Stuff You Should Know - What was Operation Plowshare?

Episode Date: April 28, 2016

America had already used two nuclear bombs to devastating effect when researchers thought "maybe we can use these bombs to dig big holes instead." That's right, atom bombs to replace bulldozers. And it worked great. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Rowland. And this is Stuff You Should Know, the podcast.

It's the bomb. It is, not the bomb, the bomb even. That's right. So, bad pun. But it was okay, it worked for this one. Have you heard? Go ahead. I was gonna say, you know what didn't work for this one?

Was this? The intro? Long intro, which was a nice story, but. Has nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with it. I would like to cover that, though, at some point. Yeah, it's a true story. Let's leave it a secret.

Yeah, everybody, sorry. So, had you heard of Operation Plowshare before? No. So, guys, there's this really awesome Slade article about Operation Plowshare. It's actually an excerpt from a book. I can't remember what the book is called, but it was on Slate.

It's worth checking out, but just look up Operation Plowshare on Slate. This guy goes into, it's actually called What Could Go Wrong? It's by Ed Regis. Bam. I don't know who that is. That it's a guy who wrote a book on Operation Plowshare

and they excerpted on Slate. Oh, I thought you were gonna say he was like, you know, it's my important like Brian Gumbel. No, I was bamming like my own, like how quick I got the answer that I was looking for. I was able to stall without coming off as stalling while I found the answer. I understand.

I was just kind of proud of myself for that. Self-bamming, yeah. So, I've heard about this when I read that article, but I hadn't heard about it before. But Operation Plowshare is basically this idea that we could use all of these surplus huge atomic bombs that we're laying around for civil engineering projects, basically.

Yeah. That we had to move Earth. Yeah. That we had at our disposal developed in World War II this incredible explosive capacity to, yeah, like why not use it to move Earth? We could use a canal. Let's make one.

Yeah, why bring 100 bulldozers in for months and months and man hours when we can just drop a bomb and have a big hole? Right, exactly. Weirdly, it makes sense. It totally makes sense. Here's the problem with it, though. It's insane because to use this successfully,

you have to literally ignore radioactive fallout from nuclear blasts. Yeah. There's just no way around it. Yeah, but this was a time where they were blasting bombs up in the way up high in the sky. They were blasting it well, as you'll see, underground. Well, these cats knew what was going on.

It was the public that wasn't hip to it yet. Well, sure. You know? But, I mean, there was little regard, I think. Yes. I mean, they dropped them on people. Yeah. That's how little regard they had.

It's pretty little regard, you know? Yeah. As Japan. Yeah. So that's a really great point that you bring up. After Japan, this idea of using nuclear bombs for peaceful civil engineering projects led to the title of this operation, the name of this operation,

Operation Plowshare, based on that, I think it's an Old Testament thing about beating your swords into plowshares so that you're using things not for war. You're using technology not for war and to harm other people, but to further humanity through technology. Yeah.

They lifted the name straight from the Book of Isaiah in the Bible. So, very clever title. And supposedly, the legend goes that there's a physicist named Isidore Isaac Robby. And he said, so you want to beat your old atomic bombs into plowshares, huh? And they went, Robby, you did it again.

So should we talk a little bit about what led up to this? Yes. Idea. It's something called the, well, have you heard of the Suez Canal? Once or twice. Have you heard of the Suez Crisis? No, I hadn't actually, have you?

I had heard of it, but I didn't know much about any of this stuff. Yeah. So the Suez Crisis is what preceded this idea. And it goes a little something like this. Yeah. 1956, the American government and the British government were starting to get, well, for a couple of years,

they had been a little bit annoyed with Egypt, specifically their president, Colonel Gamal Abdel Nassar, or Nasser. Nasser. And I think it's Nasser. We'll go with Nasser. Okay. And he had been cozying up to the Soviet Union,

kind of getting weapons funneled through Czechoslovakia and they were arming his, the Egyptian army. And it was, you know, we're talking about the Cold War. So people were getting a little annoyed by it. They were because Egypt had been formerly First World because it was not only allied with the British. It was under British imperial rule

until the early 50s. And a military coup basically threw off the British shackles, but not immediately and not necessarily in the most bloody manner, the British ended up hammering out a timeline where they left Egypt, right? Yeah, but the Brits were, I mean, for a couple of years at this point, in 1956, Egypt was still trying to get Britain to end their military presence around the canal.

