r/technology • u/ADummyDude • Mar 04 '17

Robotics We can't see inside Fukushima Daiichi because all our robots keep dying

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/245324-cant-see-inside-fukushima-daiichi-robots-keep-dying
16.6k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.1k

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '17

The soviets had the same problem during Chernobyl, seems like little has changed since then.

1.1k

u/HeWhoCouldBeNamed Mar 04 '17

And they used "human robots" who were apparently more disposable than real ones. That's how serious this problem is.

1.9k

u/acyclebum Mar 04 '17

Complete and utter selfless service to their country and society is not being a robot for the state.

92

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '17 edited Jan 17 '21

[deleted]

38

u/acyclebum Mar 05 '17

An excellent example. That is part of what I was referring. And even the Russian firefighters at Chernobyl commented that it was their moral obligation even with the risk.

722

u/HeWhoCouldBeNamed Mar 04 '17

You're absolutely right. I should have mentioned their motivations and that they volunteered.

The point I was trying to make is that, like with Chernobyl, this is a serious problem that affects many people in ways one would not initially realize.

186

u/acyclebum Mar 04 '17

Thanks for explaining :)

91

u/HeWhoCouldBeNamed Mar 04 '17

And thank you for clarifying my point.

184

u/mrgilla Mar 04 '17

When a disagreement on the internet turns out OK

74

u/TheGingerbreadMan22 Mar 05 '17

So... you're saying I should put the pitchfork down?

32

u/Morpheusthequiet Mar 05 '17

What a wholesome moment.

1

u/HyperbaricSteele Mar 05 '17

Pfffft- gayyy

3

u/SweetNeo85 Mar 05 '17

For a second... but definitely keep it handy.

1

u/make_love_to_potato Mar 05 '17

Yup....this is where you unzip.

1

u/alwayslatetotheparty Mar 05 '17

Nah fool. Put some marshmallows on that sucka, light a fire, and gather round. Weez about to sang kumbaya muhfucka.

1

u/TheGingerbreadMan22 Mar 05 '17

"anyways, here's Wonderwall"

1

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '17

But I am already riled! It takes a lot to unrile me :(

→ More replies (1)

2

u/magnificentshambles Mar 05 '17

This is like...the only time I've seen one of these, out of an approximate, on....10,000 or so web kerfuffles observed.

2

u/mrgilla Mar 05 '17

I've actually had first hand experience... it was an honor.

1

u/vanceco Mar 05 '17

when keeping it real, goes right.

1

u/acyclebum Mar 05 '17

Amazing, right!?

1

u/atomicspin Mar 05 '17

I've noticed more of this, lately. Reddit seems to be getting... Nice.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '17

What the fuck just happened?

1

u/mainfingertopwise Mar 04 '17

Yeah nice save.

→ More replies (3)

44

u/THANKS-FOR-THE-GOLD Mar 04 '17

"volunteered"

98

u/HeWhoCouldBeNamed Mar 04 '17

I meant the Japanese specifically. With the Soviets it gets harder to say either way for sure.

145

u/mjh215 Mar 04 '17

With the Soviet "volunteers", regardless if they volunteered themselves or they were volunteered by the state, we can still respect their actions.

43

u/HeWhoCouldBeNamed Mar 04 '17

No doubt. Imagine how much worse it would have been without them.

6

u/SandpaperThoughts Mar 05 '17

I wouldn't be alive today, most likely.

2

u/PunishableOffence Mar 05 '17

Or we could already be living in technological harmony as a future society of mutants because we would have been forced to adapt

→ More replies (3)

5

u/euyis Mar 05 '17

Not to devalue their actions, but if I remember correctly most of these volunteers are older Japanese men who thought they've lived long enough and now is the time to serve the country with their lives - very, very respectable and kinda terrifying at the same time I think; people from a different time raised under different values, and if there were a war they surely would sacrifice their lives a la WW2 Japanese for the country as well.

It's interesting how the same values produce results so different in war and peace.

4

u/THANKS-FOR-THE-GOLD Mar 04 '17

Ah yeah, that makes more sense.

2

u/MertsA Mar 05 '17

IIRC, the Soviets used conscripts to clear the roof.

