Although unthinkable by today's standards, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission spent hundreds of millions of dollars between 1957 and 1974 studying the feasibility of using nuclear explosions for so-called "peaceful" purposes under a program called Project Plowshare. Nuclear earthmoving, promoted by the famed physicist, defense strategist, and anticommunist Edward Teller, was the most notorious of Plowshare's experimental programs. Teller and his colleagues proposed using nuclear explosions to build canals, dig harbors, and create dams and quarries. Such "constructive" uses of atomic weaponry,...
Although unthinkable by today's standards, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission spent hundreds of millions of dollars between 1957 and 1974 studying the ...
