that they had an even larger bomb (that I can seem to find a reference either in Google, BBC, or even ATS for?! - it was released like 2-days after the FOAB's was released.)

Mostly I am just worried.

I am worried about all the US sabre rattling.

In regard to the Soviet device, I am more worried that the computers might be old, and maybe hackable... I don't know enough about these things to tell the truth. maybe that is why the fear is there.

DocMoreau

I don't believe such a device exists, or if it does, it's not made with cobalt. As Dr. Strangelove said, if you simply want to bury bombs, there's no limit to the size. However, that was hyperbole, there are very definite limits to the size of bomb that could be made. Size, it turns out, is the achilles heel of the Cobalt-Salted bomb. While Cobalt 60 is indeed horribly radioactive, and has half life of around 6 years, a bomb would require an immense amount of cobalt to create enough fallout to enshroud the world. The estimate that was worked out came to 510 tonnes of cobalt, not to mention the amount of nuclear material needed.

The idea came from Herman Kahn, a nuclear war theorist in the 50s. I'm currently reading his magnum opus "On Thermonuclear war". His ideas were sort of out there, even for then. No one has ever seriously contemplated creating one and the idea is more often used as satire to parody the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction(as it was in strangelove)

[edit on 22-9-2007 by random hero]