What was Operation Plowshare?

this one. Was this the intro long intro which was a nice story but has nothing so I would like to cover that at some point. Yeah, it's a true story. Let's leave it a secret. Yeah, everybody. Sorry. So, um, had you heard of Operation Plowshare before? So, guys, there's this really awesome Slate article um about Operations Plowshare. It's a it's actually, um an excerpt from a book. I can't remember what the book is called, but um, it was on Slate. It's worth checking out. But just look

up operation plosh here and Slate. This guy goes into it's actually called What Could Go Wrong? It's by Ed Regious bam um that it's a guy who wrote a book on Operation plows Share. And they excerpted on slate. Oh, I thought you were going to say. He was like, you know some my important like Brian Gumble. You know, I was bamming like my own like so 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 was just so um, I've heard about this when when I read that article, but I hadn't heard about it before. But Operation Plosh there 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 that we had to move earth. Yeah, that we had at our disposal developed in World War Two, this incredible explosive capacity to yeah, like, why not use it to move earth? We we could use a canal,

let's make one. Yeah, Why bring a hundred 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 to use this successfully you have to literally ignore radioactive fallout from nuclear blasts. There's just no way around it. Yeah, but this was a time where they were they were blasting bombs up in the way of 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 a little regard I think, yes, I mean they dropped him on people. Yeah, that's that's a little regard. They had pretty little regards. That's Japan. Yeah, so that that that's that's a really great point that you bring up UM. After Japan, this idea of using UM nuclear bombs for peaceful civil engineering projects. UM 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 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 umle and supposedly the legend goes that there's a physicist named Isadore Isaac Robbie UM and he said, so you want to beat your old atomic bombs in the plow shares. Huh when they went Robbie, you did it again. Uh So should we talk a little bit about what led up to this idea? Um, it's something called the Uh. Well, have you heard of the Suez Canal once or twice? Have you heard of the sue s crisis? Uh No,

I hadn't, actually had you. I had heard of it, but I didn't know much about any of this stuff. Uh So the Suez Crisis is what preceded this idea. Uh. And it goes a little something like this. N UM. The American government in the British government were starting to get UM. Well, for a couple of years, they had been a little bit annoyed with Egypt. UM, specifically their president, Colonel Gamal A del Nassar or NASA. And UM, I

think it's we'll go with NASA. And he had been cozing up to the Soviet Union, UM, kind of getting weapons funneled through checklistle and they were they were arming his his 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 fifties. And um 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 um Egypt, right, yeah, but the Brits were, I mean for a couple of years. At this point in nineteen fifty six, Egypt was still trying to get Britain to in their military presence around the canal, right and then uh, and at the beginning of July n six to the last British troops left

the Suez Canal. And on July six, 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 or um the U S and England and Britain pulling out of our promise to help them finance their Aswan damn project.

So it's sort of like there's a lot of back and forth sniping like oh, yeah, you're not gonna finance this, Yeah, well, I'm gonna nationalize the canal now that you guys aren't here anymore, and I'm friends with the Soviets now and they're giving us weapons. So that was a big deal. And not only was it a big deal because there's a lot of geo political maneuvering going on, it was a big deal to Britain because the British Empire was

very much in decline. UM. It had just been bombed to holy heck, even though it had come out on the successful side during World War Two. And because of World War Two, America kind of came out as like the new big kid on the block, that the kind of tough bully in charge basically, and this was happening. America was ascending at the same time, Great Britain was declining and the British ego was a little um touchy at the time. So it assaulted the British empires ego

for the one. But it also had a more practical problem, and that was that damn was important. Yeah, the not the damn, the canal. Yeah, the canal was. It obviously controlled a lot of trade in the Middle East, uh, specifically the oil supply UM, and it wasn't just Britain, it was France as well. Uh. They actually ran the Suez Canal Company. Even though Brits, the Brits were the large the British government specifically was a big stakeholder in that company until it was nationalized. It was run by

