The Craziest Things You Can Do With Nuclear Weapons

Thanks to 'Martin “Doomsday” Pfeiffer (⧖) 🏳️‍🌈 ' who reminded me of a few of these @NuclearAnthro twitter.com/NuclearAnthro Don't try this at home kids.... or parent

Concrete vapour is not a term one hears very often.

“If you have nuclear weapons please don’t try any of these”. Nice public service announcement from Scott. 😎

Ever heard about the crazy idea to use small low-yield nuclear bombs to make the tritium necessary to make the high yield hydrogen bombs? This was before anyone figured out how to make tritium in research reactors, and before the Canadians had made their heavy water "CANDU" reactor, which creates some tritium as a by-product of its normal operation. In the 1950s and 1960s, getting hold of enough tritium to make the really big warheads was a big problem, exacerbated by the fact that it has a half life of about 12 years, so every few years you need to replace some of it. It was however known that if you subject lithium-6 to a short but intense neutron flux, it splits into equal quantities of helium-3 and tritium. So they came up with an idea with an appropriate acronym: BATS, aka Bomb Assisted Tritium Supply. Basically, make a shallow depression out in the desert somewhere and line it with a thick layer of asphalt, with loads of lithium-6 mixed into the asphalt. Then bang off a few low-yield (a few kilotons each) nuclear bombs next to it. The neutron flux from the nuclear detonations converts some of the lithium into tritium. So you then wait for the fallout to disperse and the short half-life isotopes to decay away (a few months, maybe a year maximum), then go in and rip up the asphalt and process it to get the tritium out. All perfectly feasible, and was a serious consideration until the partial test-ban treaty put a stop to it.

Play connect 4 on the moon's surface with the other nuclear powers. Luna(tic) World Series

I did some tests (in a video now removed due to use of explosives) that proved that the metal plate would have been deformed into a cone or even rod shape during launch thus greatly increasing its chances of making it through the atmosphere. Also I figured that the time, direction of launch and a 6x earth escape velocity would result in a highly elliptical orbit about the sun with the perihelion well below the orbit of mercury. This means that not only was it the fastest moving object created by man it very well still could be.

2:00 I don't usually smoke, but when I do, I light it with nuclear bombs.

I am so glad that Scott spoke about the extinguishing of oil wells in Russia! My grandfather took part in this, and this is my favorite story of his!

I love XKCD's euphemism about certain events energetic enough: You don't "burn" or "explode" or anything like that. You just stop being biology and start being physics. wait you have that book behind you in frame.

Scott Manley: "You could use nukes to propel a spacecraft!" Also Scott Manley: "Fly Safe!"

11:30 "They now have a reservoir which is only slightly radioactive" - only slight radioactive, the gold standard of Soviet engineering.

"I'm Scott Manley. Fry safe!"

"if you have any nuclear weapons, please don't use them at all" But I blew my budget on making them. All this effort and I can't even use them?

“Let’s nuke the moon!” “... just... why?” “idk, sounds fun... wait, no I mean... morale! America! O-oh say can you - hey where are you going?”

Mythbusters with a nuclear device...imagine the possibilities!

Orion is used to great effect in the fictional "Footfall" by Niven and Pournelle. Great SF, well worth a read.

"If you have nuclear weapons then don't try any of these ideas" He prbably means Jeff

Use nukes to power a flashlight, so i can finally realize my dream of a flashlight with noticeable recoil.

"Don't do any of these" But i really really wanna see them nuke the moon!

Today: NOOO WE CANT USE NUCLEAR POWER ITS TOO DANGEROUS 1950's: Atomic bomb powerplant!