The Submarine That Turned into a Ticking Nuclear Bomb
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- Опубликовано: 18 сен 2024
- In September of 2021, a Russian expedition searching for radioactive waste pinpointed the exact location of the reactor compartment of the troubled Soviet submarine K-19, 60 years after she was deliberately thrown overboard in the Kara Sea.
K-19 was Moscow’s first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine and was launched in 1959 as the Russian's answer to the USS Nautilus. However, her production and testing were so rushed that even her captain did not believe she was fit for combat.
Two years later, during her first ever mission in the North Atlantic Sea, K-19's nuclear compartment suffered a malfunction. Already considered one of the unluckiest vessels to ever serve any nation and without a backup coolant system while hundreds of feet underwater, Russia's mighty vessel was now on the verge of turning into a nuclear bomb…
K-19: We are the unluckiest vessel ever to set sail.
Adm. Kuznetsov: Hold my mazut.
The classic Soviet hero: someone who valiantly went above and beyond the call of duty to overcome the situation that his own corrupt, arrogant, and incompetent government put him into. You could fill a lengthy book with their stories.
First learned of this story through 'K-19 The Widowmaker' which was an excellent Movie IMO.
Hollywood typically varies the facts for dramatization, but I think in this instance it worked well.
Those Submariners helped avert disaster on an epic scale & they paid the ultimate price with their lives later on. it's a pity that they weren't properly acknowledged for their bravery, dedication & sacrifice...true heroes indeed.
Not unlike the volunteers at Chernobyl who put the fire out and built the first sarcophagus. Russia leaders learn nothing as they are doing the same thing again in Ukraine.
I don't care what country they are from. The men who volunteered to entered that reactor room should be considered heros
I doubt they volunteered.
They should have just scuttled the sub after having all the crew get off it to life rafts. Get picked up by rescue ships that were there when this happened.
I don't care if they were ordered or volunteered they absolutely are Heroes and shouldn't be considered such
@@ultimobici. - Other than a hatred of the Soviet Union, what is the basis for your belief they did not volunteer?
The Soviet Union was a giant piece of crap...case closed
I served on three ships, helicopter carriers, as a Marine. I've been aboard a couple subs, can only imagine serving on one actively. Those men knew what the cost was and went willingly. That is real courage.
I know it's cliche but I really do thank you brother
subs are scary .. they really scare the heck outta me and so does the ocean itself.
As others have stated, the reactor cannot explode like an atomic bomb. If it were as easy to make an atomic bomb as amassing a sufficient quantity of enriched uranium and bringing it together then any country that could obtain that material could make an atomic bomb. It doesn't work that way. It requires sophisticated technology and sufficient fuel to make an atomic bomb.
100%
Regardless, that thing blowing up miles from a NATO base would stir up some bee hives.
Out of curiosity how big of an explosion could one of these produce? Nuclear power plant failure levels? Or less of an explosion?
Basically when any reactor melts down. The fuel (nuclear material) melts and then breaches the containment vessel. When it does it flash boils the water causing extreme pressure, the neutron release can break the bonds of water into hydrogen and oxygen adding to the explosion. But unlike a fusion or fission bomb there isn’t enough chain reaction to detonate. They are good at spreading radioactive material though.
@@MrOdins007 in short, a "dirty bomb".??
No but you could get it hot enough to create a very radio active steam explosion
Sailors are brave heroes, regardless of political affiliation. Hate to see them sacrificed to some politician's whim, by rushing the vessel into service.
thats why they are not brave but fools for listening idiot orders, same goes for everyone who goes to war on some politician whim, they are not heroes they are killers and ignorant fools that must be iradicated and deleted if we ever want to advance as human civ
If you are in the military, your nothing but a pawn in politicians games....it really doesn't matter what your intentions are you can just as easily be ordered to your death as a cover up and/or spend the rest of your life in prison if you sniff it out and don't follow orders.
Harrison Ford went to the grave site with the survivors of K-19 after filming was completed on the film K-19: The Widow Maker. Ford and those sailors toasted their memories.
The scene of the christening was memorable because as the Soviet National Anthem was being played and a young woman swung the bottle and the bottle was unbroken, one of the sailors said, “We’re cursed.”
These men were fighting enemy that they couldn’t see. An enemy that can and will kill them all if they didn’t find a solution to bring it under control.
