Comments on: Nuke’em ‘Till They Glow – Quitting My First Job

By: steveblank

steveblank — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 03:04:12 +0000

Winter 1976/1977

By: Dave Waalkes

Dave Waalkes — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 00:07:21 +0000

Steve – I was a Senior Reactor Operator at FNR, left in 1979. I, too, worked with many ex-nuc-navy personnel and was often impressed with their intelligence and resourcefulness. I never encountered the contemptuous attitude toward exposure that you cite on your webpage. I’m curious about when you where there. Thanks, DW

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 01:57:00 +0000

The speed of light varies depending on the medium. In water, it is about 0.75c, therefore it is possible for electrons released during fission and radioactive decay to be travelling faster than the speed of light in water. During that time, the electron disturbs the magnetic field, polarizing the surrounding molecules. The excited electrons in the electron shell of the molecules then release energy to get back to their ground state in the form of light waves.

By: Jack Dempsey

Jack Dempsey — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 03:39:47 +0000

Interesting read Steve, thanks! Makes scaling a website seem a bit…safer…I’m a bit confused about this part though: “electrons moving faster than the speed of light in water polarizing the water molecules”

Forgive what little I remember of physics, but, isn’t that not possible?

best,
Jack

By: Tom McDonagh

Tom McDonagh — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 04:15:42 +0000

Your are having an interesting life.

By: cuchullainn

cuchullainn — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:35:07 +0000

Wow. And my first job was Burger King. The five lessons probably also apply there –

Things you can’t see can hurt you – the slow loss of self esteem as people treat you as a burger flipper is unseen but powerful.
No job is worth your health – one benefit of the work was free food…
If it seems dangerous or stupid it probably is – my managers kept trying new cleaning fluids without much care for their impact on my hands
Rules and regulations won’t stop all possible mistakes – 100% yes.
No one but you will tell you it’s time to quit – yep

By: ScotterC

ScotterC — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:53:41 +0000

Steve,
I’d also like to add that the ’5 Rem per year’ allowance was set on faulty logic. It is all based on the linear no-threshold theory which took the acute radiation exposures from the Nagasaki and Hiroshima detonations and linearly projected them down to such small amounts as 5 rem. This is in essence saying that if 100% of people would die from jumping of a 100 ft building then 1% of people would die from jumping off a 1 ft ledge.
Professor Emeritus Bernard L. Cohen of Pittsburgh University has a lot to say on the matter: http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/

By: ScotterC

ScotterC — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:45:12 +0000

As you noted you don’t really need to be worried about the Rems. 5 is a lot but overall it’s a low dose and roughly equivalent to what people in Ramsar, Iran get everyday (see this paper: http://www.jpands.org/vol13no2/luckey.pdf

I also just quit my job as a nuclear engineer. I love the technology and can’t wait for it’s widespread use, but I have other interests at the moment.

By: Mark Essel

Mark Essel — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:45:01 +0000

Glad you quit when you did Steve. We still need to shake a few more thousand lessons learned out of your history

By: Top Posts — WordPress.com

Top Posts — WordPress.com — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:07:40 +0000

[...] Nuke’em ‘Till They Glow – Quitting My First Job I started working when I was 14 (I lied about my age) and counting four years in the Air Force I’ve worked in 12 [...] [...]

By: Michael Pyne

Michael Pyne — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:56:18 +0000

Another Navy sub officer, also surprised to see ex-Navy types joking around about exposure. BUT, any excuse is a good excuse to the sailor to make someone buy beer, and the “idiot” who gets overexposed is the one who gets punished (even if it seems celebratory)

Don’t fret too much about the scram system. Three Mile Island scrammed very early in the casualty, and still melted down (due to a comedy of operator/design errors). Manual scram would (should?) be one of the first actions the nuke operators take in a major casualty anyways.

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:42:44 +0000

Reminds me of the last job I had before heading to grad school, developing diagnostics for infectious diseases- the halls were patrolled by Airmen. One needle stick and you were probably history, which was never really explained to mere research assistants.

By: John S

John S — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 18:26:33 +0000

“(I always wondered if the Air Force would ever do a study of the incidence of cataracts among radar technicians.)”

I was in the USAF from 1977-1981 as an avionics maintenance tech. Our shop repaired the attack radar and terrain following radar for the F-111A.

Part of the testing and allignment of the radar’s magnetrons included connecting them to dummy loads via waveguide. If we ever had a waveguide leak, we had to report it, and everybody in the shop had the incident annotated in their medical records for possible future cataract problems.

Yeah, I think the Air Force finally did that study.

By: David Binetti

David Binetti — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:04:02 +0000

Nuclear reactor design. That’s one industry where the customer development approach is probably not wise.

Just wondering: is this where you learned to “release early, release often”? Please advise.

By: Drew Childress

Drew Childress — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:19:12 +0000

As a former Nuclear Submarine Officer I am actually a little shocked at the lackadaisical safety procedures at a reactor staffed by ex Navy nukes. If an incident like you experienced had happened on a Navy ship the Captain’s career would most likely be over.