a French company. And they were also exposed. You know, basically Britain and France were both kind of exposed, like, you know, Egypt stood up to them and they were like, wait a minute, They were like, Egypt shouldn't be standing up to us. You know, we're Britain, Great Britain exactly. So there was egg on the face of I guess omelets or wait, crepes, crepes on the face of France, yes,

and eggs on the face of Britain, right because eight eggs. Yeah, but what's like toast and pork and beans, which is weird. So um, 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 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. Yeah, border,

what's one more invasion? Yeah, so they got Israel to invade basically is a means of setting themselves up, the French and the British of sending troops into act as peacekeepers. Man. Yeah, it sounded like all three of them. I don't think they like snowed Israel. I think they were all three on in this plan. Yeah, that's the impression I have to. So basically they said, you guys attack on October fifty six. We're gonna 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, uh, these guys are brown and are rising up, so we're going to invade. That's totally fine, isn't it. Rest of the West 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 afterwards. And remember American now as the

big kid on the block. And there's such a thing as a UN in America went to the u N and went, what is that. They can't do that and said, we condemned this. They basically acted without telling the US, which really rubbed uh, the American government the wrong way. So they and and by this time, well it was initially successful. They took control of the Suez Canal, the Israeli, French,

British thing the force did. So it worked. But then the Soviets got involved and they said, you know what, kru Chef said, I'm gonna start reigning down nuclear bombs on your head. Uh, because this is a big issue. So the US said, I don't like any of this. I'm gonna threaten sanctions against all the countries involved. All of your time out go in the corner. That's right. And when kreus Chef said I'm gonna rain bombs down

on you guys around the canal, it worked, Yes, it did. Um. It actually ended the Tous 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 in. The Soviets were able to puff their chest out, and you know, say, you know a nuclear threat worked, and you guys know how well nuclear bombs work because

you did it. And the British went back and drown their sorrows in a pine and bitter and the French went back and uh, drink wine. Sure I was gonna say great Goose vodka, wouldn't that be the Soviets? No, because Great Goose is made in France. I just hear vodka in a minute, I know that's what that's a lot of people in France has the same reaction. So um, chuck,

somebody said, I think you said. Cruise chef said, I'm gonna rain bombs down on your nuclear bombs down on this canal, on all of you, and um, that must have struck an American physicist because at some point somebody said, you know what, ranting bombs down with canals, it's not a bad idea. It might make a larger canal. Exactly. So, in a very strange way, the Suis crisis actually helped lead to Operation Plowshare, And we'll go into that right

after this. How about that all right, So the SUS crisis was still going on in November nine six, and it's a brief window that it was still uh active. And a dude named Herbert Yorke. He was the director of the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory in Livermore, and he was a new nuclear scientist, and he said, you know what, uh what Josh Clark said before the break was right 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, took it to the Atomic Energy Commission and they said, this is a great idea. Let's right. Yeah, they had a meeting and just brought people together and said, hey, all of you guys, um, let's uh, let's figure out a better way to use these things. There's a lot of projects we want to do, so let's let's pretend like the pies in the sky and we'll all shoot

for it. And that the old say. Um. So they all got together and um started thinking, putting their heads together, and again the US and um, the Soviets and Great Britain and then France as well. I believe are all just testing, testing nukes all over the place all the time. But they're testing nukes throughout this era, throughout the fifties and sixties and uh seventies too, I guess, um 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 like 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 plumb Bob, which is pretty great. All the names when you read

them out are pretty funny. And the Reneer Shot, which is the one nuclear test in a larger program, um was the first, um, 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 uh. It went so well, in fact, that the a e C, the Atomic Energy Commission, which approved the project to begin with, said you know what, We're not even gonna hide this one we can actually talk about it and press like we're proud of this. Basically they did, um, and so actually nar was again it

was part of Operation Plumb Bob. It wasn't part of Plaushure, but it was basically a proof of concept that this could happen, UM, and that you could just kind of study these explosions for things like um, you know, uh, industrial uses. Yeah, it was their sizzle reel, right exactly. So, UM.

