Operation Plowshare

[yeloson]

Using nukes to make man-made lakes...

Let's see what we can add to the "WTF" total of nuclear history:
1) Leaving nuclear waste in cardboard boxes in a ditch as a policy (Hanford)
2) Nuclear powered ramjet- unshielded reactor that ends up spewing out fallout out the back as a bomb delivery system.
3) Using underground nuclear explosions to create "glass caves" into which you pour the rest of your nuclear waste
4) High altitude explosion testing which EMPs a quarter of the globe
5) Tsar Bomba, the Russian bomb experiment which caused windows to shatter a continent away...

Why do I believe in a higher power? Because SOMETHING has to have kept us from blowing our own stupid asses up this long...

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mike/]

When I was in school the engineering department had a 'Science, Technology, and Society' requirement; the class I took was taught by one of those old-school techno-optimists (a professor emeritus, who just did it for kicks), full of stories about personal airplanes you park on the roof and the like. One class he brought in guest lecturer Edward Teller to talk about things just like that, though your list is missing using nuclear bombs underground at fault lines to release pressure and prevent earthquakes.

What could go wrong?

[benlehman.livejournal.com]

Don't forget about the plan for nuclear powered space-ships.

I'm still kinda sad about that one. Done right, you could have minimal pollution and colonies throughout the solar system. Heck, we could have been to Alpha Centauri by now (but not back yet.)

yrs--
--Ben