Sep. 10 was the 50th anniversary of Project Rulison, which was an underground nuclear test conducted in Rulison, Colorado. Its purpose was to determine if a nuclear bomb, detonated underground, could be used to release natural gas.
The answer was, not really, because the bomb will radiate the gas, making it unusable.
But what gave the test extra weirdness was that a handful of protesters tried to stop it by placing themselves on top of it. As an article on CBS Denver notes:
They believed the scientists wouldn’t actually detonate the bomb if people were inside the closure area above, they were wrong.
The protesters survived, but I'm assuming they must be the only people to have ever been directly on top of a nuclear explosion who lived to tell about it.
An article on vice.com offers a few details about what it felt like to be in the blast zone:
"There was this great rumble, and we were lifted about six or seven inches off the ground," he recalls. "There were a whole bunch of tremors reverberating through the ground. People down below described seeing ripples flow through the earth, like a rock that had been tossed in a pond."
The idea of nuking hurricanes has been in the news lately. Which made me wonder: how soon after learning of the existence of atomic bombs did people start to speculate about dropping them into hurricanes?
The answer seems to be, immediately. I found the article below about nuking hurricanes, dated Aug 8, 1945 — a mere two days after the bombing of Hiroshima.
Interestingly, the article speculates that the idea may have been inspired by earlier legends about using cannons to dispel waterspouts:
Talk of bombing hurricanes stems from stories of waterspouts being dissipated in the South Seas with cannon or rifle shot, Norton said. He doubts the truth of these yarns.
A demonstration that what is possible may not be what is practical.
Developed by nuclear physicist William Davidson in 1950, a small amount of radioactive material at the core of the atomic golf ball allowed it to be found using a Geiger counter, should it be hit into the rough. But there were a few problems with the concept:
1: The Geiger counter needed to be pretty close to the ball (within 5 feet) to actually detect it.
2: Not many people own Geiger counters.
3: Even though a single ball didn't pose much of a radiation risk, a bunch of the balls stored together would be a problem. So, it wasn't possible for stores to stock and sell these.
One of the more bizarre consequences of the atmospheric nuclear tests of the 1950s was that, hundreds of miles away, radioactive blue snow began to fall.
Traveling salesman M.C. Myer was one of the first to report seeing this phenomenon in 1953, while driving through Shasta County, California:
He said the snow appeared phosphorescent and "glowed" when his lights struck it. When he stepped from his car to investigate the snow, his face "tingled" and his eyes "watered" upon approaching it, he said.
1957: Atomic physicist Ralph Lapp urged that the government should start stockpiling human sperm in lead-lined containers for use following a nuclear war.
In the radioactive shambles following an all-out hydrogen-bomb war, female survivors would thus have a source of prewar unirradiated sperm to replace that of her irradiated husband. “This would mean many children will have the same father, and even grandfather,” Lapp pointed out. “But it would cut the genetic consequences [of all-out war] more than in half, since the female is less sensitive to radiation than the male in terms of the sperm versus the ovum.”
In 1971, eight tons of these biscuits, or crackers, caused the floor to collapse at the South Carolina State House:
"All of a sudden the walls of the State House began to shake and then the whole world fell in," said Woody Brooks, whose office is next to the storage room...
"We know there were some crackers back there," Brooks said, "but who would have thought there were eight tons of them."
Back in 1961, the U.S. Office of Civil Defense came out with 'fallout biscuits.' They were vitaminized crackers. The idea was that people in fallout shelters could live on these for weeks, or even years, if necessary. The biscuits were cheap to make and lasted pretty much forever, so huge quantities were prepared.
Fast-forward to the twenty-first century. The various places wheres the biscuits were stored, such as the University of Montana, now faced the problem of how to get rid of the thousands of boxes of these things.
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.