grimsituation6 Posted July 18, 2016 #1 Share Posted July 18, 2016 so just thought it would be cool to share "operation gnome" with everybody. the experiment used a nuclear detonation to essentially carve out a "spherical" cavern underground. the idea was that the intense heat would turn the caverns walls diamond hard, making it a "safe" structure, except it sounds more like a radioactive tomb. much more reasonable, the idea of nuclear powered drill, roughly the size of a nuclear powered submarine, most likely using a similar generator. now this idea actually has some merit, as it stands now drills take alot of energy to run, high torque and high fuel usage. imagine a drill that is limited to only what its bit is made of, you could essentially have a cost effective non stop drilling operation. anyhow, i wonder what other cool non-lethal uses nuclear explosions could have? and not the obviously stupid uses, like blasting an oncoming asteroid or knocking out the power grid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grimsituation6 Posted July 18, 2016 Author #2 Share Posted July 18, 2016 i had this cool idea of using them along fault lines in non populated areas to decrease geological stresses and essentially create a controlled earthquake. thus hopefully decreasing the chance of earthquakes in populated areas, if done right it may work, if done wrong...well...bye bye L.A. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grimsituation6 Posted July 18, 2016 Author #3 Share Posted July 18, 2016 or how about blasting an asteroid into little pieces and use it as a cosmic shade for the Earth to reduce negative solar effects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Likely Guy Posted July 18, 2016 #4 Share Posted July 18, 2016 It seems that you're having a hypothetical discussion with yourself. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DieChecker Posted July 23, 2016 #5 Share Posted July 23, 2016 On 7/17/2016 at 9:59 PM, grimsituation6 said: so just thought it would be cool to share "operation gnome" with everybody. the experiment used a nuclear detonation to essentially carve out a "spherical" cavern underground. the idea was that the intense heat would turn the caverns walls diamond hard, making it a "safe" structure, except it sounds more like a radioactive tomb. much more reasonable, the idea of nuclear powered drill, roughly the size of a nuclear powered submarine, most likely using a similar generator. now this idea actually has some merit, as it stands now drills take alot of energy to run, high torque and high fuel usage. imagine a drill that is limited to only what its bit is made of, you could essentially have a cost effective non stop drilling operation. anyhow, i wonder what other cool non-lethal uses nuclear explosions could have? and not the obviously stupid uses, like blasting an oncoming asteroid or knocking out the power grid. I'd very much doubt that a artificial cavern could be made using a nuke. The material does not disintegrate/disappear, but is vaporized. Thus, unless the vaporized rock is evacuated out a hole of some kind, it will still be there. Indeed, detonating a nuke underground most likely wouldn't even vaporize the nearby rock, but would just cause the ground to "jump", and any space made would fill back in with lifted material. A nuclear powered drill? Perhaps... It might have a good use in building deep long distance tunnels, which are air tight and fitted with magnetic rails, allowing super sonic train movement between major cities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DieChecker Posted July 23, 2016 #6 Share Posted July 23, 2016 On 7/17/2016 at 10:07 PM, grimsituation6 said: or how about blasting an asteroid into little pieces and use it as a cosmic shade for the Earth to reduce negative solar effects. Actually putting a lot of debris in orbit would be a bad idea. It wouldn't react well with our satellite network and with missions that we send out to explore the solar system. A better idea might be to place a giant umbrella of some construction between us and the Sun, to cut the input of solar radiation to the Earth, this could in effect reduce the global temperature temporarily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkHunter Posted July 23, 2016 #7 Share Posted July 23, 2016 On 7/18/2016 at 1:07 AM, grimsituation6 said: or how about blasting an asteroid into little pieces and use it as a cosmic shade for the Earth to reduce negative solar effects. The first major problem is that a nuclear bomb won't blow anything up in space into little pieces to begin with. The main destructive force of a nuclear bomb comes from the super heated air it instantly produces. Since the rise in temperature is ridiculously high and quick it causes the surrounding air to expand faster then the speed of sound which is what does the vast majority of the damage, the fact that the air is super hot also does damage but that is more burning then blowing stuff to pieces. With their being no air in space or any real meaningful atmosphere on asteroids there is nothing for the nuclear weapon to super heat and cause a rapid expansion so all you would get it a spot in space that is temporarily hotter then the sun but since space is largely a vacuum you wouldn't even get good heat transfer to the asteroid. You could have the nuclear weapon impact the asteroid and