@@garyreid6165 the only enemy is their superiors who send em in that coffin. Nothing else and to add to the irony there was never any kind of race between US and Russia not in Space not in military wise technologies. Its all a show for the sheep and it is known well that US and Russia are working together from the beginning and the only enemy is we the people who have a mind to think for ourselves not to buy any of their BS
Sailors work on ships that sail on top of the water, submariners are a whole different type mariner because you need to be fearlessly brave to submerge in one of them things knowing a pin hole can assure your death. Needless to say if scared to death of submarine’s. I went on 20 thousand leagues under the sea at Disney as a child and I was even crying on that submarine. From that day forward I said no more submarines ever… 😂
"turning into a nuclear bomb" is an exaggeration. What could have happened is a reactor meltdown, with radioactive contamination of the sea as a consequence. However, there are quadrillion tons of seawater and thus the overall effect on the ocean would have been only minor, similar to the non-event when the radioactive cooling water from Fukushima was discharged into the ocean.
Yeah, I was thinking;t the same thing. Doesn’t quite sound as good though does it - the reactor would have not exploded and wasn’t that much of a problem!
Also water will stop the radiation from causing a lot of harm
The 3 nuclear warheads aren’t at risk in this scenario?
@@soulesslemming no.
The uploader needs to grab attention with an alarming title.
The reactor would have melted down, not exploded. Any hydrogen gas could explode, but as a conventional explosion
And even if you consider that it got hot enough to melt right out of the bottom of the submarine it would just sink The submarine by melting a huge hole through the bottom of it hot things that are nuclear is not nuclear explosion
Yep, it could become a horrible dangerous mess, but unless the fuel was about 10 times more enriched than it needed to be for a subs reactor that won't happen. and even then a melted reactor won't explode in a nuclear explosion at worst it would be like Chernobyl but smaller, and more remote from humans.
What about the 3 warheads on board?
I was about to post the same thing, I hate it when people talk about nuclear reactors blowing up whether they be in a submarine or on land. The general public seems to believe that if a reactor had a meltdown it's going to blow up like a nuclear bomb. Which couldn't be further from the truth. If there were going to be any type of "explosion" it would be steam related.
Still way up there in the bad things category.
The men who went into that reactor room, knowing the radiation would kill them, remind me of Spock at the end of _Star Trek II._ A horrible thing to have to do but, as in Spock's case, the logical thing to do.
maybe the story of Spock at the end of STll was referencing the Widowmaker (Hiroshima Submarine)
A very painful incident weak humain ever helpless on badluck death sleep
Good on Pravda at the end. I understand that even that late there was pushback against telling the tale, but the journalists were finally able to reveal it. The crew of K19 were heroes of their nation, and the world.
I remember seeing another video about K-19...those brave volunteers could not be given the medals they deserved because they weren't at war. Very few people know about what they did, or what it cost them. I served in the military and those men deserve the highest honors Russia can bestow on them.
Honor and Russia in the same sentence is actually funny 😂
@@Shadow__133 we got another couch expert...no one cares of your opinion
@@PavelAVasilevich Aaaahh.. don't cry! 😭
Not everyone can be a winner. But every Russian is a loser, like you! 👍
Not many people know?? I mean If you ignore the endless references all over youtube...and the big Hollywood movie K19. And mention in EVERY documentary about submarines....then you must be someplace the truth is hidden from you like Russia
Not every Russian is a loser though...something close to 25,000 Russian were brave enough to let everyone know how they feel about attacking families in the country next door and now sit in Russian prisons..many more evaded capture by putins thugs
@@Shadow__133 your a Clown 🤡
Reactors meltdown, hydrogen may explode (chemical reaction) but no nuclear fission or fusion explosion will occur.
There is a vast difference between the design of a bomb or a reactor and both are intentionally engineered to do different things and are not interchangeable no matter how hard you try...
Most people don't realize this
A reactor is intentionally engineered to leave the land uninhabitable for centuries? Kinda silly comment there.
@@R0me0316 you can contaminate the land for centuries just blowing up pile of the nuclear waste. Do need reactor for that. Your comment is silly.
@@redsun9261 they aren't intentionally engineered to do so. That was my point. A reactor will do as such, while a nuclear weapon consumes the radioactive material far more efficiently and the area is habitable within a few months with minimal side effects.
@@redsun9261 good luck blowing up something encased in a metre thick, steel reinforced, armoured concrete casket designed to resist impacts from jet airliners.