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 see civilian companies for testing in use.

So the government, that Atomic Energy Commission and UM, the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories and all of those guys, UM, they had to carry out the tests themselves to make sure that they they basically kept a lid on it before handing the technology over to the civilian sector. And they did. And that was where plowshare officially came from. And it started at a really bad time. Actually yeah, I mean they weren't along. I think it started in the summer

fifty seven. Uh. In in March nineteen Khruschev said, you know what, uh yet no more testing of nukes? Yeah for US, which put pressure on the US. But eisen Or didn't. He wanted to cease testing too, but he didn't feel like he could, you know, be the first one to do that, because you know, the rest of the people in United States would think he's a big what was? And then interesting though that Kruscheff and Eisenhower both wanted to stop nuclear testing and totally neither one

of them had the support at home for it. Yeah, So it took cruise chef to start it. So then Eisenhower said, well, now we can stop. And there was a moratorium on nuclear testing for a while. Yeah. Um, But the nuclear physicists who were involved in Operation Plowshare where like this didn't gonna 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 nineteen fifty eight that the moratorium started? Uh, yeah, March nineteen fifty eight, so then I think it might have been three years. Yeah, three years later. Um, the US and the Soviets started squabbling about West Berlin in the Berlin Wall, which was one of my all time favorite episodes. I always forget about when people ask, like, what's one of your favorite episodes, That's definitely one of them. Fascinating,

it was a good one. Um. And then, uh, they also started squabbling about the shooting down of a YouTube spy plane in nineteen sixty Yeah. That really like puffed up everyone's chest obviously. Um. And so in September nineteen sixty one they said, I think it was kru Chef again was the first one to say. Remember when I said yet, now I'm saying whatever the Soviet word for yes, is it? So let's start testing again? And so then the US of course said, well we'll start testing again

an Operation Plowshare. They had gone into serious pre production because, like you said, they knew it wasn't gonna last, so they just 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 By shovel you mean adam bomb, right exactly? So um. Edward Teller had gotten his other his people together and said start

thinking about this stuff. And some of the ideas that had come up with were they were gonna blow a channel through the kapinga marangei reef in the Marshall Islands. I think I actually said that correctly, copinga MARANGUEI yeah, thanks man, 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. Because 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. Like I think of these plowshar tests took place in Nevada. Yes, and there's gotta be like that has been rained down with nukes underground all over the place as testing ground, not just Nevada. But I think they've we're definitely, like you know, took the line share of the abuse, for sure. I curious. I'm sure they've done tests and I'm sure they're just like

when the results come in. Maybe that's why to pronounce their own state's name for anybody who doesn't know what we're talking about. Any time we say Nevada, we get eighteen 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, 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. Everyone else has Nevada.

And now we'll get emails from six more people say I don't even live there, and I say it right. We poked 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 like um those like, yeah, that's what I was looking for. Britney Spears, Yeah we can get Uh. Who is that guy that sings like all the impressions Rich Little No, the singer Danny something, Danny Kay, 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, No Bruce Springsteen, no Billy Jewel. Well, those are terrible impressions. Well, I'm not the great Danny Danny Gans. That sounds familiar. I thought you were so good at impressions that you were doing an impression of Danny Gans is 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 not Buddy Way. You gotta be Danny for Britney Spears. Yeah, or David Copperfield. Oh yeah, got me. The jet disappear and the statue of Liberty, let's not forget, just gone. No tricker either, no camera tricks. He literally made the statue of Lipperty disappear. I just said, Lipperty. Where were we? I have no idea Operation Plowshare. Oh

we were talking, I note Chuke. We were talking about all the insane projects that Edward Teller father the h bomb, and his crew um came up with during the downtime, during the moratorium. So there's blowing a channel in the kapingamar Ange reef off the Marshall Islands. How about a new harbor in Alaska. Yeah, we'll talk about that in

