Built to Do the Impossible

An aircraft carrier of ice, a spaceship riding atomic bombs, a weapon that burned on water, and a lawn chair lifted by weather balloons.

Somebody drew it, and then somebody tried to build it. An aircraft carrier made of ice. A spaceship meant to ride atomic bombs to Saturn. A weapon whose recipe died with the empire that used it. A truck driver who decided forty-two weather balloons and a lawn chair were a flight plan. The interesting question is not whether the thing was sensible. It is how far the build got before the world answered.

The ice ship was Britain’s attempt at an aircraft carrier that would not sink because it was already frozen. The bomb-riding spaceship was supposed to reach Saturn by detonating its way there. Greek fire burned on water, and the recipe did not survive the empire. The robot maid poured the wine and then watered it down. The lawn chair went to 16,000 feet on weather balloons.

This page is the shelf those machines share. Start here for the ice ship and the lawn chair, and for the longer record of inventions that were asked to do something the materials had not agreed to.

• The 480 Million Copper Needles America Scattered Around Earth to Build a Radio Ring
• The Ancient Greek Robot Maid Who Poured Your Wine — and Then Quietly Watered It Down
• The 'Electric' Hairbrush With No Electricity in It — and the Tiny Compass Packed In to Prove It Worked
• The Millionaire Who Declared Gravity 'Enemy Number One' — and Paid Colleges to Put Up Monuments Against It
• The Pigeons a Pharmacist Fitted With Tiny Cameras — and the Patent Office Said It Was Impossible
• The Rose-Colored Glasses Farmers Bought by the Million — for Their Chickens
• The £50-a-Night Electric Bed That Promised Couples a Baby
• The Perpetual Motion Machine Secretly Powered by an Old Man Upstairs Eating Bread
• The Giant Space Mirror Russia Built to Turn Night Into Day — and the Antenna That Snagged the Sequel
• The Concentration Helmet That Needed Its Own Oxygen Tank
• The Wooden Flying Boat That Flew Once, for 26 Seconds — and Was Kept Ready to Fly for 29 More Years
• The Bronze Dragon That Spat Out a Ball Over an Earthquake Nobody Felt
• The Head-Bump Machine That Printed Your Personality on Ticker Tape
• The 3,000 Letters the Post Office Fired at Florida Inside a Cruise Missile
• The Coin-Operated Holy Water Machine That Beat the Vending Machine by 1,800 Years
• The Scientist Who Faced a Charging Bull With a Cape in One Hand and a Radio Transmitter in the Other
• The Sewing Machine Salesman San Diego Hired to Make Rain — Who Filled the Reservoir and Never Got Paid
• The Chemical That Sets Fire to Sand — and the Rocket Chemist Who Recommended Running Shoes
• The Rocket-Powered Wheel That Chased Britain's Admirals Into Barbed Wire
• The Truck Driver Who Flew a Lawn Chair to 16,000 Feet on 42 Weather Balloons
• The Mechanical Duck That Fooled Paris With Fake Poop
• Greek Fire: The Byzantine Weapon That Burned on Water — and Whose Recipe Died With the Empire
• Starlite: The Fireproof Plastic a Hairdresser Invented and Took to His Grave
• The 2,000-Year-Old Computer Found in a Shipwreck
• The Aircraft Carrier Britain Tried to Build Out of Ice
• The Motor That Ran for Twenty-Six Years on a Secret Room Full of Compressed Air
• The Roman Cup That Was Accidentally Nanotechnology
• The Seesaw That Was Built to Raise the Dead
• The Spaceship That Was Supposed to Ride Atomic Bombs to Saturn
• The Two Vacuum Cleaners That Learned to Breathe

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