If you think that was the only sub reactor core in the Kara Sea you haven't been paying attention.
Bottom of Kara Sea is probably the best place for them. They have unlimited cooling and the actinides can gradually decay to background levels. 30,000 years to reach 50% radioactivity is a long time, but its nothing on the geological scale.
I just commented the same thing, they dumped untold amounts of all kinds of nuclear waste up there.thats how they do it over there.
Those brave men faced death, but they did it anyway. A Russian hero. a man will lay down his life for his brother. Nuclear radiation death is the worst way to die in my book.
These brave volunteers should be applauded worldwide as they likely saved thousands if not millions of lives
These men were true heroes.
No question about it. Thanks to them, we are here today and not in nuclear waste land.
The reactor part of the K-19 is currently on the bottom of the ocean.
"Turn into a nuclear bomb"
That's... not how reactor meltdowns work.
That's not what was meant, the radiation leak had the same effect as the radiation from the Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima did on the people of the Town, that bomb had low yield radiation that was designed to kill as many people as possible from radiation poisoning (ignore the people who died during the Blast when the Atomic bomb exploded for the purposes of the explanation because that's what is confusing everyone) over the following years and as did the radiation poisoning aboard the K-19, now after a lot of decontamination Hiroshima is habitable again with regular health checks to make sure that there isn't any radiation hot-spots
i don't think anybody on board the ship would care about the physics when it blows up
that's exactly how they work
@lospolloshermanos5659 reactors cannot under any circumstance detonate like a nuclear bomb. They have completely different conditions inside them and the fuel is not nearly enriched enough to lead to a nuclear explosion. A meltdown leads to the reactor core melting into a lump of heated radioactive slag, plus maybe a hydrogen detonation that cannot damage the containment building
"Just follow the trail of glowing fish" was the quip I heard about locating a Soviet nuclear boat.
Interestingly, the XO on the K-19 was almost certainly the sole man that prevented WW3 a year later during the Cuban Missile Crisis when he refused to authorize the launch of a nuclear tipped torpedo at an American warship.
Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov Is the guys name he did serve on the K-19 and was one of the 22 that went into the reactor room on the sub
This sub wasn't unlucky, it was Soviet / Russian which is way worse than any kind of bad luck that one could have.
Still better then loosing nuclear bomb over the Europe..
Just plane ol trash (roosian)
The Soviets were so amoral. Those men gave their life to avoid a war and they didn't even get the credit for it. Just go and forget what you have seen and done
"The most advanced ship in the world!" Acording to the the Soviet Union-I mean Russia? -LazerPig
The movie was really well done with Ford and Neeson.
The click bait titles are not doing the channel justice. I think I can speak for all regular viewers that we’d prefer to see better ones.
We’re here for good content. Not click bait.
To be fair, most of what this guy makes is Clickbait, not just video titles!
then stop watching his videos
My father was an US NAVY airman with ASW patrol squadron 56 stationed on Iceland and his plane was the first on station to take pictures of the K19.
So many parallels between K19 and what happened at Chernobyl. Brave volunteers sacrificing their lives to fight against desperate odds.
No reactor is going to turn into a fission bomb, their fuel is far too impure for that. It feels like you’re heading into clickbait territory like a bad History channel show.
A meltdown with 3 nuclear warheads on board kind of complicates the situation don’t you think?
@@soulesslemming not to the point of a nuclear bomb type explosion
Still, either way just plain bad juju all the way around.
@@scottsimon3034 bad juju, yes. But not a nuclear explosion
@@soulesslemming But the missile booster would explode well before the nuclear warhead reached meltdown temperatures
Some brave sailors right there. Those guys are heroes not only to their fellow crew but maybe to the whole world
I was a little kid in 1960, just about 6 years old. Where I grew up was fairly close to the U.S Navy Submarine Base -Groton and General Dynamics Electric Boat Shipyard. There were noticeable Naval Presents. It took a lot of work to work out the Nuclear Powered Submarines, We lost two in the 1960s. The Russians had it worst since the country operates on a level and mindset that would never fly here in the States or elsewhere with few exceptions in the world. They tend to "Make Do" is a good description for the Russians, they do lots of things well, but damn they have a tendency to do too many seats of the pants flying just so they can tell themselves we can keep up and match up you with an economy that comes up really short. While I have no love for the Soviet Union and what it stood for, the serving officers and enlisted men did have a degree of discipline and sense of duty that is sorely lacking today. K-19 was just one of the many missed steps, tragedies, and criminal behavior that plagued the Soviet Union from the start of the 1917 revolution. It seems the Russian Federation didn't learn anything either.
