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Speaker 1: I recall, as it were, but yesterday, the night of

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Speaker 1: that momentous occasion upon which we were to test the

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Speaker 1: practicality of that wondrous invention. It was near midnight when

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Speaker 1: we repaired to the lofty tower in which Perry had

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Speaker 1: constructed his iron mole, as he was wont to call

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Speaker 1: the thing, the great nose rested upon the bare earth

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Speaker 1: of the floor. We passed through the doors into the

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Speaker 1: outer jacket, secured them, and then passing on into the cabin,

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Speaker 1: which contained the controlling mechanism within the inner tube, switched

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Speaker 1: on the electric lights. Perry looked to his generator, to

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Speaker 1: the great tanks that held the life giving chemicals with

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Speaker 1: which he was to manufacture fresh air to replace that

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Speaker 1: which we consumed in breathing, to his instruments for recording temperature, speed, distance,

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Speaker 1: and for examining the materials through which we were to pass.

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Speaker 1: He tested his steering device and overlooked the mighty cogs

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Speaker 1: which transmitted its marvelous velocity to the giant drill at

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Speaker 1: the nose of his strange craft. Our seats into which

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Speaker 1: we strapped ourselves were so arranged upon transverse bars that

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Speaker 1: we would be upright whether the craft were plowing her

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Speaker 1: way downward into the bowels of the earth, or running

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Speaker 1: horizontally along some great seam of coal, or rising vertically

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Speaker 1: towards the surface again at length, all was ready. Perry

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Speaker 1: bowed his head in prayer. For a moment we were silent,

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Speaker 1: and then the old man's hand grasped the starting lever.

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Speaker 1: There was a frightful roaring beneath us. The giant frame

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Speaker 1: trembled and vibrated. There was a rush of sound as

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Speaker 1: the loose earth passed up through the hollow space between

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Speaker 1: the inner and outer jackets to be deposited in our wake,

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Speaker 1: and we were off. Welcome to stuff to blow your mind,

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Speaker 1: the production of My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to

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Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb

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Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And that was that little coal

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Speaker 1: reading there was from at the Earth's Core by Edgar

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Speaker 1: Rice Burrows, published in nineteen fourteen. Is that the one

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Speaker 1: where Tarzan goes to the center of the Earth. No,

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Speaker 1: and I know you're joking, but Tarzan does go to

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Speaker 1: the center of the Earth in a follow up novel.

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Speaker 1: Because this particular novel, because this was this this kick

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Speaker 1: started a series that dealt with essentially like an inner world,

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Speaker 1: a hollow earth environment. This was the the Pellucidar series.

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Speaker 1: Uh yeah, so Tarzan I think goes to Pellucidar and

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Speaker 1: a follow up and we'll we'll talk more about Pellucidar

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Speaker 1: here in a in a few minutes. But the reason

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Speaker 1: that we're were we kicked off with this reading is

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Speaker 1: that this is this is pivotal, This is uh this

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Speaker 1: what is being described here. The iron mole is a subterine, right,

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Speaker 1: So that was not a mistake. You weren't trying to

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Speaker 1: say submarine that is a subterrean as in beneath the earth,

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Speaker 1: as in the same way that a submarine is beneath

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Speaker 1: the ocean. So what we're talking about today is a

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Speaker 1: submarine for the ground. Yes, like submarines, but underground. Some

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Speaker 1: sort of vehicle uh that has some sort of drilling

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Speaker 1: or melting apparatus um on its front end or perhaps

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Speaker 1: on the rear end as well, then enables it to

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Speaker 1: travel through the earth to so to burrow through even

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Speaker 1: solid rock, as if it were some sort of giant

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Speaker 1: worm making its way through the ground. Now, you might

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Speaker 1: not have heard of a subdarine before but I bet

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Speaker 1: you have seen one in science fiction. Uh So, before

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Speaker 1: we dive into the science and the actual and in

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Speaker 1: some cases alleged technological history of the submarine, I thought

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Speaker 1: we might run through some fun examples from film and TV,

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Speaker 1: and then we'll also come back around to Edgar Rice

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Speaker 1: Burrows again before we venture into the real world. Now, Robert,

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Speaker 1: right when I jumped in the video chat today, you

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Speaker 1: and Seth were tall king about the like seventy thousand

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated TV series,

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Speaker 1: and immediately it came to mind, like, oh, yes, didn't Shredder?