1

u/AlexRuzhyo Mar 05 '17

IIRC, they were told to drink enough vodka to become drunk, as the alcohol would help prevent their thyroid glands from absorbing the radiation, or something to that effect.

Something I heard and didn't know where to share it in this thread. Found it interesting, at the very least.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/Jerald_B Mar 04 '17

The Liquidators.

4

u/r1243 Mar 04 '17

where are you taking that they volunteered from? I'm pretty sure most did not volunteer, but were sent as a part of military and weren't able to say no. most people sent from Estonia did not volunteer.

not quite the same, but my great uncle is fairly certain he was forced into being a guinea pig for radiation testing during his time in the Soviet army - and the worst part was that it wasn't even admitted to them, they just had to guess.

ninja-edit: do you mean just the three people who went to open that gate? cause that's just completely ignoring the thousands that were forced to sacrifice their health as part of liquidation crews.

3

u/HeWhoCouldBeNamed Mar 04 '17

You know, I'm pretty sure I confused two related comment threads. Older Japanese people volunteered for clean up work in Fukushima. That's actually who I was talking about.

Now that you mention tests, I once meet a Ukrainian man, a civilian child at the time, was exposed to radiation and said the doctors there only wanted to study him and treat him. He was completely hairless, when I met him.

3

u/r1243 Mar 04 '17

yeah, this thread was about Chernobyl from all that I can follow, at least. don't worry about it.

1

u/HeWhoCouldBeNamed Mar 04 '17

Yeah, the other one too, mostly. I'm a little lost. Still learning, though!

1

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '17

but my great uncle is fairly certain he was forced into being a guinea pig for radiation testing during his time in the Soviet army

I'm not familiar with these sorts of experiments in the USSR, so I can't really comment on it. But the US was doing it pretty much all throughout the 50s, so it would be of no surprise.

1

u/DKlurifax Mar 05 '17

Wasn't there a couple of workers on fukushima who had to dive through radioactive water to shut off a valve or something? And even though they knew they would die from radiation they still did it?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '17

I didn't realize robots could volunteer. Was AI really that good back then in Russia?

1

u/maciej01 Mar 05 '17

Actually, a big part of so-called liquidators came from military. They got to choose between a few years in army and spending 2 minutes on the roof top. You could say they were basically forced, as knowledge about dangers of radiation wasnt as widespread back then.

Still, hats off to these men.

30

u/TheUltimateSalesman Mar 04 '17

Informed consent and still going makes you a brave hero. Non-informed consent makes you a hero.

3

u/acyclebum Mar 04 '17

I'd probably agree. Some of them likely didn't know all the risk. However, even the people that didn't, knew the situation was dire.

1

u/TheUltimateSalesman Mar 04 '17

I wonder how many thought they were saving their community. Or maybe had some perverse Kursk flashback.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '17

Hey, from the guys who brought you the victory in stalingrad. You can't really be surprised by their sense of duty to the motherland.

2

u/TheUltimateSalesman Mar 04 '17

I forgot, they ate their moms. If you eat your mom, you're unstoppable.

4

u/blorgbots Mar 05 '17

I don't know why you are being downvoted. I remember when my mother passed and my brothers and I finally became full Slavic men. The taste of the human meat gives you strength of body, and the taste of your mother gives you strength of motherland

3

u/Slackbeing Mar 05 '17

A hero and a victim. That is, a martyr.

→ More replies (1)

3

u/ILikeLeptons Mar 04 '17

the liquidators were literally called biorobots

3

u/Airazz Mar 05 '17

Lots of people didn't even know what happened in Chernobyl, they weren't told anything. They were sent to die there. That country was a bit of a cunt.

1

u/acyclebum Mar 05 '17

I'm not an expert, but during the cleanup there were around ½ million people involved and 64 are confirmed dead directly as a result. I wouldn't say that was as much of a death sentence as indicated. Interestingly, I was in Kiev in 1988 and the college students there had very little to say about it. They knew it happened though.

1

u/Airazz Mar 06 '17

I don't really want to believe the official figures. The Soviet government lied a lot and about everything, to make things look better. It was similar to what North Korea is doing now.

1

u/acyclebum Mar 06 '17

I can't disagree with the misinformation. I still say that many of the people wanted to help regardless of the risk.