maybe even embed itself inside it to some extent but even then its highly unlikely it would blow it to pieces. Solid material like rocks and metals tend to absorb heat rather well so instead of shattering there would be more of a vaporizing effect of the immediate area with the rest of the asteroid being relatively unharmed. It is one of two reasons why nuclear weapons depending on size are detonated anywhere from I believe 50 meters to 75 meters above the ground for tactical weapons and a few hundred meters for strategic weapons so the ground doesn't absorb most of the heat and weaken the blast, along with not tossing material up into the most radioactive part during the most intense radiation exposure making the fallout far worse and long lasting. Nuclear weapons are just in general really bad in space, but a nuclear weapon is still our best bet for stopping an asteroid. Not by blowing it up but by deforming it thus effecting its rotation and altering its trajectory to miss earth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aztek Posted July 23, 2016 #8 Share Posted July 23, 2016 soviets used to build mobile nuclear power stations, looked like train cars on tracks, they used them in far est, Siberia\tundra. that way it could power any drilling\tunnel boring equipment. there were also attempts to build jet powered diggers, basically jet stream melts\blows out earth, and digs tunnels, but it did not catch on, however, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aquatus1 Posted July 23, 2016 #9 Share Posted July 23, 2016 Literally thousands of nukes have been detonated underground; it was actually the only legal way to research nuclear explosions for decades. Building caverns with nukes doesn't work. You just get really big holes. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
White Unicorn Posted July 23, 2016 #10 Share Posted July 23, 2016 On 7/18/2016 at 1:04 AM, grimsituation6 said: i had this cool idea of using them along fault lines in non populated areas to decrease geological stresses and essentially create a controlled earthquake. thus hopefully decreasing the chance of earthquakes in populated areas, if done right it may work, if done wrong...well...bye bye L.A. We need to take the threats of nature to populated areas seriously and I think your idea here is a good start. I once met a geologist in a study team. Ohio was her home state and they were studying yellow stone and recent quakes in Ohio after fracking. She told me Ohio River was formed by a fault line and quake. She said there were deep underground caverns from the West to East building up pressure from yellow stone and when it gets more and more active it could cause other smaller quakes and lava flows to other parts of country first. Fracking is deep enough to effect certain places near fault lines and releases pressure to cause quakes. It makes sense to do controlled quakes if we can to lessen the destruction. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aquatus1 Posted July 23, 2016 #11 Share Posted July 23, 2016 I don't think you've really thought this through. Controlled quakes basically means we are assisting the movement of tectonic plates. That means that land is going ot be shifting at a much greater rate than before. Either "snags" are simply going to occur at a greater intensity (because we can only facilitate the "little" snags), or land shift (not earthquakes) is going to occur much faster (due to the increased movement of the plates beneath the land. Either way, it isn't going to solve the problem. Humans have been trying to put a leash on nature for a long-time, and they tend to think they have succeeded, but they forget that nature plays the long game, and doesn't really consider humans particularly worthy of attention. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
White Unicorn Posted July 24, 2016 #12 Share Posted July 24, 2016 21 hours ago, aquatus1 said: I don't think you've really thought this through. Controlled quakes basically means we are assisting the movement of tectonic plates. That means that land is going ot be shifting at a much greater rate than before. Either "snags" are simply going to occur at a greater intensity (because we can only facilitate the "little" snags), or land shift (not earthquakes) is going to occur much faster (due to the increased movement of the plates beneath the land. Either way, it isn't going to solve the problem. Humans have been trying to put a leash on nature for a long-time, and they tend to think they have succeeded, but they forget that nature plays the long game, and doesn't really consider humans particularly worthy of attention. I think it is our only available option when it gets to the point when we have no other choice. The stress points going to West and East Coasts going to blow in the highest population areas. Otherwise it's state wide evacuations. I think a clue is the geologist moved to North Dakota and took her mom there. I asked if it was safe there, and she said not really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aquatus1 Posted July 24, 2016 #13 Share Posted July 24, 2016 What option? Even assuming this was even remotely possible with the non-existent technology we have today, it still wouldn't resolve the actual problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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