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Speaker 1: Was it Shredder or was it Krang One of the

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Speaker 1: villains rides around in a giant underground drill in that show? Oh? Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I was. I was chatting with Seth about this because

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it was the first time I

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Speaker 1: saw a sci fi vision of a subterarine, but I

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Speaker 1: have a very clear memory of those um but believe

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Speaker 1: it was the especially the arcade Beat Him Up teena

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Speaker 1: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. I think it was a

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Speaker 1: good week Konami, right, Maybe it was Konami. Anyway, I

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Speaker 1: remember the arcade version was a lot better than the

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Speaker 1: port to the nes Oh yeah, yeah, the arcade version

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Speaker 1: was really kind of beautiful, and I've seen some more

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Speaker 1: recent ports of it, uh that that you know, really

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Speaker 1: really felt all right, you know. I mean it was

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Speaker 1: a total quarter guzzler. It was just how many how

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Speaker 1: many quarters can you put into this machine at your

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Speaker 1: local pizza hut in order to beat it? But it

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Speaker 1: was it was so much fun. And and one of

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Speaker 1: the things was that frequently the boss at the end

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Speaker 1: of the level would arrive via a transport module this

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Speaker 1: thing that looked like a rocket, except the cone of

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Speaker 1: the rocket is a big drill and it comes burrowing

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Speaker 1: up through the earth and then it opens up and

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Speaker 1: here's the bad guy for your fight. Here's Bebop the

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Speaker 1: punk bore yeah or yeah, or it's Shredder, or it's

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Speaker 1: Crane himself, and they're coming up. The idea is that,

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Speaker 1: of course Krane's layer is the subterranean techno dome, this

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Speaker 1: big uh you know, domed vehicle base that is often

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Speaker 1: like in the molten core of the Earth, and they

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Speaker 1: have to send up their their myrmidons, their their foot

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Speaker 1: soldiers up to the surface in these specialized subterranes and

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Speaker 1: the techno dome or the techno drome. I always thought

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Speaker 1: it was like the like video drome. Oh, we have

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Speaker 1: just received an update from Seth. It is in fact

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Speaker 1: techno drome um, which can be a little confused. I

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Speaker 1: think I trans figured it into my head because it

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Speaker 1: is a a like a spherical looking structure it had.

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Speaker 1: It looks kind of like a dome. It is a

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Speaker 1: technodrome whatever that is actually supposed to be. You would

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Speaker 1: imagine that the interior has a domed ceiling, perhaps painted

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Speaker 1: by michel Angelo or something. Is yes, but it's a

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Speaker 1: picture of of crying and shredder about to have this

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Speaker 1: divine type yeah, crying reaching out. Yeah. So there's the series,

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Speaker 1: which which certainly Seth can attest to and I have

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Speaker 1: memories of. It was a lot of fun and had

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Speaker 1: these vehicles in there as well. There was even a

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Speaker 1: toy version of it. I included a picture of this

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Speaker 1: for you, Joe. I don't know if you remember this

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Speaker 1: or not from your the toys of your childhood, but

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Speaker 1: it is a more ornate version of the subcarine from

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Speaker 1: the cartoon. I remember it, but I didn't have it

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Speaker 1: that this was an object of coveting for me. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I I remember for me personally teenage Mutan, Ninja, Turtles,

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Speaker 1: the cartoon, and just the overall like sensation of the

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Speaker 1: toys and all. It came around this weird time where

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Speaker 1: I still very much I certainly watched all these shows

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Speaker 1: and I wanted to have the figures. I wanted to

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Speaker 1: have these action figures, especially Shredder and Crane. But there

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Speaker 1: was this kind of feeling at that point that you

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Speaker 1: weren't supposed to have toys anymore, Like you weren't supposed

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Speaker 1: to enjoy this stuff, which is total b s. And

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Speaker 1: I'm thankfully snapped out of that and have spent the

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Speaker 1: rest of my you know, adult life, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: realizing that action figures are awesome and and I should

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Speaker 1: buy them for myself or my child. Uh. It's it's

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Speaker 1: that horrible middle period. I mean, it's just like with

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Speaker 1: movies too. It's like how Roger Ebert talks about how

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Speaker 1: you know, when you're a little kid, GAMMERA is great

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Speaker 1: because it's a rocket powered turtle. And then you get