Putin longs for a return to those days and we are witnessing the result.
K-19’s reactor has been under water for decades , so the chance of a nuclear melt down is low as the reactor is flooded with sea water. Also there wouldn’t be a nuclear explosion as the Uranium within the warheads would be weaken after decades of exposer to sea water.
K19 never sunk…
What? The K19 never sank!
@@shane011471 She also never sunk… 😅
@vondahe Sorry, but look it up in the di
@vondahe Sorry BUT look it up in the dictionary?
The Widow Maker.. The Kursk could have been another disaster as well had the crew not shut down the reactors before they all died.
US reactors are designed to scram automatically. One of our subs was lost to this, leading to the ability to stop an automated scram.
I'm unsure about Russian reactors though. They were damned careless about this stuff.
They were definitely the most elite crew. So many of them gave there live to stop a war from happening. That's pretty elite
Man those were some brave souls that volunteered to enter the reactor chamber
RIP to the all her crew that died . Brave seamen they were. May Russia always remember thier service.
Honestly, I think Russia could care less
@@Jermo7899 that's what I think deep down but I hope someone over there remembers
@@judydavenport9636 I hope so. People who serve honorably should always be remembered, No matter the differences
I love that “k-19 widowmaker” movie. Facing that radiation is downright terrifying to me.
It does not appear that Russian equipment has improved a great deal in the years since.
They have some of the most advanced weaponry in the world at the moment. People really need to read more and not rely on Google and mainstream media.
Akula class has good service records.
"We need another torpedo Captain, we need to dock at a harbor we are defenceless"
"No need, we will simply use a bigger torpedo"
I’m sure it has been commented here but a nuclear fission reactor CANNOT turn into a Nuclear Fission Bomb. The Uranium-235 used in the fuel rods are only enriched to about 40%, which is not anywhere near enough to trigger the kind of runaway criticality incident, nor are reactors configured in a way that would cause a nuclear explosion. What would happen is, thermal runaway that would cause a reactor meltdown that could cause a reactor explosion, either due to a steam explosion and or a hydrogen explosion that would kind of act like a very dirty nuclear bomb. Spreading radiation, similarly to how the Chernobyl nuclear disaster did, as that was an uncontained reactor failure/ explosion where the runaway heat causes a steam or hydrogen explosion that would spread radiation and the fuel rods would them melt into molten lava like substance, something referred to as corium.
10:30 after listing her collisions and fires he says.. “ in 1992 she is given the name Hiroshima, than in 1990 she….” And listed the next problem. This guy’s video are normally spot on so I’m just busting balls a little, “ the North Atlantic,” shows map of pacific than goes from 1992 and says than in 1990 haha just giving you a hard time. Love your videos man they are always great and spot on. Keep up the great videos!! I’m not knocking them at all.. just busting balls. I try and remember to hit the like button, I have a habit of just watching but I’m trying to remember to hit the button to help creators that make good content. I understand that it makes a difference. Anyway thanks for another well done video! I’m a big fan of all the Dark channels.
A nuclear meltdown is nothing like a nuclear bomb...
Russian Navy: We spared no expense!
The expense was the the sailors.
There was a Harrison Ford movie called K-19, The Widowmaker
Yes, good film too.
Did he land it on an airport taxiway? ;)
@@skydiverclassc2031 ah, no
@@skydiverclassc2031 Anywhere he wants. He is Harrison fucking Ford 😂
Love the content can’t get enough of your channels.
A lady did not swing the champagne bottle. Instead, a captain third rank Panov swung the bottle. He was later demoted. A number of other details are in error. Your historical accuracy needs improvement.
(per Wikipedia)
0:41 almost every other vessel in the Russian navy: hold my beer
damn brave engineers, Rest Easy Hero's
You don't know how nuclear reactors or nuclear bombs work. A reactor cannot create a nuclear explosion to suggest that is ignorant.
Brave brave men.. Bless them..
The voice over program used in these videos is getting more and more unreliable. It wasn't a soldering issue that caused the accident, it was a WELDING ISSUE that was the start of the incident.
3:10
"They might as well be wearing RAIN COATS!!" Well, they were.
