4 ms·
>The energy unleashed that created the canyons was 1,200 to 2,200 times more powerful than the nuclear explosion energy once planned to excavate a second Panama
by ReptileMan 2y ago
>The energy unleashed that created the canyons was 1,200 to 2,200 times more powerful than the nuclear explosion energy once planned to excavate a second Panama Canal, the study authors estimate.
Sometimes I miss that crazy boldness of the beginning of the Cold war era - imagination, engineering prowess and just a sprinkle of pure insanity.
- jerf 2y agoIf it wasn't for the radioactive fallout, it wouldn't have been a bad idea. It took time to understand how bad the fallout was. And perhaps ultimately, we came to an overestimate of how bad it is for various reasons... people are generally unaware that about 500 surface nuclear bombs have been set off for testing, and I think a lot of people would think that that is already enough to render Earth uninhabitable or something. (Although over the course of decades, not all in one construction project.) From a strictly rational perspective it is probably something that could be done reasonably, but, the world is what it is.
- seanw444 2y agoThe tests are very pretty to watch though. I'm very grateful they were recorded.
- jandrese 2y agoEven without the fallout you're still looking at a nuclear winter just from blowing all of that rock dust into the atmosphere.
- ReptileMan 2y agoI think that you don't have fallout. You dig charges deep, the goal is to make huge caverns that you collapse and are filled with water? This is how I would do it anyway.
- andrewflnr 2y agoRock is not very compressible. The cavities created by underground nuclear tests aren't that large: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_nuclear_weapons_testing#Effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_nuclear_weapons_te... . They did get surface subsidence, but maxing out at a scale of "over half a mile", and not terribly deep. To create "huge caverns", that volume still has to go somewhere, and when you're talking about vaporized rock that mostly means atmosphere or nothing, more often the latter. But at least they didn't always get fallout, that's nice.
- bornfreddy 2y agoLike Aral Sea? Thanks, I can live without.
- psunavy03 2y agoWhen men were men, and test pilots were dropping like flies . . .
- loeg 2y agoThese comparison units are crazy. Normal people don't know how much energy was proposed for the Panama Canal thing either.
- floatrock 2y agoha! True. Yeah, back then the insane ideas were pushing the limits on unbounded possibilities (including unbounded destruction). Now the insane ideas are on how to deal with our bounded resources and life support systems (or pretending such bounds don't exist...)
- pmontra 2y agoWhatever, but that's the weirdest unit of measurement I ever read.