Comment by somat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by somat | Hacker News Reader

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See also: operation plowshare.

The idea was you could use nuclear bombs to dig canals. Or make harbors. Or really any large scale earth moving project. The U.S. did one test shot, a shallow buried bomb intended as a cratering charge. https://www.google.com/maps/@37.176944,-116.046111,4654m This ended up contaminating more people than any other test which put the breaks on that. The soviets had an equivalent study but tried a little harder and are now the proud owners of several new irradiated lakes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedan_(nuclear_test)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Explosions_for_the_Nat...

  >The U.S. did one test shot

I'm seeing 11 shots total,[0] though Wikipedia lists even more.

"Nine were for the purpose of developing an ultra-low fission thermonuclear explosive for use in nuclear excavation projects and one each was for the development of special emplacement techniques and for a small diameter, ultra-low tritium producing explosive for hydrocarbon applications such as Rio Blanco."

[0] Table 1 on page 7 (PDF page 11) https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/408695

That whole effort was predicated on success of efforts to develop fission-free bombs. That never worked out, although the inertial confinement fusion program is in a way its descendant. The scale of ICF reactors shows why it didn't work out. A slight shame, since this might have made Project Pacer (exploding bombs in caverns to make energy) more feasible. There still would have been enormous tritium production/pollution.

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