When your coolant temp gauge on a nuclear reactor starts reading "????" It's time to shit your pants
Ok. Nuclear meltdowns aren’t like a bomb going off.
Russian Sub Cmdr: Sir! Reporting fatal manufacturing flaws & catastrophic computational errors, sir!
High Russian Official: Did I hear you say your family was moving to Siberia this winter, comrade?
Russian Sub Cmdr: Sir! All testing is complete with highest marks! All is combat ready & capable, sir!
High Russian Official: Yes, that's what I thought you said the first time, comrade. Set sail!
Great story. Well presented in this short doc. Saw the Kathryn Bigelow film too. And the obsessive cherry on the overly thorough cheeseburger, I even read the book. I couldn't finish watching the piece, because my genitals started itching, just like they do when I drive past the Pickering Nuclear Station. That's a complement, BTW.
0:35. “Two years later in the N Atlantic “ dunno if anyone else noticed but the image/map is of the N pacific. That’s east coast of Russia and the western allusion islands. No big deal , just pointing it out haha..
A nuclear reactor cannot explode like a nuclear bomb. They are two completely different designs.
R.I.P. to the brave hero's that gave their lives for the greater good!
R.I.P.
My guess is they had the moderator rods retracted too far and the “cooked the head” and couldn’t get the rods back in to slow the reaction.
what not many people know is that Anatoli Djatlov helped build the k19 and the nuclear reactor. During an accident, he received 200 rem (2 Sv), a dose that causes mild radiation sickness. and Djatlov was in charge of reactor 4 at the time of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster on April 26, 1986. so this man was a disaster to work with
Creating a hydrogen/steam explosion wouldn't be too difficult for a reactor meltdown. Remember it was steam pressure in the reactor core that caused the structural failure at chernobyl. Imagine a meltdown in a sub boring through the hull and hitting cold sea water. The explosion would've been catastrophic. Not thermonuclear bomb level of destruction but the damage would be severe nevertheless. Add into the fact that the K19 had nuclear warheads onboard in the form of her missiles and it's even worse. While most safety systems would prevent an accidental arming and detonation of a nuke even we Americans had issues with safety systems failing under severe circumstances. If the shock of the steam explosion damaged the warheads they could IN THEORY go off and that would be detrimental for all the world to say the least considering where K19 was when her cooling system failed. Let's all agree to call this a nuclear near miss and pray that we as a species never come this close to bringing about our own Armageddon ever again.
Goes to show how little human life means to governments...we are not without our dirty skeletons either.
"And in 1992 the submarine secured her reputation and nickname of Hiroshima, then in 1990"
Wait, this sub could time travel???
Ah yes yet another fine example of Soviet nuclear technology being sound and safe
Gotta hand it to the brave soldiers who all raised their hands. Inspirational.
Sailors moron no soldiers.
A fascinating yet harrowing discovery - playing testbed for radical technology and innovation...
...with dangerously sub-par quality control 😳
I can’t remember if it’s the same incident, but the lieutenant who went in to fix the reactor came back out 5 minutes later vomiting and turning red because he was hit with about 100 sieverts. That man actually holds the title of most irradiated person, not Ouchi
I heard that the champagne bottle didn't break because of the rubberized coating on the submarine. Kind of shows how much they thought things through 😂
I feel awful typing this but it’s the gods honest truth, unfortunately when I read the title of this video I had a hunch it was about Russia. And that’s not to belittle the Russian navy - The courage of these 22 sailors sacrifice Is second to none!
It is true that a nuclear bomb is not the same as a nuclear meltdown. However, nuclear meltdowns can still be a huge problem. Remember Chernobyl? That was not a bomb. It is still a highly radioactive zone to this day. Obviously, a submarine reactor has less nuclear fuel than a reactor like Chernobyl...
The submarine melting down in close proximity to NATO assets is absolutely a cause for concern. At that time, NATO and the USSR were constantly looking for reasons to attack each other. Those volunteers sacrificed their lives so that peace was more likely. They made that decision knowing that nobody would give them credit and they could never speak about the event even if they lived. Those are the kinds of people that created the relative peace we get to enjoy today. Take some time to appreciate them.
