Sunday, September 05, 2004
Stanislav Petrov
According to this article, we may owe our lives to Stanislav Petrov, a Russian Army Colonel who refused to launch Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles on September 26, 1983, despite computer indications that five missiles had been launched by the United States at the USSR.
And here we thought that the Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world came to nuclear Armageddon. September 1983 could have been "game over" due to a stupid software glitch. Fortunately Petrov was clear-headed enough to question the data he was seeing. Scary to think that he wasn't originally scheduled to be on duty that night.
The story reminds me of the lyrics of 99 Luftballons also from the early 1980s. The outcome in the song wasn't quite so rosy. (Via Metafilter)
And here we thought that the Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world came to nuclear Armageddon. September 1983 could have been "game over" due to a stupid software glitch. Fortunately Petrov was clear-headed enough to question the data he was seeing. Scary to think that he wasn't originally scheduled to be on duty that night.
The story reminds me of the lyrics of 99 Luftballons also from the early 1980s. The outcome in the song wasn't quite so rosy. (Via Metafilter)
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