Whipped Cream Difficulties

Science Sunday!

Remember back in the old days, around 2017 or 2018, when folks were losing their (stuff) over fracking?

Imagine what things would have been like if we were doing fracking…with atomic weapons.

“The Atom Underground”, from our friends at the Atomic Energy Commission. This is a documentary about Project Gasbuggy:

Gasbuggy was carried out by the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory and the El Paso Natural Gas Company, with funding from the Atomic Energy Commission. Its purpose was to determine if nuclear explosions could be useful in fracturing rock formations for natural gas extraction. The site, lying in the Carson National Forest, is approximately 34 km (21 mi) southwest of Dulce, New Mexico and 87 km (54 mi) east of Farmington, and was chosen because natural gas deposits were known to be held in sandstone beneath Leandro Canyon.[3] A 29 kt (120 TJ) device was placed at a depth of 1,288 m (4,227 ft) underground, then the well was backfilled before the device was detonated; a crowd had gathered to watch the detonation from atop a nearby butte.

This was part of Project Plowshare, the government’s attempt to use nuclear weapons for “peaceful purposes”: digging harbors, building canals, and other massive excavation

Bonus video #1: here’s another point of view on Gasbuggy, which contains more actual test footage.

Bonus video #2: “A Force to Move the Earth”, a documentary from the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory focusing on the work of mechanical engineers. There’s also some interesting footage of LRL’s early computer time-sharing system.