The movie k 19 the Widowmaker with Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson about this is awesome
a nuclear reactor can't be a nuclear bomb. Saying the opposite is physically incorrect. Percentage of enrichment of an average nuclear civil reactor is from 3 to 5%. In submarines, gets even higher for better control, going up to 20/25%, A nuclear bomb needs at leat 90% enriched fuel
Nuclear reactors on subs are too small to make any kind of spectacular explosion. Worst case scenario with extraordinary incompetence from the crew the reactor would melt down badly, leaving the sub dead in the water. Catastrophic explosion of a submarine nuclear reactor is extremely unlikely. In fact, so unlikely the Three Mile Island meltdown was partially caused by the fact the crew controlling it was an ex sub crew. And these people simply didn't consider such a thing as meltdown even a thing as residual heat from reaction in a sub reactor is small enough to be contained by a simple shutdown. Not so for a full sized distribution reactor.
Alvin Weinburg, who designed the US submarine PWRs, always said it was not appropriate to upscale these reactors. They are super safe at around 20 megawatts, but utility sized units have all sorts of (potential) problems with cooling especially with decay heat. That's why he advocated molten salt for utility scale plants and got told to shut up by his superiors. TMI proved him right.
The other thing is a sub or for that matter an carrier reactor is surrounded by cooling water. Commercial reactors are not and lack of cooling water is what caused all 3 commercial disasters.
'Not christened in champagne, then christened in blood'.
Yes, submarine reactors don’t simply turn into nuclear bombs. That movie reality. Not “actual “ reality.
Bruh why do Russians throw shit and search for it again
@John Smith Even your brain🧠 is poorly designed by nature as a 🧟♂️ you're
I fail to see how a meltdown of a reactor would be more extensive then the nuke bombs of WW2. Chernobal wasn't nor any other reactor explosion. An explosion yes but not like a nuke.
Given what we've seen from Russia this year. I am not surprised at all
Captain Natayev and his crew deserved every medal in Russia 🇷🇺 xxx
Need a follow up on the Kara sea. With multiple "dumps" well call it. I'm just a tad concerned about the effects on anything from that area.
The Simpsons 3-eyed fish comes to.ind but I know it's not just that simple.
Health and Safety is still not hi on the Russian priorities
The Russian military are a danger to themselves!😊
@V VR you must be a clown 🤡
I LOVE DIS GUY MODE OF SPEAK
Wow that is so sad. Good moive as well. Nice video.
You should know that no submarine reactor can explode like an atomic bomb!
Could a thermal explosion cause the missile war heads to detonate?
@@barrylongden7 No, that’s not how nuclear weapons work.
@@barrylongden7 Those bombs are very touchy, things have to go off in the right sequence with pretty much perfect timing, an exterior event setting off the primer would almost inevitably compromise the bomb in some way. You would almost certainly have some radioactive contamination but if the event was to happen underwater the mess would be significantly reduced.
In short it's pretty easy to blow up a nuclear bomb, but pretty hard to get an actual nuclear explosion.
Did you just say "RUH-DAY-OH" Active waste ? 😂 0:04
(Ray-Dee-Oh-Ak-tiv) Radioactive !
I very rarely downvote videos. I usually just close the window if it's something I didn't like. But this absolutely deserves a downvote. Stop perpetuating the myth that reactors can become nuclear bombs. I only made it 2 minutes into the video before I had to shut it off because of that. There may be a lot of facts in this video, and an interesting story, but the misinformation about a potential nuclear explosion completely discredits you and this video.
Respect and RIP the sailors and more respect for the 22 sailors
This story is interesting enough without you needing to lie and claim that it could have exploded like a nuclear bomb... A nuclear reactor cannot, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, explode like a nuclear bomb. Ever.
That soviet navy is just the bees knees. Always excelling at killing themselves far more competently than any enemy they encounter.
I remember in my AP chem class, we actually watched this movie about the sub, and I could never for the life of me remember the name of that sub.
Fascinating story that at the time, I honestly didn't believe was real.
K-19 the Widowmaker. Harrison Ford staring, very good film.
Lack of coolant while surrounded by water, Soviet irony is insane.
K19 the widow maker
"Now on the verge of turning into a nuclear bomb!"
I'm not a nuclear physicist but it's my understanding that while a reactor can certainly explode, a reactor is not and can not be a nuclear bomb not even if you wanted to. Also Nuclear gasses???
I often enjoy this channel's content, but I get a little prickly when people talk about Nuclear reactors in this way because it leads the less knowledgeable people to the wrong conclusions, and in turn those conclusions lead to bad policy from government.
K-19 the Widow Maker.
Brave guys ... hope they are at peace niw.
