The Sedan Crater...

[TheMightyFavog]

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Storax.html

Sedan was one of the most spectacular nuclear test ever fired in the continental U.S. It was an LRL test conducted under the auspices of the Plowshare program, which was an attempt to develop non-military uses for nuclear explosives. The purpose of Sedan was to investigate the potential of "clean" thermonuclear devices for producing large craters cheaply (for canal or harbor construction for example).

Up to a point, the more deeply buried an explosive charge is, the larger the crater it will make. Beyond this point much of the material is thrown with insufficient force to clear the crater and falls back in, reducing the final size. At the optimal crater depth though quite a lot of material actually ends up back in the crater bottom. This is an advantage for a Plowshare-type crater experiment since much of the radioactivity gets returned to the crater and buried. The radiation release (as measured in terms of I-131, the most important from human health risks) was 880,000 curies, about equivalent to a 3-4 kt atmospheric fission test.

Sedan was detonated at what was estimated to be the optimal crater depth in alluvial soil. 12 million tons of soil and rock were lifted into the air, 8 million tons of it falling outside the crater. The final crater was 1280 feet wide and 320 feet deep. The force of the detonation released seismic energy equivalent to an earthquake magnitude of 4.75 on the Richter Scale. The device used was similar to that used in Dominic Bluestone and Swanee and was thus a variant of the W-56 high yield missile warhead. The device had a fusion yield of 70%. The Sedan device had a diameter of 17.1 inches, a length of 38 inches, and a weight of 467.9 lb.


Wait... Our government seriously thought that nukes could be used for building man made lakes and shit like that? What about the radioactivity and all that?

:wtf:

According to wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare

Proposed uses included widening the Panama Canal, constructing a new sea-level waterway through Nicaragua, cutting paths through mountainous areas for highways, and for connecting inland river systems. Other proposals involved blasting underground caverns for water, natural gas, and petroleum storage. Serious consideration was also given to using these explosives for various mining operations. One proposal suggested using nuclear blasts to connect underground aquifers in Arizona. Another plan involved surface blasting on the western slope of California's Sacramento Valley for a water transport project. At the end of the program, a major objective was to develop nuclear explosives, and blast techniqes, for stimulating the flow of natural gas in "tight" underground reservoir formations.

What? Using nukes to make resiviors... for drinking water... for human comsumption.

Were people really that stupid back then?

[Capn Sunshine]

1. This was a time when they painted watches with Uranium to glow

and some took it as a health cure.

They honestly didn't have any idea that radioactivity was as harmful as it was.