a minute. Yeah, that was a big one one, making canals and not just canal sea level canals, because um, 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 sea level canals or 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 now

is at sea level, so as ship can just go Yeah bam. So that's what they're looking at. Sea level canal excavation using nuclear bomb. Yeah, they were gonna 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. Even 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 plow Share in December. All right, Josh, is December. It's promised, liar, if you are in Carl's Bad, 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 Gnome, code named Gnome, 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 seventies, early eighties. Really it was wonderful. That's all I have to say. Okay, I I thought for sure you're gonna be like, yes, no, I gotta 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 Gnomes? Why are

people so into that? They're just cute and they're helpful and they hang out around psychedelic mushrooms as like you know, that's where they hang out under shade and stuff, right, Um, So they set off the bomb and Operation Nome, and uh, 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.

They wanted to see if they could generate steam to using turbines for electricity and basically setting off electric or um nuclear bomb. Yeah, but they kind of what they kind of really wanted to do was see how big of a whole they could create kind of and again, um, this one was also underground, and I think they blew it in. Uh, Carl's bad in a salt mine, right, and they basically just loosened created a huge cavity underground in a salt mine and loosened up a bunch of salt.

They said, wow, that that really worked. And actually none was the first actual plowshare test. Everything else had been kind of laying the groundwork for it before then, so that no one went really well, and everybody's like, this is great, let's do it again. So July, we just celebrated the fourth of July, so let's celebrate again by setting off a hundred and four kill its unbombed and the Nevada Desert. Uh, and man, this thing was huge, a four hundred and thirty seven yard in diameter hole

that was a hundred and nine yards deep. Right, it's actually the largest man made crater in America. Huge, it's a it's it's on the Register of National Historic Places because obviously it's still there. It's like Tahoe Now. Actually, that's funny. Those Soviets developed their own similar program a few years after the Americans, called the Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy Program, and they blew up. They created a crater lake in Kazakhstan with one of their explosions.

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 Barret'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 had seen it. Will hold up forever, so funny,

Oh man, I love that character. So Um the Sedan test they used so again, a hundred and four kiloton kiloton bomb Kila toon, Yeah, what's wrong with me anyway? Um? The one from the Nome blasts three kiloton so It was huge, and you were talking about Nevada getting like

fall out and all that chuck. This 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 seven percent of all the fallout from all the tests in Nevada combined. It was huge, and it went everywhere. It went up into Iowa, it went to the northeast.

It was everywhere, and they were like, let's try it again. Yeah, they did move twelve million tons of dirt, which was the objective. Um again, I sort of see where they're going. And if there wasn't nuclear fallout, great, 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. That's they wanted to string together a chain of nuclear bombs. It's like it's like they started smoking weed one night and said, hey, what else can we do? You know, like like Beavis and butt head, and they said, all right, let's let's link these some bombs together like some black cats. Yeah, let's get five of them and see if we can make a channel. It's a nuclear road charge, basically, it's what it was. It's the one and only that the

US ever conducted. And um, again, I guess it worked. Five one ko ton bombs that needed 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 and then their teeth fall out and then a Simpsons I think, so um, and we're laughing. It's not funny. The Simpsons are hilarious. Okay, they were. Got. 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 like civilian projects go. Yeah, but far less precise is fracking to say the least. Yeah. So you know, 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. Um. But they use it with hydraulic pressure these days, not nuclear bombs. Right,

it's a little more surgical. Right. It's it's amazing that freck and could get even worse. But sure if you ply a nuclear bomb to it, it makes everything worse, basically, Yeah, they call it. They called it then gas stimulation, which um ten jokes. I'm not gonna say I think that's a that's good. Uh, 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 the that project of course. Um. The problem is that they found out later on that when you use a nuclear bomb to um loosen up gas underground locked in rock or whatever, um, it taints it with tritium actually, and you 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, um, then you you would still