Right. And then at the beginning of July, in 1956, the last British troops left the Suez Canal. And on July 16th, Nasser said, oh, we're nationalizing the Suez Canal, see you later, everybody. It's ours. Yeah, and that was a little bit in retaliation for the US and England and Britain pulling out of our promise

to help them finance their Aswan Dam project. Yeah. So it's sort of like, there's a lot of back and forth sniping, like, oh yeah, you're not going to finance this? Yeah. Well, I'm going to nationalize the canal. Yeah. Now that you guys aren't here anymore.

And I'm friends with the Soviets now. And they're giving us weapons. Yeah. So that was a big deal. And not only was it a big deal because there's a lot of geopolitical maneuvering going on, it was a big deal to Britain because the British Empire was very much in decline.

It had just been bombed to holy heck, even though it had come out on the successful side during World War II. And because of World War II, America kind of came out as like the new big kid on the block, the kind of tough bully in charge basically. And this was happening as America was ascending at the same time Great Britain was declining.

And the British ego was a little touchy at the time. So it assaulted the British Empire's ego for the one. But it also had a more practical problem. And that dam was important. Yeah. Not the dam, the canal. Yeah, the canal was. It obviously controlled a lot of trade

in the Middle East, specifically the oil supply. And it wasn't just Britain. It was France as well. They actually ran the Suez Canal Company, even though the Brits were the British government specifically, was the biggest stakeholder in that company. Until it was nationalized, it was run by a French company. And they were also exposed.

Basically, Britain and France were both kind of exposed. Like Egypt stood up to them. Right, exactly. And they were like, wait a minute. They were like, Egypt shouldn't be standing up to us. We're Britain. Exactly. We're Great Britain.

Exactly. So there was egg on the face of, I guess, omelets or weight. Crepes. Crepes on the face of France. Yes. And eggs on the face of Britain. Right. Because they ate eggs.

Yeah. But with like toast and pork and beans, which is weird. So the British and the French have egg all over their face. And they decide that they're going to do something about this. Now, they don't technically invade Egypt themselves. Right? Yeah. What they do is they go to Israel and they say,

you guys should probably invade Egypt, don't you think? Yeah, like you guys have been battling Egypt already on the border. What's one more invasion? Yeah. So they got Israel to invade. Basically, as a means of setting themselves up, the French and the British of sending troops into active peacekeepers.

That's, man. Yeah, it sounded like all three of them. I don't think they like snowed Israel. I think they were all three on this plan. Yeah, that's the impression I had too. So basically, they said, you guys attack on October 26, 1956. We're going to call for a ceasefire. But we'll be in there a couple of days later.

Don't you worry. Right. And that's actually a very post-imperial maneuver. Had it been imperial, they would have just been like, these guys are brown and they're rising up. So we're going to invade. That's totally fine, isn't it? Rest of the West.

Right. And the rest of the West would have been like, sure, sure. But this was post-imperial. They had to do some maneuvering. They sent Israel in. They came in as peacekeepers afterward. And remember, America now is the big kid on the block. And there's such a thing as a UN.

And America went to the UN and went, what is that? They can't do that. And the UN said, we condemn this. They basically acted without telling the US, which really rubbed the American government in the wrong way. So they, and by this time, it was initially successful. They took control of the Suez Canal. The Israeli, French, British thing.

Yeah. The force did. So it worked. But then the Soviets got involved. And they said, you know what? Khrushchev said, I'm going to start raining down nuclear bombs on your head, because this is a big issue. So the US said, I don't like any of this.

I'm going to threaten sanctions against all the countries involved. All of you, time out. Yeah. Go in the corner. That's right. And when Khrushchev said, I'm going to rain bombs down on you guys around the canal.

It worked. Yes, it did. It actually ended the Suez crisis, right? Like really quickly. Like at the end of October is when the invasion took place. And in December is when France and Britain withdrew. So it was like six weeks. Yeah, that's pretty quick.

