America's Nuclear Arsenal Still Runs Off Floppy Disks "America just got a reminder that its nuclear arsenal is old and getting older. On last night's 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl met two ‘missileers’ charged with watching over and controlling Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles in Wyoming, and the control room was not what Stahl—or I—expected: There's no ‘big button,’ but there are floppy disks."
Crazy. Even the documentation on how to maintain the systems is disappearing. “Specifically, film media and microfiche are being lost due to degradation, and radiographs are beginning to stick together, causing extensive damage and making the data unrecoverable.”
2 comments:
This is a basic problem when the system lifespan out strips the technology timeline. It's the same deal as the NASA satellite that we couldn't talk to. But weapons systems have an additional constraint of being listed in various nonproliferation treaties which actually limit any changes made. It's a shame about the films though. Those 50's training materials (e.g. duck & cover) had a great style.
Thanks. It never occurred to me that treaties would limit upgrades but that makes perfect sense.
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