be wasting tons and tons and tons of money. Figured out, Yeah, I mean things became They found out cheaper ways to uh get these resources. Over the years, and so they said non nuclear ways exactly safer and cheaper. Yeah, and they and actually through this, um, this investigation in the gas stimulation which one was that was that buggy? Okay, um, no, sorry, buggy was the row charge one. I'm not sure what the what the that one was called where they looked

into it. But um, but for the gas stimulation project, they figured out that they had poured eighty two million dollars into it by the time it was over, just that one program, and that it would take twenty five years of continuous gas production from these sources just to make back that. So they're like, well, this isn't adding up at all. That's probably the only reason they stopped, just because it didn't financially make sense. Well that and then also like it was taining the natural gas with

tritium which made it unusable. So this testing went on for twelve years under plowshare, twenty seven experiments, thirty five bombs, most of those in Nevada, like I said, and then in nine it finally stopped. But um, the big Daddy hadn't happened yet. Yeah, you want to talk about a couple more of these jobs. For these jobs, um, carry all Operation Carryall was gonna move He said, you know what, that highway should move through that mountain range in southern California.

So it'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 they not only were they going to move I forty through it, they were also going to move a couple of rail lines through it too. Um and this one did they didn't do this one. This was proposed, right, Yeah, I don't think that. No, of course, this would have been enormous.

So remember that twenty two bombs they were gonna use in total for that one, right, and then remember the one, uh which one was it Sedan, which had even percent of the fallout from all the bombs of Nevada. That one was a hundred and four kilotons, right. Operation carry y'all planned to use twenty two nuclear devices, ranging in payloads from twenty to two hundred kilot tons each. Yeah, yeah, yes, it takes a lot of nukes to blow up a mountain,

my friend. Right, And they were gonna blow about sixty eight million cubic yards of earth, that's what they were planning to blow out of there. It's really really fortunate for everybody anywhere near that area that they didn't actually try this. The boy sure would be able to drive from Arizona to l a quicker slightly quicker. Actually don't know if that's the area, but that's my best guess. How about how about yeah, probably I would guess. I'm not sure. I think I fort well, I'm gonna be

wrong no matter what I say. From Santa Barbara to Kansas, from Milanda Mints, right. So, Operation Chariot was sort of the big daddy, um or one of the big daddies. This is when the United States said, Alaska, congratulations your state. Now we're gonna drop nuclear bombs in an area the size of Delaware. Two. 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 non specific. You could just get weapons close to the Soviets, I guess, because we're talking in Alaska, and you can be Alaska from Sarah Palin's house, right, So obviously, if you if you have a means of getting into further into the Arctic Circle by blowing a harbor up. Then not well, creating a harbor, right, that's what they're gonna do, right, Yeah, they said, we would like a nice body of water here, so your your state, congratulations. Here,

we're gonna reign new ex down on you. And some of the local uh tribes there it wasn't heavily populated, but they were like, I don't like this idea. Right here, two different villages that were inhabited that were within forty miles of the site and um it. Actually the land was under the control of the Bureau of Land Management, I believe, but these Inuit groups had like real rights to this area and had a real say in it, and they were like not happy with this idea at all.

And other people jumped on board, the Audubon Society and all kinds of you know, environmental rights groups. But Edward Teller again, he's the father of the h bomb. He wrote in um Popular Mechanics and I think March of nineteen sixty one, very excitedly about this project. He said that um it was going to use in a matter in a matter of milliseconds, the energy will move twenty million tons of earthen rock, blast out a channel eighteen

hundred feet long and seven d defeat wide. At the same time, create an inner harbor a quarter of a mile wide and a half a mile long. Minimum water depth will be around thirty feet. And they were just going to do that in a matter of milliseconds, just create a artificial harbor. And it sounds cool and everything, but when you really look at like, why are you doing this, no one had a really good explanation. Uh. Teller in that same article said there's vast oil and

coal reserves. They're just waiting to 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 um to industrialize. Um. And there was just holes in this plan bigger than the harbor they were going to create. Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna put water and fish with five eyes,

right exactly, another Simpsons reference. Yeah, five eyes, four eyes, three three eyes blinky the fish because anything more than one is or more than two, well, yes, one on each side, blinky. We just mauled him. Yeah. Um. So the first idea for Chariot was two point four mega tons and then they even they knew that was ridiculous, and they said, all right, how about four would you call it a colotton? Yeah, to kill a ton and uh but thankfully, um there was enough hay raised in Alaska.

