How quickly we forget…
First, KFC misplaces the specs for its 11 secret herbs and spices… Now, it’s the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration.
The U.S. NNSA needs to refurbish the aging warheads on Trident missiles to assure their safety and reliability, but the program has been set back a year, at an additional cost of $69 million, because the agency has lost track of the recipe for a key ingredient, a mysterious but very hazardous material code-named “Fogbank.” The secret sauce is thought to be a foamy, explosive solvent cleaning agent (and who couldn’t use one some of that at times) that plays a key role between the fission and fusion stages of a thermonuclear bomb.
Unfortunately, the last batch was made some 20 years ago, and in the meantime, not only was the sole production facility torn down, but, according to a GAO report, “NNSA lost knowledge of how to manufacture the material because it kept few records of the process when the material was made in the 1980s, and almost all staff with expertise on production retired or left the agency.”
A new production facility has been built, work on recreating the recipe continues… and Homer Simpson is saying “Doh.”
(Thanks, GMSV)
As we resolve to back-up our files, we might we recall that on this date in 1912, immortal pitcher Cy Young retired from baseball, having scored 511 wins in his 21 year career– 815 starts, another ecord. (The next highest total belongs to Walter Johnson, who won 417 games for the Washington, D.C. team variously known as the Nationals and the Senators. And to put this in a more modern perspective, the “winningest” active pitcher, Greg Maddux, has 355 wins on 740 starts.)
