The Mischievous Past
I once heard Palmer Luckey say on a podcast, "The best ideas were written down in government publications between 1950 and 1970 because that was the last time scientists and engineers were allowed to think openly without political correctness or corporate legal paranoia."
So I got curious and started digging. And boy, was he right.
Project Horizon
Plan for an outpost of ~12 astronauts with buried cylindrical habitats and on-site nuclear reactors for power on the Moon
Project Orion
Nuclear-pulse spaceship that would ride successive atomic explosions off a giant steel pusher plate. The motto was apparently "Mars by 1965, Saturn by 1970." Early designs were 80m tall, carried 150 people, and could haul thousands of tonnes.
Project 1794
The USAF funded Avro Canada to build a supersonic VTOL flying saucer interceptor to shoot down Soviet bombers. It was designed to use ten downward-facing jet engines for lift and reach Mach 3+.
Project Pluto
Nuclear-powered ramjet cruise missile, also known as SLAM. It was designed to fly at Mach 3-4 at low altitude, loiter for months, and carry dozens of nuclear warheads.
Project Excalibur
Nuclear-armed interceptor missiles launched into space to explode near incoming ICBMs.
Cyborgs in Space
NASA scientists Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline proposed the term "cyborg" while thinking about astronauts. They suggested engineering human physiology to survive space rather than relying only on external life-support systems.
General Electric Hardiman
Powered Army exoskeleton from GE that used hydraulics and electronics so the wearer could lift hundreds of kilos.
Project ROVER / NERVA
NASA and the Atomic Energy Commission built hydrogen-fueled nuclear rocket engines. By 1969, the NRX-A6 reactor ran at 1.1 gigawatts for over an hour.
Project Chariot
A plan to blast a seaport into Alaska using nuclear bombs.
Project West Ford
MIT Lincoln Lab launched ~480 million tiny copper needles into orbit to create an artificial radio-reflecting belt around Earth. Basically a man-made ionosphere for jam-proof global communications.
Project A119: Nuke the Moon
A 1958-1959 plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon. The stated goals included planetary astronomy, astrogeology, and demonstrating U.S. capability. If the bomb exploded on the surface instead of inside a crater, the flash might have been visible from Earth.
NB-36H / X-6 Nuclear Bomber
A B-36 testbed with a live 1 MW reactor in the bomb bay. It flew 47 times to prove crews could be shielded from an onboard reactor.
Project Iceworm
The Army wanted 3,000 miles of rail tunnels under Greenland’s moving ice sheet to hide 600 Minuteman missiles.
Project Carryall
Plan to use 22 nuclear bombs to cut through California’s Bristol Mountains for I-40 and the Santa Fe railway.
Panatomic Canal
1964 study for a sea-level alternative to the Panama Canal, dug through the Darién with around 200 multi-megaton nuclear devices.
Project Mohole
An oceanic rival to the Space Race: drill from a ship down to Earth’s mantle.
Buckminster Fuller’s Dome Over Manhattan
A 3 km geodesic dome over Midtown Manhattan to cut NYC energy use by 80%.
Army High-Dose Food Irradiation
Sterilize steaks with gamma rays so C-rations could stay edible for years.
Food From Oil
Grow yeast on petroleum n-paraffins, then press it into animal or human feed.
Project STORMFURY
NOAA and the USAF tried seeding hurricanes with silver iodide to weaken them. Early flights looked promising, but later data showed the storms were reorganizing naturally.
NAWAPA
A 1964 continental plumbing plan from the Army Corps and Parsons: dam Alaska, send 75 million acre-feet of water south, and excavate canals with "peaceful" nukes.
Qattara Depression Blast Canal
German consultant Friedrich Bassler proposed using 213 nuclear devices to cut a trench from the Mediterranean to Egypt’s below-sea-level desert, then run a perpetual hydro plant.
Lockheed CL-1201
Late-1960s nuclear-powered flying aircraft carrier. 6,000 tons, 1,120 ft wingspan, 41-day endurance, 22 parasite fighters. The reactor shielding alone weighed more than a C-5.
Project PACER
Los Alamos wanted to drop two 50-kiloton hydrogen bombs per day into a salt cavern to boil water for a 2 GW power plant.
Ford Nucleon
Detroit explored hot-swappable mini-reactor cars.
Project HARP
A 16-inch space gun that lobbed payloads to 180 km. The Barbados gun is apparently still rusting on the cliff.
The Very High Speed Transit System
Maglev capsules in hard-vacuum tubes, Los Angeles to New York in about an hour.
Space-Based Solar Power
1968-1980 studies for 5 GW microwave-beaming solar platforms in orbit, each around 50,000 tonnes. (Reflect Orbital before Reflect Orbital)
Project Cyclops
1971 SETI plan for 1,000-2,000 steerable 100m radio dishes scanning 1,000 light years for aliens.