Well it ran for around 30 years. That's about average for ships and subs tech and safety life expectancy. And long for a boat with that many issues. Submariners are a super special group anyway. No matter the power source, every deep dive could be it's last. But whether battery acid fumes or radiation leak from a reactor. Hazardous materials from either can be detrimental for a crew.
Dedicated and brave is all I can say about submariners.
What happened at Fukushima and Chernobyl, is the top of the reactor vessel was blown off by exploding hydrogen gas. I suspect the process of nuclear energy, to be a special kind of electrolysis. You have a vessel filled with water, radio-active metal rods in that vessel, arranged in a certain position. Then an electric current is sent through these rods, they heat up, and hydrogen and oxygen from the water is being separated. This is free energy, because water is the fuel. The rods are being "used up" as well, that is why they have to be replaced after 20 years of service. What you get is oxygen for the crew, and hydrogen for propulsion. Even the ancient Egyptians knew this proces. I don't know where they dump all this excess hydrogen gas, which is a considerable amount, so most likely they burn it, and propel the boat in this way. All the stories about a threat to the planet are urban legends. A submarine can be traced by the radioactive signature that she leaves in the water, but it might as well be a heat signature, because this reactor needs cooling. The water for that cooling system is dumped back in the ocean. That is why subs leave a heat signature in the water. They produce more noise, then diesel-electric boats, because of the steam pipes and valves. They are much faster, can dive deeper, and can stay under water indefinitely, that's what makes them a dangerous opponent. But they are easier to find.
Way off base. The hydrogen is generated by the Zirconium in the fuel cladding stripping the Hydrogen from the surrounding steam when the temperature of the fuel reaches about 1200C. No electricity involved...it is totally a catalyzed high-temperature chemical reaction.
At the time that "used fuel" is pulled from the reactor, only about 5% of the original Uranium fuel has actually undergone fission, far from "used up". What happens is that certain by-products of the fission reaction accumulate to the point where a chain reaction becomes difficult to impossible to sustain.
Civilian reactors are generally partially-refueled annually, with about half the load being replaced and the rest re-arranged.
20 years before refueling is on the high side even for a Naval Reactor, a totally different design with a totally different fuel composition.
Unless there is serious damage to the plant, a nuclear sub does NOT leave a "Radioactive signature". Cooling is performed by running the Reactor Cooling Loop through a heat exchanger cooled by seawater.
The only Hydrogen generated by a nuclear submarine IS the result of electrical hydrolysis of water, but it is a by -product of the oxygen-generating system to produce a breathable atmosphere, NOT the reactor. Said Hydrogen is compressed to the point where it can be discharged to the sea.
Up to a certain power level, most sub reactors can be cooled by convective circulation with no pumps required. Noise isolation techniques make a modern nuke sub quieter than a modern Diesel-Electric sub.
@@kevincrosby1760 Will this compressed hydrogen being discharged into the sea not leave a trace behind the boat?
@@joni3503 Not if released over time in small quantities. The hydrogen is compressed in order to allow it to be discharged against the water pressure. We're not storing it to dump all at once. At 1000 feet depth, the pressure on the hull is around 432 PSI, so you would need to compress the Hydrogen to that pressure for it to just slowly bubble out.
3 things give away the position of a sub:
NOISE- The biggest risk
HEAT - Not generally an issue due to movement and depth.
MAGNETIC: The large metallic mass of the sub will distort the Earth's magnetic field, but the disruption is so small that is nearly impossible to detect if the sub is deep.
@@kevincrosby1760 Maybe that is still possible at 1000 feet, but any deeper would become difficult. Hydrogen is highly inflammable, can it explode when compressed?
@@joni3503
1000 feet depth is nothing for a modern submarine. Open literature suggests the normal max operating depth of a Los Angeles-class submarine is around 1500 feet, with a maximum operating depth of 2250-3000 feet.
Any time something appears in the open literature (like the internet) regarding the capabilities of a US Navy vessel, it is most likely based on info provided by the US Navy. The USN is famous for releasing numbers much smaller than the actual limit.
For example, the ship I was on had an official published top speed of 21 knots. We regularly CRUISED close to that, and could go faster if needed.
Ever see a 400-foot USN warship pull the bow out of the water, settle out on a nice plane, and leave sporting a roostertail behind it like a speedboat? I have, several times.
A Hydrogen explosion requires Oxygen.
No way the soviets never cut corners or stole money from their budget
Another great mini doc!!