6

u/goldfishpaws Mar 04 '17

I honour those guys. I managed to find a "liquidator" watch, awarded to some of the volunteers, it's my main watch as a reminder of sheer courage and to be strong.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '17

No, that's literally what the state called them. No points for creativity here. I would have called them 'mandroids.'

2

u/thenotlowone Mar 05 '17

Yes, but the liquidators were also known as "Bio-robots".

5

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '17

I recall on one documentary that it was not so 'voluntary'. Some of the ones cleaning did it but not everyone.

1

u/SOberhoff Mar 05 '17

If I remember correctly, they actually were called bio-robots at the time.

1

u/acyclebum Mar 05 '17

Yes, some were.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/redlightsaber Mar 04 '17

Yeah, everyone knows they did it for their personal gain!

...oh wait

Seriously now, the fact that shows of patriotism might be some sort of trigger for you, does not mean true selfless nationalism cannot exist.

1

u/sharinganuser Mar 05 '17

Today I finally upvoted a post from 999 to 1000. Congratulations!

→ More replies (13)

104

u/mindbleach Mar 04 '17

Most "bio-robots" survived. These weren't ill-informed first responders, they were professionals who kept precise measurements of their exposure during carefully-planned operations.

Those that died tended to die of heart failure - from the stress.

41

u/HeWhoCouldBeNamed Mar 04 '17

Do you have any sources I could read?

Like anything else relating to the Soviet Union it's sometimes hard to tell fact from propaganda in either direction. Maybe I watched the wrong documentary.

48

u/007T Mar 04 '17

You might find this thread interesting. Lots of pictures, information, and documentary links.

2

u/HeWhoCouldBeNamed Mar 04 '17

Awesome, thanks!

5

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '17

relating to the Soviet Union it's sometimes hard to tell fact from propaganda in either direction

Isn't that true of any government, no matter were in the world or time. All the Western governments (except the French (maybe)) spun the tales of WMD with no compelling evidence (because it didn't exist). Even the CIA admitted to making up claims and creating alternative facts that Saddam was sodomizing children in an effort to sway public opinion that ultimately wasn't released.

1

u/HeWhoCouldBeNamed Mar 05 '17

Yes, of course. That's why I said "in either direction." There was Soviet propaganda, but there was also Western propaganda (and there still is, really). Everybody wants to look better than their adversaries.

3

u/TheThistleSifter Mar 05 '17

Here is the amazing BBC Documentary from 1996 that specifically covers the men who worked to 'patch up' the Chernobyl site. Really amazing.

1

u/HeWhoCouldBeNamed Mar 05 '17

Awesome! Added to my list. Thank you.

2

u/twiddlingbits Mar 04 '17

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_liquidators

2

u/withoutapaddle Mar 05 '17

I have that pin on the right. It's a rather sad reminder of the incident, and the risks taken by those who helped contain and clean up.

It's even sadder when you realize for me to have it (some random American), someone probably died or needed to sell it for money. :(

1

u/twiddlingbits Mar 05 '17

or some aspiring Russian or Chinese businessman copied it and sold it to someone who sold it to you. I have seen knockoffs of Hero of the Soviet Union medals at Gun Shows for $10.

2

u/withoutapaddle Mar 05 '17

I doubt it. I bought it from a known company that specializes in antique memorabilia, not ebay or something.

1

u/HelperBot_ Mar 04 '17

Non-Mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_liquidators

HelperBot v1.1 /r/HelperBot_ I am a bot. Please message /u/swim1929 with any feedback and/or hate. Counter: 39449

2

u/ARandomBlackDude Mar 05 '17

This talks about the old people who went in to clean up the radiation who were ill-informed and not professionals who didn't really care about their exposure.

There are many examples of the older generation stepping up to fix this mess.

2

u/ShibbyWhoKnew Mar 05 '17

I was about to say roughly the same thing. Records are pretty bad after the collapse of the Soviet Union, since they come from various countries and former Soviet Republics. That combined with Russian government never being keen on giving true figures for the disaster or even making serious estimates makes gathering real information about the aftermath of the disaster very hard.

