The government's wild plan to build highways with nukes
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Published 2024-06-14
[READ THE FULL STORY HERE: www.thedrive.com/news/40221/that-time-the-united-s…]
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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All Comments (21)
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"We could do a whole video on the current state of Route 66" uhhhh definitely do that though??? Would love to see a big roadtrip from you guys in a cool vintage car!
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There were two more underground detonations in hopes of liberating natural gas under Project Plowshare - both in Colorado. Project Rulison (near Parachute) in 1969 and Project Rio Blanco in 1973 (!) near Rifle, CO. Both worked, but also irradiated the natural gas, thereby rendering it unsellable.
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That sounded like a terrible idea
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Another awesome video, keep up with great work bringing less known and interesting stories like this😊❤❤
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I had a glass of wonderful iced tea in the diner in Amboy in 2005, I think it was. Jeeping along the old Route 66 as much as I could. Bought the obligatory Route 66 hat, of course.
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Wow! That guy riding on the tank at 1:20 looked a lot like you 😮
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Great video. I enjoyed the story. This reminds me more of the cool stuff I remember yall covering.
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The weird thing about that route from Barstow to Needles? It's not all that steep. The descent from the top down into Indio on I-10 that parallels it is far steeper and more treacherous. It's not clear what they were thinking for this Project Plowshare-- other than maybe a way to skirt the Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty?
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@2:20 Sweet ride dude!
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Donald Sunderland, driving his ferrari at 87. ❤
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I've watched a lot of science channels that feature nuclear physics as a main topic, but watching a car channel guy talk about nuclear weapons feels... strange.
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Huh, I didn't know Barstow Station had Barstow written on its roof.
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It's so scary that the nuke was like their shiny new toy.. they wanted to use it for everything back then.
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Yeah definitely do the RT 66 video
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If there ever is one thing that will end the America we know today, it's profit at all cost or profit becoming the only thing that matters. If America looses it's hegemony, it will be because of greed.....
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Yeah the reason Hiroshima and Nagasaki are habitable today is because the bombs were detonated mid-air, minimizing the creation of fallout (vaporized, radioactive solids such as dirt). Using nukes to clear mountain ranges would leave those areas uninhabitable for decades at least, and would create a massive fallout cloud that would spread radioactive materials across the Earth...
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This would work great for a river or canal!
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Correct me if I’m wrong but did they not use nukes building the Panama Canal?
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Do you have a real job, is that why it takes 2 weeks until we get another cool story thats auto related?
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Interesting bit of history, thanks for this!