They said, we're branding state while you're treating us like this, and um 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 gotta be, you really need to. You're the Soviets and their nuclear weapons, you know, but try not to worry about the weapons were actually blowing up in your state. Right. That's that's tough to really spin that in a way where people aren't worried about 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 ground groundwater getting contaminated, and that UM really kind of brought Operation Plowshare front and center in the nascent environmental um awareness movement. Yes. Um. And then secondly, when they figured out there's just way cheaper ways of doing this, Uh, there, 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, or you know who their top spin doctor would have been at that time in the seventies, a man himself. Yeah, chills, you got anything else, no, sir. And that's the end of that chapter. If you want to know more about Operation flos share, just type those words into the search bar how stuff works dot com

and uh, we'll bring up this article. And since I said, uh plowshares, it's time for listening mail, I'm gonna read a quickie uh, and then and then then a real one. But we the gauntlet has been laid down. We've got a message from John Hodgman. Oh, yes, you listened to our nostalgia episode. Yeah. I never thought he'd listen. And I said, uh, I think we both offered him a chance to rebut we're like, you know, it's not cool just to slam your theory um without you being in

the room. I thought it was perfectly cool. It's like, but you can you know, 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, like at the drop of the hat, life was so much better before you trash 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 a 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 gonna be in Brooklyn this June for two shows at the Bellhouse. Either way, I demand a special episode looking forward to your reply in the future. That is all so uh, we're gonna have John on via calmly and he'll probably rush the stage in New York I soon, I sincerely hope not, but we're gonna have

him on soon to officially rebut via phone. I'm excited about this, Chuck. It's got me good it's good. Oh, it's gonna be great. All right, So here's the real listener mail. I'm gonna call this the gender pay gap episode, and there's gonna be a couple of these over the next couple of weeks because it generated a lot of mail. Alright, yes, a lot of email. Uh, let's just listen to the gender pack up, guys. I'd like say thank you both.

Chuck said at the end, you 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. Uh, it's apparently handled. It's apparent when you speak you're mindful of how your words could be interpreted by others, and it's uplifting. You think you guys

have young infession. Impressionable fans and podcast lands have taken notice how you were considerate of other perspectives that are not your own. Um, we try, but we we've brewed that up to 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 or another under profession or industry is indicative only of a preference.

I think it is still the expectation of certain genders having specific jobs. Uh, that is the stronger determinant of professional choice. Uh, 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 and understanding that they're not constrained

to any set of jobs due to gender. That is from Emily Trene. Emily, that is such a great point. Couldn't agree more. And we got so many emails like that about just these little details. Yeah, if you just mention them, it just changes the complexion of everything. It takes this this concept and makes it even more like a parent. Yeah, one time, 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, um mainly from dudes on our Facebook fade saying well, you know, you set 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 like step back and

then why is that true? Like don't just say well that's the reason, Like 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? Is that sy stomach? Um? And I think it is. Sure. So that's all I have to say about that. Uh, well, thanks again, Emily, thank you, Chuck, sure, thank you, Josh, thanks and Jerry, thank you? Quiet Jerry? Should we got wake noal up and thank him. Uh, we'll just leave

a note on his head. Um, there's already three notes on his head. And if you know once from like last week. Uh, 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 love to hear that kind of stuff. You can tweet to us tot s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot Com and has always joined us

at home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it, How stuff works dot Com.