And then in March, Israel withdrew. And it was all over. And the Soviets were able to puff their chest out and say, a nuclear threat worked. And you guys know how well nuclear bombs work. Yeah. Because you did it. And the British went back and drowned their sorrows

in a pint of bitter. And the French went back and. Drank wine, sure. I was going to say great goose vodka. Wouldn't that be the Soviets? No, because great goose is made in France. Oh, well, sure. I just hear vodka.

I know. That's what that's a lot of people in France have that same reaction. So Chuck, somebody said, I think you said Khrushchev said, I'm going to rain bombs down on you. Nuclear bombs down on this canal on all of you. And that must have struck an American physicist. Because at some point, somebody said, you know what?

Raining bombs down with canals, it's not a bad idea. It might make a larger canal. Exactly. So in a very strange way, the Suez crisis actually helped lead to Operation Plowshare. And we'll go into that right after this. How about that? We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point,

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because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael.

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If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, so the Suez Crisis was still going on in November 1956, and it's a brief window that it was still active. And a dude named Herbert York, he was the director of the Lawrence

Radiation Laboratory in Livermore. And he was a nuclear scientist. And he said, you know what, what Josh Clark said before the break was right. He always follows me around. He says, maybe we can use nuclear weapons to move a lot of Earth. And they got the name, as we said earlier,

from the book of Isaiah, and took it to the Atomic Energy Commission. And they said, this is a great idea. Let's try it. Yeah, they had a meeting and just brought people together and said, hey, all of you guys, let's figure out a better way to use these things. There's a lot of projects we want to do.

So let's pretend like the pie is in the sky, and we'll all shoot for it. Isn't that the old saying? I think so. So they all got together and started thinking, putting their heads together. And again, the US and the Soviets and Great Britain, and then France as well, I believe,

are all just testing nukes all over the place all the time. But they're testing nukes throughout this era, throughout the 50s, and 60s, and 70s too, I guess, to basically figure out how to make a better nuclear weapon. What Operation Plash here was, it was different. It was using these nuclear detonations to study things that could be used for industrial applications.

And one of the first tests like this was called the Reneer Shot, which was actually a part of a larger operation called Plumbob, which is pretty great. All the names when you read them out are pretty funny. Right. And the Reneer Shot, which is one nuclear test in a larger program, was the first fully contained

underground nuclear test. That means that none of the nuclear fallout escaped into the atmosphere. And it was a pretty big deal, because it showed that you could do this. And they also were looking at whether it was basically a proof that you could use nuclear bombs for underground engineering projects.

Yeah, and it went so well, in fact, that the AEC, the Atomic Energy Commission, which approved the project to begin with, said, you know what, we're not even going to hide this one. We can actually talk about it in the press. Yeah. Like, we're proud of this, basically. They did.

And so actually, Reneer was, again, it was part of Operation Plumbob. It wasn't part of Plowsher, but it was basically a proof of concept that this could happen, and that you could just kind of study these explosions for things like industrial uses. Yeah, it was their sizzle reel. Right, exactly.

So the problem was that the nuclear weapons you would be using for a civil engineering project were really basically the same thing as the nuclear weapons that you would be using as weapons that are extraordinarily highly classified and just couldn't be given to civilian companies for testing in use. So the government, the Atomic Energy Commission

and the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories and all of those guys, they had to carry out the tests themselves to make sure that they basically kept a lid on it before handing the technology over to the civilian sector. Right. And they did, and that was where Plowsher officially came from.

And it started at a really bad time, actually. Yeah, I mean, they weren't long. I think it started in the summer of 57, and in March, 1958, Khrushchev said, you know what? Yet, no more testing of nukes for us, which put pressure on the US. But Eisenhower didn't. He wanted to cease testing, too, but he

didn't feel like he could be the first one to do that, because the rest of the people in the United States would think he's a big wuss. Isn't that interesting, though, that Khrushchev and Eisenhower both wanted to stop nuclear testing, and neither one of them had the support at home for it? Yeah, so it took Khrushchev to start it. So then Eisenhower said, well, now we can stop.