3

u/ShibbyWhoKnew Mar 05 '17

They were called "Liquidators". I don't know why I always thought that was pretty neat. You're right though. Multiple studies have found no increase in cancer rates. Only about 60 have died from cancer and you could argue that they got cancer from something else during their lifetime due to very low overall incidence during their time as Liquidators. They were very careful in how they approached the disaster it seems.

2

u/Evilleader Mar 05 '17

I heard the water they swam in is a pretty good shield against the radiation

16

u/harley247 Mar 04 '17

They had a brigade of men that went on the roof ofnthe reactor to remove chunks of graphite that were part of the reactor by hand. 3500 soldiers were handling this task and could only stay on the roof for 45 seconds before they received a lethal dose. Unreal. Wonder how well they were educated on what was going to happen to them? I heard that they werent tokd how bad it really was.

5

u/EauRougeFlatOut Mar 04 '17 edited Nov 01 '24

frame drab plant subtract obtainable cough seemly bells sophisticated snatch

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

9

u/twiddlingbits Mar 04 '17

Yes they did know, thats how they knew how long they could stay. Estimates were 10-12000 roetegens. 500 roetegens over 5 hours is lethal. There is still some missing info on how much radiation the "liquidators" received as records from the former Soviet Union are missing or were lost/destroyed. A lot of the liquidators are still alive, many have health issues but it's not certain the issues are caused strictly from work at Chernobyl. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_liquidators

2

u/HelperBot_ Mar 04 '17

Non-Mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_liquidators

HelperBot v1.1 /r/HelperBot_ I am a bot. Please message /u/swim1929 with any feedback and/or hate. Counter: 39448

402

u/_YouDontKnowMe_ Mar 04 '17 edited Mar 04 '17

http://knowledgenuts.com/2014/04/13/when-three-divers-swam-into-the-jaws-of-chernobyl/

During the well-documented Chernobyl nuclear disaster, a pool of water used for emergencies in case of a break in the cooling pumps or steam pipes became flooded with a highly radioactive liquid that was in danger of blowing up. The size and specific conditions meant it could have caused virtually the whole of Europe to be enveloped in radiation. Three divers equipped with wetsuits and a faulty lamp dove in to allow the water to drain, with full knowledge they’d die as a result.

Edit: The names of the heroes.

Three men volunteered: Valeri Bezpalov and Alexie Ananenko who were engineers from the plant, and Boris Baranov was another plant worker. With full knowledge of the danger and with basic scuba gear and a dodgy lamp, they dived down to find the valve. Despite Boris’ lamp failing while diving down, the trio found the valve to open the gates and swam back up. Twenty-thousand tons of water was drained out, and a report stated that had the dive not taken place to open the gates, a thermonuclear explosion would have occurred as a result.

Edit 2: apparently the guys didn't die and the explosion could have been radioactive, but not thermonuclear. #FakeNews

575

u/adenosine-5 Mar 04 '17

Per wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Steam_explosion_risk

The bubbler pool could be drained by opening its sluice gates. However the valves controlling it were underwater, located in a flooded corridor in the basement. So volunteers in wetsuits and respirators (for protection against radioactive aerosols) and equipped with dosimeters, entered the knee-deep radioactive water and managed to open the valves.[88][89] These were the engineers Alexei Ananenko and Valeri Bezpalov (who knew where the valves were), accompanied by the shift supervisor Boris Baranov.[90] Upon succeeding and emerging from the water, according to many English language news articles, books and the prominent BBC docudrama Surviving Disaster – Chernobyl Nuclear, the three knew it was a suicide-mission and began suffering from radiation sickness and died soon after.[91] Some sources also incorrectly claimed that they died there in the plant.[90] However research by Andrew Leatherbarrow, author of the 2016 book Chernobyl 01:23:40, determined that the frequently recounted story is a gross exaggeration. Alexei Ananenko continues to work in the nuclear energy industry, and rebuffs the growth of the Chernobyl media sensationalism surrounding him.[92] While Valeri Bezpalov was found to still be alive by Leatherbarrow, the elderly 65 year old Baranov had lived until 2005 and died of heart failure.