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Speaker 1: older and more mature, and you think this is stupid

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Speaker 1: because it's not realistic. And then you get even more

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Speaker 1: mature than that, and then you realize Gamera is great again. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and Gamera is great. Um and and and I and

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Speaker 1: I will say that you look back at Teenage Ninas,

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Speaker 1: I had so many crazy just on zo elements in it. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it was fabulous. I mean you had this armored Ninja

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Speaker 1: and he's with there with an alien brain that's in

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Speaker 1: this giant android body, and they're sending Ninja's up to

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Speaker 1: the surface in these crazy drill submarines to fight. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, obviously teenage Mutant Ninja turtles, which is in

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Speaker 1: itself such a strange concept. So that was one subterarine

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Speaker 1: that I think a lot of people probably remember. Older

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Speaker 1: viewers or certainly viewers who caught this show like on

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Speaker 1: Sci Fi Channel in reruns, might remember the Thunderbirds, you know,

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Speaker 1: like Thunderbirds or go well the this was the nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixties puppet show with these very signature looking characters. Um

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Speaker 1: that I understand. I was reading that they were partially

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Speaker 1: inspiration for the animation style on the long running Star

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Speaker 1: Wars clone World War series that I'm watching now with

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Speaker 1: my son, Um. But in this show, the characters had

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Speaker 1: these crazy vehicles and one of them was the Thunderbird too,

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Speaker 1: and it featured all these different pods, and one of

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Speaker 1: them was called the Mole, and it was a drill

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Speaker 1: headed vehicle then enabled the team to venture into the Earth. Now,

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Speaker 1: this establishes a theme that's going to continue throughout the episode,

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Speaker 1: which is that there is a lack of imagination among

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Speaker 1: the people who create under underground drilling machines for science

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Speaker 1: fiction because it's always a mole. It's always a darn mole. Like,

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Speaker 1: why can't you think of some kind of other burrowing creature.

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Speaker 1: Why isn't it a sicilian or or something like that,

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Speaker 1: you know, I mean, come on, how many moles can

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Speaker 1: there be? Or even a naked mole rat that's close enough. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's there's so many other ways to go, but everyone

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Speaker 1: comes back to the mole. And and that also includes

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Speaker 1: Pixar because I know a number of Certainly, if you're

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Speaker 1: you're too young to remember a teenage Mutiny Turtles or

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Speaker 1: certainly Thunderbirds, then perhaps you remember the Incredibles. At the

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Speaker 1: very end of this film, we're introduced to a new

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Speaker 1: supervillain called the Underminer, who arrives in an epic uh

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Speaker 1: and an epic subterine with a drill, this time on

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Speaker 1: either end. Uh. It's a a fun scene, just kind

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Speaker 1: of like a way to close out the film. He's

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Speaker 1: a bigger character in the sequel. Have I have seen

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Speaker 1: the sequel? Uh, Yeah, he plays a larger role in that.

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Speaker 1: But he's also mole themed. Clearly, Yes, yes, clearly mole themed. Um,

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Speaker 1: let's see. Oh and and this is so weird. We

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Speaker 1: were we kind of decided to do this episode and

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Speaker 1: I had it in my mind, and then I happened

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Speaker 1: to check out. Uh, this new series on Hulu titled

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Speaker 1: Solar Opposites. It's a it's a new show from Rick

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Speaker 1: and Morty co creator Justin Royland along with Mike McMahon,

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Speaker 1: who also worked on that show. Uh. They dropped the

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Speaker 1: entire first season on Hulu, and it's it's it's a

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Speaker 1: lot of fun. It's it's definitely for grown ups. But

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Speaker 1: it's the you know, a similar vibe to Rick and Morty,

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Speaker 1: but perhaps a little less meta and um, with characters

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Speaker 1: that are a little more likable. Um. But I've started

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Speaker 1: watching it in BAM. Right there in the opening of

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Speaker 1: the first episode, there's this vehicle called the Earth Drill

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Speaker 1: that's used by the character Corvo to obtain nickel alloy

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Speaker 1: from the Earth's core in order to try and fix

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Speaker 1: his spaceship. And there's this great sequence where core of

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Speaker 1: a you know, fires it up and starts drilling into

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Speaker 1: the earth to go get the nickel, and it started

