To bring water and food where there is only parts stirred.
And people where there is desolation.
To bring freedom of movement where there are imposing barriers.
And commerce where nature has decreed there will be isolation.
To bring forth a wealth of materials where there are
vast untapped resources.
And a wealth of knowledge where there is uncertainty.
To perform a multitude of peaceful tasks for the betterment of mankind.
Man is exploring a source of enormous, potentially useful energy.
The nuclear explosion.
He sees the
potentials and he sees the problems.
To investigate both and to develop the technology that will
turn potentials into realities.
The United States is conducting for the benefit of all nations a program
it calls Plowshare.
Today this scene of preparation for a peaceful nuclear explosion
is at an experimental site.
Tomorrow when the potential of nuclear explosives is fulfilled, this scene will
move to the site for a new harbor, canal, or mountain pass.
A mine, oil field, gas reservoir, or water storage basin, or perhaps
a new underground laboratory.
Whatever the site and wherever in the world it might be, the experts
participating in the event will be the same as they are here.
Engineers, scientists, public health authorities.
But eventually the badges of national government will give way except for control
of the explosive to the hard hats of industry and public works personnel.
Using this new power tool for their own applications under
established safety regulations.
This is the day of reality that
Plowshare is working to fulfill.
When it can deliver to mankind a proven tool and a proven technology.
Mankind wears many faces lined with suffering from many different hardships.
But there is a basic frustrating problem common to all.
Many of mankind's pressing needs can be accomplished only by undertaking earth
-breaking and earth-moving projects that are too large or too costly
with today's energy systems.
Man has performed useful tasks with conventional explosives for centuries.
But he has recognized and lived with their limitations.
He knows that a conventional chemical explosion releases the energy that
bonds atoms into molecules.
But he also knows now that there is a far greater source of
energy within the atom itself.
The energy that holds together the heart of the atom is nucleus.
This is the energy released in a nuclear explosion.
Energy so enormous that man must express the yield or energy release of nuclear
explosives in terms of the tons, thousands of tons or millions of tons of TNT
required to produce an equal amount of explosive energy.
But in grasping the full potential of peaceful nuclear explosives, man looks not
only to their great energy but also to their relative size and cost.
He sees that a 10 kiloton nuclear explosive, for example, could be as small as 15
inches in diameter and three feet long.
The price would be about 350,000 dollars.
The equivalent 10,000 tons of TNT would fill a sphere about 73 feet in diameter
with a price tag of about 5 million dollars.
Furthermore, if he increases the nuclear yield 200 times up to 2 megatons, the
package is only about 2 feet greater in diameter and 7 feet longer.
And the price barely doubles.
To increase the yield of the TNT 200 times, he would have to increase the size of
the explosive 200 times, ending up with a pile of TNT weighing 2 million tons,
which would fill a coliseum twice.
And at the same time, the price of the TNT would increase 200 times up to
more than 1 billion dollars.
Enormous energy, relatively inexpensive, compact and easily transportable.
This is the new power tool that Plowshare would add to man's resources of useful
energy, to do jobs never before practical or even possible.
Man had speculated on the peaceful potentials of nuclear explosives even
before using them in time of war.
It wasn't until the mid-1950s, however, that definite plans began to take shape.
The United States Atomic Energy Commission was already conducting the Atoms for
Peace program to benefit the health and welfare of men everywhere, developing,
encouraging, and supervising the peaceful uses of nuclear radiation in science,
medicine, industry, and agriculture, and of nuclear
power for generating electricity.
In 1957, the Commission expanded Atoms for Peace with a New Program, peaceful
nuclear explosives. The program borrowed its name from words of the prophet
Isaiah, in keeping with its goal, to beat the destructive blade of the nuclear
sword into a plowshare that would cut deep into the earth for
the betterment of all mankind.
Overall technical responsibility for Plowshare is assigned to the Atomic Energy
Commission's Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at Livermore, operated by the
University of California. The specialized resources of other Commission
laboratories are also brought into the Plowshare effort for major research and
development work, plus the special capabilities of various government agencies,
private industries, and educational institutions. The task that faces the
Plowshare team is to explore and develop safe, efficient nuclear explosives, and
a practical effective way to use them, safety and technology, the two
inseparable parts of the Plowshare program.
To accomplish this imposing task involves more than
conducting new field experiments.
It involves delving deep into the storehouse of knowledge man has collected on
explosive technology and safety, centuries of mankind's experience with chemical
explosions, and more than 20 years of experience with nuclear explosions,
hundreds of nuclear explosions set off in the atmosphere, in space, underwater,
and underground, in a variety of climatic conditions. All of this explosive
experience combines to give Plowshare the foundation for building its own
specialized technology, and it provides the basis for safety standards that
govern all of Plowshare's field experimentation. Before each experiment, experts
in geology, seismology, hydrology, meteorology, radio biology, and many other
fields bring their specialized knowledge and equipment into the field.