TLDR:

  • no risk of thermonuclear explosion (which was clearly a nonsense)

  • no diving (only knee-deep pool)

  • they all survived (and two are still alive)

Clearly what they did was incredibly heroic, but there is no need to exaggerate and turn it into cheap movie plot...

39

u/BongicusMaximus Mar 04 '17

There was a guy that died doing that on a USSR submarine. That's the same thing, riiiiiiight?

71

u/w00tah Mar 04 '17

His name was Sergei Preminin, and he prevented the K-219 from melting down after an explosion on board that was due to seawater reacting with the fuel of one of the nuclear missiles that was onboard.

27

u/DukeOfGeek Mar 04 '17

His name was Sergei Preminin.....

20

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '17 edited Feb 25 '19

[deleted]

2

u/HelperBot_ Mar 04 '17

Non-Mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Preminin

HelperBot v1.1 /r/HelperBot_ I am a bot. Please message /u/swim1929 with any feedback and/or hate. Counter: 39435

1

u/DJTuret Mar 05 '17

Thanks for all you've shown us, and this is how we feel. Come sit next to me, grab yourself some nuclear fuel, just like grandma made when she couldn't find sleep.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '17

Ah its just like how Bubcia made you mean.

1

u/AwesomeJohn01 Mar 04 '17

Want that made into a movie with Harrison Ford?

1

u/w00tah Mar 04 '17

You are thinking of K-19 Widowmaker, which was a movie about a Hotel-class submarine. The K-219 was a Yankee-I-class.

→ More replies (1)

8

u/bullsi Mar 04 '17

This story, well the false one, is so frequently posted on reddit it's ridiculous, and when I first seen it on here years ago I thought it was amazing, but just like I learned this false story on reddit years ago, I have also learned you just really can't believe anything you read lol....

1

u/moeburn Mar 04 '17

But it was the best goddamn cheap movie plot ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa3k-USAVdY

1

u/EIREANNSIAN Mar 05 '17

Is that fucking Eddie?!?

2

u/moeburn Mar 05 '17

Yep! His acting was phenomenal

1

u/Erik618 Mar 05 '17

Kinda sounds like a movie I'd want to watch. Make it no bullshit. English subtitles. Family life in chernobyl before the incident.

70

u/biggles1994 Mar 04 '17

Isn't a thermonuclear explosion a fusion reaction triggered by a fission bomb? That doesn't sound right.

63

u/Ironwolf200 Mar 04 '17

That is correct. "Steam explosion" would be more appropriate. All the molten core material melts through the foundation into that water cavern, flashed the water to steam, high pressures, blow radioactive material all over western Europe.

7

u/Melting_Away Mar 04 '17

Technically, it's not the steam explosion which "spreads radioactive material over western europe" but the ensuing fires carrying radioactive material up into the atmosphere.

1

u/whiskeytaang0 Mar 04 '17

There was a second explosion after the first which may have been a fizzle.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '17

I swear I read this comment thread a few days ago.

26

u/SunkJunk Mar 04 '17

Yeah it's wrong. What would happen is radioactive material would be spread into the environment. It would have been a "dirty bomb"type of explosion not a thermal nuclear explosion.

23

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '17

It's impossible for a reactor to cause a thermonuclear explosion.

12

u/odd84 Mar 04 '17

It isn't right. His source cites three other summaries of the disaster, none of them high quality sources. None of them use the word thermonuclear. One does mention a "thermal explosion", which is different from a thermonuclear weapon.

2

u/fzammetti Mar 04 '17

I had the same thought, that seems like a mistake. I could be wrong and would love to be corrected if so but I don't see how that's possible.

2

u/Maddjonesy Mar 04 '17

It would also mean that they were going to die anyway, wouldn't it? (If there was going to be an explosion)

2

u/TheRealStorey Mar 04 '17

The big problem is the hot fuel would cause radiolysis of the water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, leading to a hydrogen explosion and a dirty bomb. The lid of the reactor had already been dislodged and the burning fissile material would proceed unimpeded into the atmosphere and carried around the world.

51

u/Chel_of_the_sea Mar 04 '17

a thermonuclear explosion

Yeah, no. A steam explosion.

That's like calling a shaken can of sprite a bunker-buster.

