In the fifties , the idea of harnessing atomic power was a bit of a public coitus disaster . The worldly concern at heavy knew nuclear bomb only as prick of aggregative death and destruction . But if the Atomic Energy Commission ( AEC)—later the Department of Energy — had its way , nuclear explosion would have been reinvented as peacetime assets to human beings .
As cogent evidence of concept , the AEC planned to atom-bomb Alaska .
Atlas Obscuradetails the plot , which reads almost as farce comedy . In the late 1950s , the AEC was develop Project Plowshare , a plan to repurpose thermonuclear arm to change the literal look of the Earth . Imagine blasting through batch to create railroad or widening the Panama Canal . The instant landscape shifts triggered by such weapons were economically attractive — save on labour toll — and might also offer access to raw resource like crude oil . The excavation and fracking voltage seemed limitless .
In 1958 , the AEC and physicist Edward Teller proposed the first footstep in this bluff new counseling : Project Chariot . Theplanwas to explode a 1 - megaton H - dud near Cape Thompson in Alaska along with several other , smaller explosions to create a volcanic crater 1000 foot in diameter and 110 feet deep . The result deepwater harbor would ease mineral mining and fishing access . The U.S. governance rhapsodized about the theme in the media , claiming the then - modern-day weapons had low fallout and would create a interface that would be nothing but a last gain for Alaskans .
resident , however , meet these plans with a degree of agnosticism . The Inuit population who live nearby and would have to make do with the radioactive consequences of such a scheme sound their opposition to the estimation . They pointed to earlier test blast that show up radiation showering the vicinity . In 1954 , a eruption in the Bikini Atoll had a nuclear side effect of 7000 square nautical mile in the Pacific Ocean . owe to such trial , the Inuit were already present heightened radiation story . So were the caribou they ingested . The notion of a “ uncontaminating ” nuclear bomb was something no one wanted to test with their own life .
Project Chariot never materialise , and the idea of wielding atomic top executive to supercede manual labor was laid to residuum by 1977 .
[ h / tAtlas Obscura ]
