Quote:
Originally Posted by masraum
...Some of the testing that was performed (probably really all of it) was also interesting and crazy.
|
Of course the houses in the Apple test were cool, one of which still stands - you've certainly seen the video of the house disintegrating and possibly blowing a movie-star/pilot/adventurer downrange in a refrigerator.
Harold Loomis, of the bank vault sort, got the AEC/DTRA to expose one of his vaults to prove that the Russkies couldn't destroy our gold. It's still there on Frenchman Flats.
Also on the Flats are all of the pig pens. Being biologically similar to humans was a poor choice for a pig as we used many of them for bio testing weapons effects. It took some learning though. At first they just tied them up in the open and we got BBQ (not the goal of the exposure tests). Then they made little shiny pig houses to shield them from the intense light and heat, thus prolonging their (not long) lives to study the effects of the neutrons and gammas on them.
I love all of that history. What a crazy time it must have been. We haven't even shook the ground since 1991 or so - and even those people are retiring.