Project Plowshare

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Imagine you're Edward Teller and you've spent years of your life probing the mysteries of the atom and finally invented a nuclear bomb. That happened with the Manhattan Project, and resulted in two nuclear bombs that finally ended World War II. What then? The US and the Soviet Union developed more powerful bombs and large nuclear arsenals until the concept of mutually-assured destruction took hold. These bombs were so deadly that neither side could use them as weapons, since that would be suicide.

So what good are these very expensive bomb-splitting weapons if they can't be used in war? Maybe they could be used for infrastructure projects, like digging canals, opening up harbors, oil extraction, or maybe geothermal heat production. What could possibly go wrong? If you've ever wondered what all those underground nuclear tests in the 1960s were for, Kurzgesagt is glad to explain them to us. There's a promotional break from 4:49 to 5:56. The video ends at 11:56.