Command and Control

Senior Airman David F. Powell and Airman Jeffrey L. Plumb: I spoke to Plumb and Powell about the accident. Plumb’s statement before the Missile Accident Investigation Board can be found at Tab U-71 and Powell’s at Tab U-73, “Report of Missile Accident Investigation: Major Missile Accident, 18–19 September 1980, Titan II Complex 374-7, Assigned to 308th Strategic Missile Wing, Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas,” conducted at Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas, and Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, December 14–19, 1980.

10 feet in diameter and 103 feet tall: According to the Titan II historian David K. Stumpf, the height of the missile was often erroneously described as “anywhere from 108 feet to 114 feet.” The actual height was 103.4 feet. See “Table 3.2, Titan II ICBM Final Design Specifications,” in David K. Stumpf, Titan II: A History of a Cold War Missile Program (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000), p. 49.

a yield of 9 megatons: The yields of American nuclear weapons remain classified, except for those of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But for decades government officials have discussed those yields, off the record, with journalists. Throughout this book, I cite the weapon yields published by a pair of reliable defense analysts. For some reason, the megatonnage of the warheads carried by the Titan and Titan II missiles was disclosed in a document obtained by the National Security Archive through the Freedom of Information Act. For the yields of the W-38 warhead atop the Titan and the W-53 atop the Titan II, see “Missile Procurement, Air Force,” U.S. Congress, House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Defense, May 16, 1961 (SECRET/declassified), NSA, p. 523. For the yields of other American weapons, see Norman Polmar and Robert S. Norris, The U.S. Nuclear Arsenal: A History of Weapons and Delivery Systems Since 1945 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2009), pp. 1–70.

about three times the explosive force of all the bombs: Although estimates vary, the American physicist Richard L. Garwin and the Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov both noted that the explosive force of all the bombs used during the Second World War was about 3 megatons. The United States was responsible for most of it. According to Senator Stuart Symington, who’d served as the first secretary of the Air Force after the war, the bombs dropped by the United States had a cumulative force of 2.1 megatons. Two thirds of that amount was employed against Germany, the rest against Japan. The enormous power of the Titan II’s warhead seems hard to comprehend. Nine megatons is the equivalent of eighteen billion pounds of TNT — about four pounds of high explosives for every person alive in September 1980. Symington’s estimates can be found in “Military Applications of Nuclear Technology,” Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Atomic Energy, 93rd Cong., April 16, 1973, pt. 1, pp. 3–4. For the other estimates, see Richard L. Garwin, “New Weapons/Old Doctrines: Strategic Warfare in the 1980s,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 124, no. 4 (1980), p. 262; and Andrei Sakharov, “The Danger of Thermonuclear War,” Foreign Affairs, Summer 1983, p. 1002.

“hypergolic”: The word, according to rocket scientists, means “spontaneously ignitable.” One of the advantages of using hypergolic propellants is that the propellants eliminate the need for an ignition system in a missile. One of the disadvantages is how dangerous they are. For a good introduction to the subject, see B. M. Nufer, “A Summary of NASA and USAF Hypergolic Propellant Related Spills and Fires,” National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA/TP-2009-214769, June 2009. For a more thorough examination, see the chapters “Liquid Propellant Rocket Engine Fundamentals” and “Liquid Propellants” in George P. Sutton and Oscar Biblarz, Rocket Propulsion Elements, 7th ed. (New York: Wiley, 2001), pp. 197–267.

supersonic convergent-divergent nozzles: Shaped like an hourglass, a convergent-divergent nozzle increases the velocity of a hot gas by forcing it through a narrow chamber.

The fuel, Aerozine-50: A brief overview of the Titan II’s propellants and their hazards can be found in “Propellant Transportation Awareness Guide for Titan II Deactivation,” Department of the Air Force, October 1, 1982. A more detailed account is offered in “Titan II Storable Propellant Handbook,” Revision B, Bell Aerosystems Company, Prepared for Air Force Ballistic Systems Division, March 1963.

a Rocket Fuel Handler’s Clothing Outfit (RFHCO): For a description of the gear and its proper use, see “Missile Liquid Propellant Systems Maintenance Specialist: Volume 3, Propellant Transfer System,” CDC 4551, Extension Course Institute, Air Training Command, February 1983, pp. 1–42.