There's a picture in there titled something like "Missile keys on lanyards".
Is it just me, or are they all key blanks? I.e there's no pin bitting?
Is it just me, or are they all key blanks? I.e there's no pin bitting?
>>> Nothing was fired, of course. The keys inserted were effectively blanks.
Seems like they used special exercise keys, and that's probably the ones in the photo.
1. They don't want to post the launch codes to the internet, or
2. The code is just 000000 (hey it's not the worst I've ever seen)
https://sgs.princeton.edu/00000000
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/launch-code-for-...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_action_link
> According to nuclear safety expert Bruce G. Blair, the US Air Force's Strategic Air Command worried that in times of need the codes for the Minuteman ICBM force would not be available, so it decided to set the codes to 00000000 in all missile launch control centers. Blair said the missile launch checklists included an item confirming this combination until 1977.[7] A 2014 article in Foreign Policy said that the US Air Force told the United States House Committee on Armed Services that "A code consisting of eight zeroes has never been used to enable a MM ICBM, as claimed by Dr. Bruce Blair."[8] The Air Force's statement (that 00000000 was never used to enable an ICBM, i.e. the weapons were not actually launched) does not contradict Blair's statement (that 00000000 was the code for doing so).
"Maj. Hering decided to ask his question anyway, regardless of consequences: How could he know that an order to launch his missiles was “lawful”? That it came from a sane president, one who wasn’t “imbalance[d]” or “berserk,” as Maj. Hering’s lawyer eventually, colorfully put it?
Hering needed a lawyer because as soon as he asked the question he was yanked out of missile training class, and after two years of appeals, eventually had to leave the Air Force, trade in a launch key for the ignition keys to an 18-wheeler.
[0] https://slate.com/human-interest/2011/02/nuclear-weapons-how...