Working with public health authorities, they assure that this specific experiment
is being conducted within accepted safety standards. This same thorough
investigation will precede the actual applications of nuclear explosions wherever
and whenever they may be. What are these actual applications? Some
will be dramatic in their effect as nuclear explosions move huge masses of earth
in excavation jobs, reshaping the geography of the land in dimensions never
before possible to meet the needs of man. Needs he can see as he struggles
against the geography nature has pitted against him. The physical effects of
other nuclear explosions may never be seen by the people they serve, as the
explosions are set off deep underground to shatter large masses of rock in
underground engineering jobs. Other nuclear explosions will be set off to harness
the scientific purposes.
These will influence man more indirectly. He may never realize that his daily
life has been bettered by the unique research investigations made possible with
nuclear explosions. These are the types of applications that Plowshare is working
to make possible through research and experimentation in the laboratory and in
the field. The prelude to the full scientific exploitation of
nuclear explosions took place before the eyes of observers from nations all over
the world. It was the first field experiment of the Plowshare program, Project
NOL, December 1961, 25 miles southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico.
A three-kiloton nuclear explosive was detonated in a salt bed deep under the
earth's surface at the end of this 1,000-foot-long access tunnel.
Several months after the NOMA event, reporters and photographers gave the world
its first look at a nuclear blasted laboratory.
In Plowshare, experts weathered the 140-degree heat to gather firsthand
information of scientific significance. But even before this actual entrance into
the cavity, instruments and earth samples had provided valuable scientific data.
Earth motion studies made during the NOM explosion added to scientists'
understanding of the earth's structure throughout a large part of the United
States. In a neutron physics experiment, scientists were able
to calculate the mass produced in the explosion, an important
step in expanding man's fundamental knowledge of the structure of matter.
Laboratory analysis of samples taken for isotope studies showed that nuclear
explosions are a new potential means of mass-producing radioactive isotopes to
meet the expanding needs of science, medicine, industry, and agriculture. But
this was only the
nuclear explosions, for it appears that man may now have within his reach a key
to understanding many basic processes of nature. This key may be
forged by a nuclear explosion.
In 1964, important steps in this direction were taken in experiments with nuclear
explosives specially designed to produce high-intensity neutron radiation, the
specific characteristic that promotes isotope formation. In 100 millionth of a
second, more neutrons were released by each explosion than could be released over
decades in the most efficient nuclear reactor. The blast pumped these neutrons
into targets of uranium, producing isotopes of very heavy elements beyond
uranium. Eventually, Plowsh air scientists hoped to use these heavier elements as
targets in new elements never before created
by man. This may be the key to answering basic questions about nature man has
asked since the beginning of time. There is another question man seeks to answer,
a question that raises an even more pressing problem. How can the recovery of
natural resources be increased to meet man's ever-growing needs? Plowsh air
underground engineering may be one of the answers.
Nuclear explosions deep underground break and splinter huge areas of rock.
These massive effects may permit highly promising recovery of resources that have
been impossible or economically impractical to extract from the earth. By digging
tunnels deep into the explosive region, Plowsh air teams have been able to
examine and evaluate the effects of underground engineering with nuclear
explosives. Effects achieved with various explosive yields in various types of
rock. Industries and research institutes in the United States and in various
parts of the world have recognized many potential uses for Plowsh
air underground engineering.
They can see how nuclear explosions could increase both the total recovery and
the rate of recovery of vast natural gas and oil reserves by effectively breaking
the rock so that these valuable resources can flow through. They can see how
copper could be extracted from the ground more efficiently as nuclear explosions
shatter the surrounding rock letting through the solutions that dissolve the
copper and carry it to the surface. They can see how the huge area of broken and
fractured rock could be used for receiving as well as releasing materials. For
storing natural gas near its market area, for storing rainwater that could seep
down underground where it wouldn't evaporate, or even for disposing of chemical
waste materials to underground formations.
The mining industry has seen another significant potential
for underground nuclear engineering.
This potential was actually demonstrated in simulated mining operations following
underground nuclear explosions. Nuclear explosions would break and crush mineral
deposits, perhaps more efficiently than ever before, prior to extracting the ore
by conventional underground mining techniques.
Minerals, natural gas, oil, water, investigation and development continue with
government and industry working hand in hand to see exactly what role Plowsh air
underground engineering can play in developing these valuable natural resources.