Nuking a Highway Into Existence

Опубликовано 14 июня 2024, 18:40

Not too long ago, the US government hatched a plan to blow up a mountain range with 22 nuclear bombs to clear a path for a new highway. And they almost got away with it.

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Back in the early 1960s, America was busy building out the new Interstate Highway System. But officials ran into a problem in the California desert: an entire mountain range sat in the path planned for I-40 to bypass iconic old Route 66.

Thanks to a government program set up to find productive uses for nuclear bombs, a plan was born. Instead of spending years carving a roadway through the Bristol Mountains, what if we did it all in a day with a bunch of nukes? The bombs would be buried underground and detonated in sequence to blast out a 3.5-mile-long canyon for the highway.

The fact that the nearest town was just 10 miles away didn’t phase scientists and engineers. Nor did concerns about fallout spreading across Southern California. Project Carryall, as it was called, was viewed as a groundbreaking new way to speed up mega infrastructure projects.

In the end, after years of planning, the government was forced to give up on it and build I-40 with boring old TNT. But not for the reasons you might think.

0:00 The Nuclear Highway
1:01 A New Route 66
3:04 Why Nukes?
4:42 Project Details
5:55 Fallout
6:47 The Plan Falls Apart
7:52 Aftermath

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