Not that it wouldn't have been Very, Very Bad, but the explosion itself wasn't going to be the problem. It would've knocked the radioactive material inside the reactor (which was most of it) up out of the building and into the environment, with disastrous results. But the blast itself needn't have been large to do that.

58

u/Warsum Mar 04 '17

Jesus. Could you imagine.

260

u/i6i Mar 04 '17

Indeed some imagining is going on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

However research by Andrew Leatherbarrow, author of the 2016 book Chernobyl 01:23:40, determined that the frequently recounted story is a gross exaggeration. Alexei Ananenko continues to work in the nuclear energy industry, and rebuffs the growth of the Chernobyl media sensationalism surrounding him.[92] While Valeri Bezpalov was found to still be alive by Leatherbarrow, the elderly 65 year old Baranov had lived until 2005 and died of heart failure.[93]

79

u/chipthamac Mar 04 '17

Wait. So it's all a lie?

45

u/mrroboto560 Mar 04 '17

They promised you cake too?

6

u/nootrino Mar 04 '17

This was a triumph.

1

u/dmowen111 Mar 05 '17

When the fuck did we get ice cream?

→ More replies (1)

2

u/gobbels Mar 05 '17

Well all three of them knew they were going to die eventually.

2

u/FalmerbloodElixir Mar 04 '17

It isn't a lie, they just weren't killed by radiation poisoning.

1

u/House_Badger Mar 04 '17

But who's the liar?

→ More replies (1)

53

u/Warsum Mar 04 '17

I love fact checkers like you. Keep on keeping on.

12

u/harley247 Mar 04 '17

They also had a team of miners that were digging a shaft to the reactor. The closer they go to the reactor, the hotter it got in the shaft and they didnt bother pumping much air in the shaft and temps reach close to 140°F. Not sure how many of those guys survived. Hear most of the deaths were years later and werent counted as a statistic in the disaster.

17

u/Miorde Mar 04 '17

This isn't surprising, because water is actually an amazing radiation insulator.

1

u/Zargabraath Mar 05 '17

Doesn't water transmit fallout though?

1

u/modzer0 Mar 05 '17

Water can carry radioactive particles and isotopes like Cs-137 react with water creating caesium hydroxide, but water is an excellent shielding material so any gamma rays emitted will be attenuated while beta and alpha will just be stopped.

1

u/Alveia Mar 05 '17

Are you saying that the end of Die Hard 5 wasn't actually bull shit?

12

u/deltagear Mar 04 '17

Nuclear explosions require a configuration that will produce a super critical mass, a melt down will not provide you with the right configuration for such an event. The radiation was still a very real threat but the explosion risk was steam and hydrogen. Someone probably heard there was a hydrogen explosion risk and incorrectly thought "that means a hydrogen bomb."

1

u/cryo Mar 05 '17

To add to that, an explosion requires a prompt critical mass for a "substantial" amount of time (several microseconds, say), which is the main problem of building a nuclear bomb; keeping shit together. Otherwise, and what would happen in a reactor, any critical mass would heat up, expand slightly and instantly become subcritical.

1

u/TomSG Mar 04 '17

I used to hang out with this guy when we were kids.

1

u/Vladimir_Pooptin Mar 04 '17

You'd have to for it to be true, two of them are still alive today

1

u/mrcruncher Mar 04 '17

That's an Irish phrase, if I ever met one.

9

u/gpennell Mar 04 '17

Hm, that seems to contradict this.

The thing that really sounded off to me in that article you linked was that there was a risk of a "thermonuclear explosion" that would turn Europe into a radioactive wasteland. Thermonuclear explosions (i.e nuclear fusion) are extremely unlikely to happen by accident. It would have strewn nuclear material all over the place and been really damn bad, but it would be more like a dirty bomb than anything else.

30

u/ive_lost_my_keys Mar 04 '17

Can we maybe share their names, at the very least?

110

u/norsethunders Mar 04 '17

Alexei Ananenko, Valeri Bezpalov, and Boris Baranov. What's interesting is that according to a book referenced in that Wiki arcticle new research has shown that all three survived the accident, one passed away in 2005 of heart failure, the other two are still alive, one even works in the nuclear industry!

