It’s a dead-man switch, given to Don as the best choice of the crew for the job - a bit of typical Heinlein-think that gets repeated in later books.
From memory: “This thing triggers a nuke?” “Wrong - we should waste so much money! but the load in HE is quite a bit for a little packet like this, so if you feel the need to scratch, rise above it.” After they make successful contact, the commander adds, “Don, we’d all feel better if you’d put that away. We’re not going to need it.”
Don’t know if that’s the first such appearance in sf (or anywhere). Not even sure it’s the first appearance in a Heinlein story - something else nags at me.
Pretty standard in my corner of aviation to bring a shredder on deployments; both to destroy encripted communication material in the course of the deployment as it reaches its expiry, and for times that we’d ditch at sea or have to land in a hostile country. It’s discussed in our ditching checklist, but if we took a missile or had a mid-air collision, it might be tough to execute the destruction sequence.
I can imagine a large gas-gas jet ejector powered by what would be essentially a smallish solid fuel rocket motor could mange it. Has the advantage of not needing any external power, and has essentially no moving parts.
The more I think about it, the more fiendishly evil such a device appears.
Spoilers for Season 2 of Walking Dead
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This reminds me of a plot device on the Season 2 finale of The Walking Dead. This was at the CDC, where the scientist in charge self-destructed the HQ. I guess the CDC’s supposed to have this in case germs get out or something.
So new question: Does anyone know if the CDC has something like this? Not just an evacuation and containment procedure, but an actual bomb or something that’s supposed to vaporize the air in case something like smallpox were to get out?
At the time, I was stationed at a “Special” P-3 unit that had a similar, but not identical, mission. We were told that the airplane in question did not have adequate means to destroy the sensitive material and equipment, and neither did we. That week we went out and purchased axes and large hammers to be used if that ever happened to us.
Years earlier, when I was stationed in Iceland, I was trained on the use of some type of plates that supplied their own O2 if burned. We were taught to put a few of the plates in between files in the bottom drawer of a file cabinet, and ignite one of them and close the drawer. The heat would be enough to reduce all paper in the cabinet to ash. We got a demonstration out on the rocks.
Years earlier, when I was stationed in Iceland, I was trained on the use of some type of plates that supplied their own O2 if burned. We were taught to put a few of the plates in between files in the bottom drawer of a file cabinet, and ignite one of them and close the drawer. The heat would be enough to reduce all paper in the cabinet to ash. We got a demonstration out on the rocks.
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Now the question is if those plates contained thermite or celluloid film. That old film can burn under water.
The tricky part with trying to burn paper files is that they need to be spaced out. Pack them tight in a file cabinet drawer, and you’ll probably just end up with a bunch of singed edges unless you’re able to sustain the fire for a few hours.
The big problem with equipping a missile with a self-destruct mechanism is that if the enemy obtains the codes that can activate the self-destruct sequence, it makes your weapons useless.
For this reason, operational (i.e. non-test) missiles are NOT routinely equipped with a self-destruct mechanism.
It’s not exactly a self-destruct in the “BOOM” sense, but on certain survival radios and key loaders they have a way of deleting the codes such that doing so would render them useless for anybody else. Making something non-functional is essentially the same thing.
I imagine that in a WW3 scenario, once nuclear armed bombers reached enemy territory they would initiate a “fail deadly” protocol, so if they were shot down their bombs would go off, to whatever effect. I could easily be wrong though; anyone?
We do need leak-proof walls and doors* so I’m thinking lots of welded steel and plastic, but we are gonna nuke the building after we vacuum seal it, so it don’t need to be all that strong!
*So, all these sealed doors that keep Hall from getting to the key substations . . . they weren’t designed to stop the air laden with microorganisms? That sounds more like a bug than a feature.
This, at least in theory, also solves the “What the fuck were you thinking Mr. Crichton? You’re venting all that lethally contaminated air to where exactly?” problem this crazy idea has.
I’m certain that even though Andromeda (et al.) can survive a radiation filled hard vacuum and the heat of re-entry, fire will surely work . . . we’re gonna need a bigger [DEL][COLOR=“Black”]boat[/DEL][/COLOR] HEPA filter!
That’s easy, as anyone that’s tried taking a dent out of a ping-pong ball with an open flame knows, celluloid wants to burn thermite doesn’t want to stop!
A little greenman (fireworks maker) pro tip: When you need to water-proof something that you also want to burn, most often fuse, use nitrocellulose lacquer which can be made by dissolving ping-pong balls in acetone.
Before I even read the Wiki, I could have told you this is a bad idea.
I’ve been on/around/under/in more airfields that most people have been to the airport in their lives. Having live explosives under a runway, while not immediately a danger, isn’t a very good idea. Charges (especially their fusing systems/firing trains) are susceptible to the elements, such as water, that the Wiki alludes to. While yeah, a temporary installation under a road or bridge in a contingency isn’t probably all that bad, a permanent installation under a runway isn’t good. There are a lot of utility lines underneath airfield pavement, and the fact you have multi-dozen ton aircraft slamming down on that pavement makes for . . . complications. Currently, there are no “self destruct” systems for airfields in the US inventory, nor any worldwide that I know of. Now there are UXOs well buried underneath some airfields that I know of, but the risk of tinkering with those is too great to the area and life & limb. The decision was made to let sleeping dogs lie. There are also Bangalore ‘torpedoes’ that are effective for breaching, but not necessarily cratering or ‘self destruct’ purposes.
Specifically, I have cratering charges (M2A3 15lb, or M3 40lb conical shaped charges) for planned runway or road denial. I used the latter when me & my folks had to blast down to a jettisoned Mk 82 in our bomb dump. So, cratering charges are good for . . . well, cratering, and disposal too.
Tripler
I am a trained professional. Do not try this at home.
What about nuclear missile subs? It wouldn’t take any special equipment to destroy the boat, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the crew had orders to sink the sub if it is ever taken over by a hostile force.
How would a submarine (which sailors refer to as a ‘boat’, not a ship) be “taken over by a hostile force”? The captain and crew may scuttle the vessel if they have to surface and abandon ship with no means to salvage, but it would be an odd circumstance where an opposing force could literally board a submarine.
You overlooked a critical plot twist: the titular microorganism had mutated into a form that dissolved plastics and rubber. The doors had perfectly good seals, until the bugs ate them. And the sudden failure of hermetic containment is what triggered the sudden [del]contrived plot crisis[/del] automatic self-destruct.
You’re thinking of an opposed boarding of a combat-active submarine. That would be impossible, as you say; when a modern sub is combat-active, it’s submerged and sealed up.
The only historical examples of a submarine successfully boarded involve a disabled submarine forced to the surface by damage and abandoned or intentionally surrendered. If the crew panic-abandons the sub, scuttling attempts might be ineffective and the boat can be (and historically, has been) captured.
In these case, the self-destruct (scuttling) may have been attempted but not successful because scuttling takes time and the boarding party got aboard in time to stop it. A more definitive self-destruct (explosives?) may be harder to stop, but if it has a countdown it’s potentially stoppable. Any explosive system safe enough to trust inert most of the time would probably complex enough to stop by tearing out wires or detcord and such.
C-4