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Speaker 1: immediately causes earthquakes in like China and London, and there's

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Speaker 1: a big tidal wave somewhere else in the world due

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Speaker 1: to the seismic disruption of the thing. I like that

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Speaker 1: the design is a little bit trown shaped, is a

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Speaker 1: little bit light cycle kind of in profile at least. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a really cool design like that. They didn't just

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Speaker 1: you know, slap together something that looked like the like

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Speaker 1: the the transport module all over again. It has has

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Speaker 1: some really cool wheels. But anyway, these are just a

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Speaker 1: few examples. You'll find submarines all over the place in

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Speaker 1: science fiction if you really start looking for them, like

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Speaker 1: it'll just turn up eventually, I think, in any kind

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Speaker 1: of science fiction scenario. For instance, there's one in Fallout

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Speaker 1: seventy six, the current Fallout game. I looked around, I

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Speaker 1: was like, there's gotta be one in Star Wars somewhere,

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Speaker 1: and it looks like there is a combat drill in

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Speaker 1: the Darth Vader comic books, like Darth Vader rides one

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Speaker 1: into battle at some point, like an a T dril ty. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that would be a T drilt. I like that, Um yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: because I figured Star Wars University's room for there's certainly

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Speaker 1: room for a subdarane. There's some rocky planet somewhere where

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Speaker 1: there's a battle between uh, you know, the the Empire

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Speaker 1: and um, you know, some hapless species of subterranean creature.

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Speaker 1: But I feel like we got to bring it back

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Speaker 1: to the Edgar Ice Burrows because I will admit so

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Speaker 1: I have never read this book. At Earth's Core his

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Speaker 1: novel about the drill that goes down, and uh, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, actually, I guess timing wise, this would be

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Speaker 1: coming after Jules Verne's journey to the Center of the Earth,

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Speaker 1: So I don't know how derivative of it it is. Um.

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Speaker 1: But I did manage to watch about the first twenty

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Speaker 1: minutes of the nineteen seventy six film adaptation of this

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Speaker 1: book Last Night, starring our old friend Doug McClure. You

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Speaker 1: know the man. Hi, I'm Doug McClure. You might remember

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Speaker 1: me from such films as that one with the Fish People,

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Speaker 1: and it also had Peter Cushing in probably definitely, not

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Speaker 1: even no doubt at all, the goober reest role I've

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Speaker 1: ever seen Peter Cushing in, where he is just like

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Speaker 1: a bumbling doo fast with a high pitched, uh cartoon

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Speaker 1: professor voice. Yeah, this was This was the ninety six adaptation,

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Speaker 1: directed by Kevin Conner, and um, yeah, you might expect,

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Speaker 1: like Doug, with Doug McClure and Peter Cushing, you might think, Okay,

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Speaker 1: Doug's gonna play kind of the meaty doofist, which he

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Speaker 1: did so wellbe Doug McClure is awesome. He's a he's

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Speaker 1: a treat. When you see his name pop up in

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Speaker 1: one of these older films, you know you're you've got

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Speaker 1: a nice film ahead of you. But Peter Cushing, you

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Speaker 1: think especially all right, we're thinking seventy six, we're thinking

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Speaker 1: Star Wars is just after this practically, and you know,

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Speaker 1: you think the dignified, stoic Peter Cushing, He's gonna play

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Speaker 1: this dignified scientist who invince this thing. But no, he

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Speaker 1: plays this goofy doofist character as well. Uh, and it's great.

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Speaker 1: I mean, Cushing is is wonderful. He has he has ranged,

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Speaker 1: so I guess in a way, it's nice to see

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Speaker 1: him flexes his acting muscles in another direction. I mean

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Speaker 1: it's an unfamiliar setup. Normally, I think you'd have more like,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Dufus in The straight Man, but it's

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Speaker 1: like a dual Dufus lead. Yeah. Yeah. And then you

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Speaker 1: have Carolyn Monroe in there as well, a screen legend

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Speaker 1: in her own ride. Yeah. She played still a star

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Speaker 1: in Star Crash. Yeah, she was in I think she

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Speaker 1: was in a James Bond film yeah yeah, yeah, and

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Speaker 1: and numerous so she was very much an icon of

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Speaker 1: of the day. Hi, I'm Doug McClure. And I didn't

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Speaker 1: get a haircut before filming this. Oh yeah, he's pretty

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Speaker 1: shaggy in this. Yeah. It looks and it doesn't even

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Speaker 1: look like it's intentional. It looks like he just, you know,

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Speaker 1: it was meaning to get it trimmed and he didn't. Yeah. Uh. Now,

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Speaker 1: a lot of people where I think we're reintroduced to

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Speaker 1: the summer, introduced to it to the for the first time.