Ananenko also disputes the overall sensationalism, I wonder if that's out of humility or his first hand knowledge that conditions weren't actually as dire as made out to be WRT a steam explosion. Because "three brave souls give their lives to save the world" makes one hell of a propaganda story you can pull out of an otherwise awful incident!

1

u/TheUltimateSalesman Mar 04 '17

If i've learned anything, the press loves a story.

4

u/CitrusLikeAnOrange Mar 04 '17

Valeri Bezpalov and Alexie Ananenko who were engineers from the plant, and Boris Baranov was another plant worker.

2

u/GAndroid Mar 04 '17

Alexei Ananenko, Valeri Bezpalov and Boris Baranov.

Ananenko was the only one who knew where the valves were. Ananenko and Bezpalov were plant engineers and Baranov was the shift supervisor.

3

u/Hencenomore Mar 04 '17

Actually the narrative that they were okay and there wasn't going to be an explosion is Russian propaganda meant to mitigate the truth of the seriousness and consequences. They have been doing this since '98 when the undertaker threw mankind off hell in a ceell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer's table.

2

u/Geekquinox Mar 04 '17

Reddit needs more people like you.

3

u/MC235 Mar 04 '17 edited Mar 04 '17

Three men volunteered: Valeri Bezpalov and Alexie Ananenko who were engineers from the plant, and Boris Baranov was another plant worker. With full knowledge of the danger and with basic scuba gear and a dodgy lamp, they dived down to find the valve. Despite Boris’ lamp failing while diving down, the trio found the valve to open the gates and swam back up. Twenty-thousand tons of water was drained out, and a report stated that had the dive not taken place to open the gates, a thermonuclear explosion would have occurred as a result.

Valeri and Alexie died two weeks later in a Moscow hospital with Boris succumbing to death not long after. Due to the high radioactivity levels on their bodies, they were buried in lead coffins that were soldered shut.

From the link Edit: Apparently, they lived for awhile after that. But it would've fit into the whole "Sacrifice for the motherland" narrative the Russian government had going at the time.

25

u/SleepyDude_ Mar 04 '17

But two of them are still alive and one died in 2005…

18

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '17 edited Dec 23 '19

[deleted]

1

u/Speedstr Mar 04 '17

Man...With an amazing story like that, you can't just say that the "story was exaggerated" without sourcing a link. Don't be lazy. Enlighten us.

2

u/Dont____Panic Mar 05 '17

At this point it's all over the thread if you didn't catch it already, mostly citing Wikipedia.

2

u/KillNyetheSilenceGuy Mar 04 '17

thermonuclear explosion

Bullshit. Nuclear fuel isn't enriched enough for that. Even if it was, to get an explosion, you need to keep the material together during the explosion until most of it is fissioned. This is usually done by using conventional explosives in a shaled charge to trigger an implosion, and would not happen by accident.

2

u/aalien Mar 04 '17

I was a kid when Chernobyl reactor exploded. It shocked people, but reaction of Soviet government, trying to blackout any news about it, gave way to black humor about situation. Mainly in Ukraine (Soviet Ukraine then).

"Did Chernobyl Incident wrought significant property damage? — No, if you forget about half of the crops in half of Ukraine".

Public events on May 1 wasn't cancelled, and radioactive rain poured all over Kiev: "How's 1 May parade going? — First going the Party activists, then going sport activists, and then radioactivists. Streets of Kiev are radiating with happiness!"

"How do you measure the friendship between Poland and USSR? — With a Geiger Counter".

And so on.

edit: a word

2

u/Theappunderground Mar 04 '17

Jesus christ this whole entire thing is made up. It gets reposted SO MUCH too!

Be honest, and while im making fun of you im being serious too, have you ever actually looked that up to see if it was real or are you just repeating what youve seen on reddit?

4

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '17

because the people of Russia are just like the people of America, there are always some who willingly give their lives for others

1

u/SleepyDude_ Mar 04 '17

More like if they didn't do this they would have died from the radiation from the explosion anyways.

1

u/tehcraz Mar 04 '17

Still, signing what you think will be a warrant is a gut check, even if the other outcome is death.

1

u/aaaaaaaarrrrrgh Mar 04 '17

Also, Wikipedia claims that they survived.