And there was a moratorium on nuclear testing for a while. Yeah, but the nuclear physicists who were involved in Operation Plowsher were like, this thing didn't last very long. The Cold War is just too, too cold. And as a matter of fact, a series of events led to the end of that moratorium within, I think, two years. Or was it 1958 that the moratorium started?

Yeah, March 1958. So then I think it might have been three years. Yeah, three years later, the US and the Soviets started squabbling about West Berlin and the Berlin Wall, which was one of my all-time favorite episodes that I always forget about when people ask, like, what's one of your favorite episodes? That's definitely one of them.

That was fascinating. It was a good one. And then they also started squabbling about the shooting down of a U-2 spy plane in 1960. Yeah, that really, like, puffed up everyone's chest, obviously. And so in September 1961, they said, I think it was Khrushchev, again, was the first one to say,

remember when I said, nyet? Now I'm saying whatever the Soviet word for it. Dah. Yes, is it dah? Dah. So let's start testing again. And so then the US, of course, said, well, we'll start testing again.

Right. And Operation Plowshare, they had gone into serious pre-production. Right. Because like you said, they knew it wasn't going to last. So they started planning all the things they would do once they got these bombs back. Yeah, they had some downtime.

And they wanted to be able to be shovel-ready when the moratorium was lifted on nuclear bomb explosions. And by shovel, you mean atom bomb. Right, exactly. So Edward Teller had gotten his people together and said, start thinking about this stuff. And some of the ideas that had come up with were, they were going to blow a channel through the Kapinga

Murangi Reef in the Marshall Islands. I think I actually said that correctly. Kapinga Murangi, yeah. Thanks, man. I'd support that. So they were going to use a nuclear weapon to blow up a live coral reef off the Marshall Islands. I can't imagine how devastated that area is just

from the stuff they did do there. That's where we did so much of our Pacific nuclear testing. I can't imagine what. Has anyone ever done a lot of studying on Nevada? Nevada? Excuse me, not Nevada. No, it's Nevada. But Nevada, I think 90% of these plowsher tests

took place in Nevada. Yes. And there's got to be a lot of stuff. Nevada's been rained down with nukes underground all over the place as testing ground. Not just Nevada, but I think they were definitely took the lion's share of the abuse. For sure.

I'm just curious. I'm sure they've done tests. And I'm sure they're just like, whew, whew, whew, whew. When the results come in. Maybe that's why they don't have to pronounce their own state's name. For anybody who doesn't know what we're talking about, anytime we say Nevada, we get 18 emails, at least,

from people who live in Nevada, telling us kind of firmly that we're saying it wrong and please say it right from now on. Yeah, they say it's Nevada, and my response is always the same. I was like, we know, but you should know that only people from Nevada say it that way. Right. Everyone else says Nevada. Yeah.

And now we'll get emails from six more people that say, I don't even live there, and I say it right. Yeah. We poke fun. We should do a show in Vegas one day. Sure. No, we should have our own theater in Vegas one day. Yeah, we should.

We should have one of those. Yeah, that's what I was looking for, like Britney Spears. Yeah, we can get a, who is that guy that sings like all the impressions? Rich Little. No, the singer Danny, something. Danny K. I can't remember his name.

Who are you talking about? He's a dude. He's got a big act in Vegas, where he just, you know, he's like, now I'm Frank Sinatra, now I'm Bruce Springsteen, now I'm Billy Joel. Well, those are terrible impressions. Well, I'm not the great Danny Gans. That sounds familiar.

I thought you were so good at impressions that you were doing an impression of Danny Gans' bad impressions. No, I think he's supposed to be pretty good. Yeah, I think that name's right. You don't get your own theater in Vegas unless you're top notch, buddy. No way. You got to be Danny Gans or Britney Spears.

Yeah, or David Copperfield. Oh, yeah. Got me to jet disappear. And the Statue of Liberty, let's not forget. Yeah, just gone. No trickery either, no camera tricks. He literally made the Statue of Liberty disappear. I know.

I just said Liberty. Where were we? I have no idea. Operation Plowshare. Oh, we were talking, I know, Chuck. We were talking about all the insane projects that Edward Teller, father of the H-bomb, and his crew came up with during the downtime, during the moratorium.

