When Atoms Got Away From Us
A slipped screwdriver, a rocket that rose four feet, a bomb planned for the Moon — nuclear projects that got further than they should have.
The atom was supposed to stay where the briefing said it would. A sphere of plutonium was not supposed to go critical because a screwdriver slipped. A test rocket was not supposed to explode on live television four feet off the pad. A flying saucer paid for by the Air Force was not supposed to top out at 35 miles an hour. The paperwork, every time, was control.
These are the near-misses, told by the name people actually search. The demon core killed two scientists at Los Alamos in 1945 and 1946, a plutonium sphere brought together by hand. Kaputnik was Vanguard TV-3, America’s answer to Sputnik, which tore itself apart on December 6, 1957. Project A119 was a plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon so the flash would be visible from Earth. The nuclear-powered bomber put a reactor in an airplane. Project 1794 was the Air Force saucer; the vehicle they actually flew, the Avrocar, never got higher than a kitchen counter.
This page is not a history of the bomb. It is the shelf for the moments the atom left the plan. Start here for the demon core, and for the longer record of nuclear projects that got away from the people holding them.
- The Plan to Set Off a Nuclear Bomb on the Moon So Everyone Could Watch
- The Rocket That Exploded on Live TV and Got Called 'Kaputnik'
- The Flying Saucer the Air Force Built That Maxed Out at 35 MPH
- The 'Demon Core': The Plutonium Sphere That Killed Two Scientists
- The Airplane That Carried a Nuclear Reactor