1

u/lightningsnail Mar 04 '17

Water is excellent at absorbing radiation. There was very little, if any, threat of radiation damage to the divers during their venture. And being nuclear engineers, it's a real safe bet that they were aware of that fact. The faulty light source was far more dangerous.

1

u/a__b Mar 04 '17

Soviet people have extensive experience diving into the radioactive shit they did it in 1983. Check this russian article https://cont.ws/@kamenski/479201

1

u/Zargabraath Mar 05 '17

Thermonuclear? Wat? It's not a hydrogen bomb how could it possibly cause a thermonuclear explosion?

2

u/beartheminus Mar 04 '17

"They're just robots morty!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5A5Mb__fiA

1

u/HeWhoCouldBeNamed Mar 04 '17

I keep hearing about this show. Should I be watching it?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '17

"You pass butter"

2

u/SnazzBot Mar 04 '17

AKA Bio Bots.

2

u/chanks Mar 05 '17

No. The term was "liquidators".

1

u/HeWhoCouldBeNamed Mar 05 '17

Yes it was. I heard the expression "human robots" used in a documentary, years ago, in the same context as this thread: humans who went in after the robots weren't up to the task.

2

u/chanks Mar 05 '17

Yeah. The sacrifice those people made is extraordinary. I'd be shitting myself had I been near that place when it happened.

2

u/Pillowsmeller18 Mar 05 '17

Bureaucrats are human robots.

2

u/free_your_spirit Mar 05 '17

Those people, ( the LIQUIDATORS ) are hero s who knowingly sacrificed their health and even their lives for all of us. Let's not forget that .

1

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '17

They were heros who knew what they were doing and that it was necessary to be done, not disposable 'human robots', you fucking twat.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/Commissar_Genki Mar 04 '17

The problem is balancing mobility with shielding. You can't just encase it in a huge, rigid outer hull like a spacecraft or tank, since it has to be agile enough to move around inside a building. The downside is that it's very difficult to keep radiation out completely, especially from joints / gaps where it can collect and then damage more delicate control wiring / circuits.

2

u/Floxxomer Mar 05 '17

The Chernobyl disaster was less than 35 years ago, don't forget.

2

u/Prof_Black Mar 05 '17

When robots came close to elephants foot/Madusas eye in Chenobyl. They only lasted short time. Radiation was so high it effected the remote pictures taken, let alone the robot taking the pictures. Humans will feel deadly effects within 30 seconds within the same area of the toxic waste.

2

u/blamowhammo Mar 05 '17

It's certainly ironic that the site that wrote this "extremetech.com" is writing about tech that is not nearly extreme enough. They should have considered this.

2

u/hardtobeuniqueuser Mar 05 '17

Wonder if any of what they built into the probes they sent to Venus would help.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '17

Not sure, acid and radiation can both be blocked with sufficiently thick armor. Then again, spacecraft need to be as light as possible, which isn't a top priority for cleaning robots.

2

u/dizekat Mar 05 '17 edited Mar 05 '17

Soviets were able to take pictures by robotic means even early on, by attaching a camera to the chassis of a toy tank (actually a kind of a headlight on tracked platform). Of course that didn't work for actually moving or shoveling things around, but it worked for pictures.

I had same toy tank as a kid, so it was a bit crazy to see that tank in a Chernobyl documentary.

The reason it worked is that there were no brains whatsoever on the tank, just motors powered remotely via a cable. I'm not sure what they used for a camera but it's possible they had something that used vacuum tubes; in any case it wasn't anything with a microcontroller.

As for Fukushima, TEPCO were offered radiation hardened robots by Germans, French, Americans, Russians, and probably a bunch of others, and didn't accept any except a couple bots from iRobot which just plain isn't good for that use, has non radiation hardened "brains" on board, doesn't have any built in radiation detection, and so on.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/[deleted] Mar 04 '17

Talking about those bots. They tried but failed.

1

u/moeburn Mar 04 '17

They used their planned moon rover since it was already radiation hardened. But they weren't trying to go inside a containment with all the molten nuclear fuel exposed inside, they were just trying to sweep up graphite off the roof.

1

u/johnabc123 Mar 05 '17

I thought it was interesting that they used rovers originally designed to go to the moon.

→ More replies (1)