Correct, sir. So it was blowing a channel in the Kupinga-Marangui reef off the Marshall Islands. Yes. How about a new harbor in Alaska? Yeah. We'll talk about that in a minute. Yeah, that was a big one.

It was a big one. Making canals, and not just canals, sea-level canals, because we did an episode on the Panama Canal. And one of the issues, I guess you could call it, with the Panama Canal is that there are a series of locks as part of the canal that basically are steps for ships to go up and down a mountain range. It's genius.

Sea-level canals are where you blow a flat line all the way through anything that gets in the way from sea to shining sea so that the entire canal is at sea level. So as ship canes go, whew, bam. So that's what they're looking at, sea-level canal excavation using nuclear bombs. Yeah, they were going to call that the, it was either that one or the widening of the Panama Canal,

the Panatomic Canal. It's like, come on, that's way too cute. Yeah, well, everybody was blitzed on martinis at this time. That's true. All right, well, let's take a quick break, and then we will pick back up with the restarting of Operation Plouche here in December of 1961. [?].

All right, Josh, it's December 1961. It's promised, liar. If you are in Carlsbad, New Mexico, you might want to take a weekend away to Nevada. And go work on a healthy glow? Maybe, because if you live near there, they had something called Operation Nome, Codename Nome. And that was a three kiloton blast.

And this one, it seemed like, hold on, Tuck, do you remember that huge coffee table book that was an illustrated guide to the life of gnomes? It was big in like the late 70s, early 80s? No. Man, I grew up with this. Really? It was wonderful.

That's all I have to say. Oh, OK. I thought, for sure, you're going to be like, yes. No, sorry. I got a fine. Hopefully, my dad still has it at his house. I really hope he does, because I want to get my hands on it. What's the deal with gnomes?

Why are people so into that? They're just cute, and they're helpful, and they hang out around psychedelic mushrooms, as like, that's where they hang out under shade and stuff. So you know they're cool. Right. Gotcha. So they set off the bomb in Operation Gnome,

and they had a few objectives here. They wanted to see how much heat it produced, what kind, you know, is it going to cause an earthquake? Let's measure the seismic activity. Right. They wanted to see if they could generate steam to use in turbines for electricity, basically setting off nuclear bombs.

Yeah, but they kind of really wanted to do was see how big of a hole they could create. Kind of. And again, this one was also undergone, and I think they blew it in Carlsbad in Assault Mine, right? And they basically just created a huge cavity underground in Assault Mine and loosened up a bunch of salt.

They said, wow, that really worked. And actually Gnome was the first actual plowshare test. Everything else had been kind of laying the groundwork for it before then. So that Gnome went really well, and everybody's like, this is great. Let's do it again. So July 6, 1962.

We just celebrated the 4th of July. So let's celebrate again by setting off 104 kiloton bomb in the Nevada desert. And man, this thing was huge. A 437 yard in diameter hole that was 109 yards deep. Right. It's actually the largest manmade crater in America. Huge.

It's on the register of national historic places, because obviously it's still there. It's like Tahoe now. Actually, that's funny. The Soviets developed their own similar program a few years after the Americans called the Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy Program. And they created a crater lake in Kazakhstan

with one of their explosions. Oh, really? So it has been done. But with this one, it's a dry crater, the one from the sedan test, right? Yeah, I cannot hear the word Kazakhstan without thinking of Borat. Yeah, that's where Borat's from.

And I watched the other night I came home after a late night out, that's all I'll say. And Borat was on, and I hadn't seen it in a long time. And I found myself watching it and laughing as if it was the first time I'd seen it. It will hold up forever. It was so funny. Oh, man, I love that character.

So the sedan test? Yeah. They use it. So again, 104 kiloton bomb. You didn't say it right either time. Kiloton. Yeah. What is wrong with me?

I don't know. Anyway, the one from the gnome blast was three kiloton. Yeah. So it was huge. And you were talking about Nevada getting fallout and all that, Chuck? Yeah. This explosion was so huge.

And it released so much radioactivity into the atmosphere that apparently they have done some calculations. And they figured out that this bomb alone, this test alone, released 7% of all the fallout from all the tests in Nevada combined ever. It was huge. And it went everywhere.

It went up into Iowa. It went to the Northeast. It was everywhere. Unbelievable. And they were like, let's try it again. Yeah, they did move 12 million tons of dirt, which was the objective. Again, I sort of see where they're going.

And if there wasn't nuclear fallout, it'd be great if it was just a bunker buster that could do that kind of dirt movement. It would be great. Well, not great because you're still wrecking wildlife in the ecosystem. They can find somewhere else to live. But you're right.

They did say it went great. So let's move on to Operation Buggy. They wanted to string together a chain of nuclear bombs. Right, what's it called? It's like they started smoking weed one night and said, hey, what else can we do? Right. You know, like beavis and butt head.

Right. And they said, all right, let's link some bombs together. Like some black cats. Yeah, let's get five of them. Right. And see if we can make a channel instead of a big hole. It's a nuclear road charge, basically, is what it was. It's the one and only that the US ever conducted.

And again, I guess it worked. Five one kiloton bombs detonated simultaneously. That must have been a heck of a thing to see. Yeah, and then of course those dopes, they're always standing somewhere nearby, like behind a lead shield. Right, and then they turn and look at the camera. Yeah.

And then their teeth fall out. Wasn't that a sentence? I think so. And we're laughing. It's not funny. The Simpsons are hilarious. Oh, OK. Well, they were.

Gotcha. One of the other things that we're looking to do here is what we know now is fracking. Yeah, then this is actually like the likeliest thing you could have used a nuclear bomb for as far as civilian projects go. Yeah, but far less precise is fracking, to say the least. Yeah, so fracking is where you basically

explode some oil that's locked up in shale or natural gas or something like that so that you can get to it more easily. But they use it with hydraulic pressure these days, not nuclear bombs. Right, it's a little more surgical. Right, it's amazing that fracking could get even worse. But sure, if you apply a nuclear bomb to it,

it makes everything worse, basically. Yeah, they called it then gas stimulation, which I have 10 jokes. I'm not going to say anything. I think that's good. And that actually turned out to be one of the more promising aspects of the whole program because that could generate money.

It could, and there were actually corporate sponsors on that project. Of course. The problem is they found out later on that when you use a nuclear bomb to loosen up gas underground, locked in rock or whatever, it taints it with tritium, actually, and it renders it basically unusable. And they figured out that even if you could do it without

tritium, what are you laughing about? I can't say it out loud. Then you would still be wasting tons and tons and tons of money they figured out. Yeah, I mean, they found out cheaper ways to get these resources over the years. And so they said non-nuclear ways. Exactly, safer and cheaper.

Yeah, and actually through this investigation in the gas stimulation, which one was that? Was that buggy? I think, yeah, buggy. OK, no, sorry, buggy was the road charge one. I'm not sure what that one was called, where they looked into it. But for the gas stimulation project,

they figured out that they had poured $82 million into it by the time it was over, just that one program, and that it would take 25 years of continuous gas production from these sources just to make back 40% of that. So they're like, well, this isn't adding up at all. That's probably the only reason they stopped, because it didn't financially make sense. Well, that, and then also it was taining the natural gas

with tritium, which made it unusable. So this testing went on for 12 years under plowshare, 27 experiments, 35 bombs, most of those in Nevada, like I said, and then in 1973, it finally stopped. The big daddy hadn't happened yet. Yeah, you want to talk about a couple more of these jobs? Yeah, for sure. These jobs.

Cariol, Operation Cariol, was going to move I-40. I like this one. He said, you know, that highway should move through that mountain range in Southern California. So let's just blow a valley two miles long through it. We're Americans. Why should we drive around mountains? We'll just blow right through them.

Pretty much. And not only were they going to move I-40 through it, they were also going to move a couple of rail lines through it, too. Yeah. And this one, they didn't do this one. This was proposed, right? Yeah, I don't think they'd, no, of course.

This would have been enormous. So remember that 22 bombs they were going to use in total for that one. Right, and then remember the one, which one was it, sedan, which had 7% of the fallout from all the bombs in Nevada? That one was 104 kilotons, right? Yeah.

Operation Cariol planned to use 22 nuclear devices, ranging in payloads from 20 to 200 kilotons. Each? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. It takes a lot of nukes to blow up a mountain, my friend. Right.

And they were going to blow about 68 million cubic yards of earth. That's what they were planning to blow out of there. Wow. It's really, really fortunate for everybody anywhere near that area that they didn't actually try this. Yeah. The boy sure would be able to drive from Arizona to LA

quicker. Slightly quicker. I actually don't know if that's the area, but that's my best guess. How about, or how about? At 40, yeah, probably. Maybe. I would guess, but I'm not sure.

I think I 40, well, I'm going to be wrong no matter what I say. From Santa Barbara to Kansas. From Milan to Mintz. Right. So Operation Chariot was sort of the big daddy, or one of the big daddies. This is when the United States said, Alaska, congratulations. You're a state.

Now we're going to drop nuclear bombs in an area the size of Delaware to see if it works. Let's do it. That was sort of the reason. I mean, they said apparently there was some sort of military advantage, but I think it was nonspecific. You could just get weapons close to the Soviets, I guess,

because we're talking Alaska, and you can be Alaska from Sarah Palin's house, right? That's right. So obviously, if you have a means of getting into further into the Arctic Circle by blowing a harbor up, then why not? Well, creating a harbor. Right, that's what they're going to do, right?

Yeah, they said we would like a nice body of water here. So you're a state. Congratulations. Here, we're going to rain nukes down on you. Right. And some of the local tribes there, it wasn't heavily populated, but they were like, I don't like this idea.

Right, we live here. Two different villages that were inhabited that were within 40 miles of the site. And it actually, the land was under the control of the Bureau of Land Management, I believe. But these Inuit groups had real rights to this area and had a real say in it, and they were not happy with this idea at all.

Yeah, and other people jumped on board the Audubon Society and all kinds of environmental rights groups. But Edward Teller, again, he's the father of the H-bomb. He wrote in Popular Mechanics in, I think, March of 1961. Very excitedly about this project. He said that it was going to use, in a matter of milliseconds, the energy will move 20 million tons of earthen rock, blast out a channel 1,800 feet long and 750 feet wide.

At the same time, create an inner harbor a quarter of a mile wide and a half a mile long. Mino and water depth will be around 30 feet. And they were just going to do that in a matter of milliseconds. Just create an artificial harbor. And it sounds cool and everything, but when you really look at why are you doing this, no one had a really good explanation.

Teller in that same article said, there's vast oil and coal reserves. They're just waiting for people to show up with boats to take it out of. He left out the fact that it's actually behind ice nine months of the year. So it wouldn't be very easy to industrialize. And there was just holes in this plan,

bigger than the harbor they were going to create. Yeah, we're going to put water and fish with five eyes. Right, exactly. Another Simpson's reference. Yeah, it was a five eyes, four eyes. Three, three eyes. Blinky the fish. I guess anything more than one is enough.

Well, or more than two. Well, yes, one on each side. I gotcha. Yeah. Blinky, we just mauled him. Yeah. So the first idea for Cherry, it was 2.4 megatons. And then they even, they knew that was ridiculous.

And they said, all right, how about 400? Would you call it a colotin? Yeah, a kiloton. But thankfully, there was enough hay raised in Alaska. They said, we're a brand new state. Why are you treating us like this? Yeah. And we said, all right, well, maybe you're right.

Bad idea. Yeah. Which is great, because people started to question it and say, you guys just want to see if you can do this. And that's not good enough. So stop. And then Plowshare as a whole kind of ran into the same type of resistance.

So because of all of these worries about fallout, because here's the problem. If you're the United States government, you can't be like, you really need to fear the Soviets and their nuclear weapons, you know? But try not to worry about the weapons. We're actually blowing up in your state. Right.

That's tough to really spin that in a way where people aren't worried about it. And the public became more and more and more worried about fallout and nuclear testing. And especially these underground ones, where they're basically fracking or trying to open up aquifers and that kind of stuff. They were worried about groundwater getting contaminated.

And that really kind of brought Operation Plowshare front and center in the nascent environmental awareness movement. Yes. And then secondly, when they figured out there's just way cheaper ways of doing this, the Operation Plowshare was dead. I wonder if they went to their top spin doctor.

And even that person was like, I got nothing for you here. Oh, you know who their top spin doctor would have been at that time, in the 70s? Edward Bernays. The man himself. Wow. Yeah. Man, I just got chills.

You got anything else? No, sir. And that's the end of that chapter. If you want to know more about Operation Plowshare, just type those words into the search bar at HouseStuffWorks.com. And we'll bring up this article. And since I said plowshare, it's time for a listen to the name.

I'm going to read a quickie and then a real one. But the gauntlet has been laid down. We got a message from John Hodgman. Oh, yes. He listened to our nostalgia episode. Yeah, I never thought he'd listen. And I said, I think we both offered him a chance to rebut. We're like, it's not cool just to slam your theory

without you being in the room. I thought it was perfectly cool. But you can, if you want to write a listener mail for us, we'll read it. Oh, man, the indignancy. Oh, man. So he sent this in. That guy gets set off at the drop of a hat.

Life was so much better before you trashed me in my nostalgia theory all over your podcast. You can't pull that and then get me to write something for you for free. I love that for free thing. Call me up and I'll discuss it with you dudes. Or else let's talk about it on stage when you're in Brooklyn. Because we're going to be in Brooklyn this June

for two shows at the Bell House. Either way, I demand a special episode. Looking forward to your reply in the future, that is all. So we're going to have John on via Comlink. Yeah. And he'll probably rush the stage in the archives soon. I sincerely hope not. But we're going to have him on soon to officially

rebut via phone. I'm excited about this, Chuck. Yeah, it's going to be good. Oh, it's going to be great. All right, so here's the real listener mail. I'm going to call this the gender pay gap episode. And there's going to be a couple of these over the next couple of weeks.

Because it generated a lot of mail, right? Yeah. A lot of email. Just listen to the gender pay gap guys. I'd like to say thank you both. Chuck said at the end he felt a bit clumsy with getting your points across. And I know you may not have meant it this way.

But I want to commend you guys for all the times you've handled sensitive topics like champions. It's apparent when you speak, you're mindful of how your words could be interpreted by others. And it's uplifting to think you guys have young, impressionable fans in podcast land who have taken notice how you are considerate of other perspectives that are not your own.

We try. But we do that up too. So but I appreciate it. A little side note, when you were talking about gender dominated professions, you mentioned that these are jobs that men or women prefer. However, I don't think that the ratio of one gender of another in a profession or industry

is indicative only of a preference. I think it is still the expectation of certain genders having specific jobs that is the stronger determinant of professional choice, profession choice. Imagine if men and women of all races have been given equal opportunity from the get go. What would be the gender makeup of various industries and positions that are currently dominated by one gender

begin to change us? I think it's great importance to instill in young people an understanding that they're not constrained to any set of jobs due to gender. That is from Emily Trine. Emily, that is such a great point. Couldn't agree more. And we got so many emails like that about just

these little details that if you just mention them, it just changes the complexion of everything. It takes this concept to make it even more like a parent. Yeah, one thing. I wish we could go back in time. Well, I sort of do too, but we can do that now. Because one thing I wanted to mention was one point I wish I had made was I got a lot of responses mainly

from dudes on our Facebook page saying, well, you said it yourself, men are more apt to ask for raises. Men are more aggressive about negotiating their salary to begin with. And I was like, fine. But step back and then why is that true? Don't just say, well, that's the reason. Maybe take a more macro view of that even

and say, well, why are they more apt to do that? Is that part of society and is that systemic? And I think it is. So that's all I have to say about that. Well, thanks again, Emily. Thank you, Chuck. Sure. Thank you, Josh.

Thanks. And Jerry, thank you. Quiet, Jerry. Should we go wake Noel up and thank him? We'll just leave a note on his head. There's already three notes on his head. I know. One's from, like, last week.

If you want to get in touch with us to make an excellent point or flesh out a point that we made or what have you, we'd love to hear that kind of stuff. You can tweet to us at SYSK Podcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web,

stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point,

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