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Speaker 1: The most recent season of Mystery Science Theater three thousand

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Speaker 1: that aired on Netflix, because this is one of the

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Speaker 1: films that they riff and it's I remembered as being

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Speaker 1: one of the best episode odes of the the MST

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Speaker 1: three K Revival. But the film in and of itself,

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Speaker 1: it's just is tons of fun. It's colorful, It's it's

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Speaker 1: weird and wacky, you know, it's it's I feel like,

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Speaker 1: even though I haven't read this particular Edgar Rice Burrows novel,

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Speaker 1: it does feel true to the spirit of them because

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Speaker 1: they're they're There are a number of cool things going

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Speaker 1: on in this. First of all, we do have the

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Speaker 1: Iron Mole. We have a drill headed subterine vehicle that

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Speaker 1: takes our characters deep into the earth and it takes

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Speaker 1: us to this hollow earth realm called Pellucidar and Uh

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Speaker 1: and here we have a number of crazy elements taking

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Speaker 1: place as well, because we have a species of telepathic

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Speaker 1: terra saurs called the Mahars that rule over stone age

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Speaker 1: humans that are also there. There's also like a giant

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Speaker 1: bipedal bird Tyrannosaurus rex thing. It's kind of like Sam

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Speaker 1: the Eagle and it runs around chasing Doug and Peter

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Speaker 1: Cushing in this giant underground corn field. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if that's in the book. Yeah, I don't know. I'd

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Speaker 1: love to hear from someone who who's who's red this one,

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Speaker 1: because I've read a couple of Burrows books um back

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Speaker 1: in the day, and I remember them as being pretty fun.

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Speaker 1: You know. He gets into a little bit of scientific

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Speaker 1: speculation while also getting into lots of you know, swashbuckling

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Speaker 1: style action, but then occasionally like some really atmospheric you

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Speaker 1: almost kind of like pulp horror moments as well. Uh So, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and of course he wrote a ton of books. This

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Speaker 1: was this one just kicked off a mini series that

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Speaker 1: he did dealing with this inner world he created. Uh

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Speaker 1: and and he was he was a highly influential fiction

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Speaker 1: writer at the time. So it seems to me it's

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Speaker 1: possible that he might be the originator of our like

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Speaker 1: popular culture and to a certain extent, scientific obsession with

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Speaker 1: subterranes in especially in the twentieth century. So I was

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Speaker 1: looking around to see if there were any hard bio

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Speaker 1: biographical details on where Burrows got the idea for the

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Speaker 1: iron mole um, because it seems like he might have

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Speaker 1: been the first I don't know for sure. It's you know,

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Speaker 1: it's very possible that there's some other short stories from

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Speaker 1: the time period, or some book I'm missing in which

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Speaker 1: a character introduces the idea of a of the subterine,

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Speaker 1: but I wasn't able to come across it myself. Let

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Speaker 1: me know if you if you have an answer to

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Speaker 1: that now. Certainly, Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of

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Speaker 1: the Earth came out earlier in eighteen sixty four, but

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Speaker 1: this book does not feature a fantastic drilling vehicle. No,

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Speaker 1: they just they just find a hole in the earth

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Speaker 1: and just kind of walk all the way down. It's

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Speaker 1: more of a spelunking adventure. They traveled down via lava tubes,

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Speaker 1: I think. So I ended up consulting I think three

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Speaker 1: different Burrows biographies in search of any answers on you know,

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Speaker 1: where he got his ideas. I'm just a little nugget

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Speaker 1: of like, hey, he was reading in Popular Mechanics or something,

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Speaker 1: you know, but nothing turned up. So it seems entirely

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Speaker 1: possible that Burrows might have invented the sci fi subterine

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Speaker 1: as we know it, and in doing so, as is

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Speaker 1: often the nature with sci fi influenced scientific minds all

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Speaker 1: of that century to investigate the idea further. Um. However,

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Speaker 1: even if he invented the sci Fi subterine in his

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Speaker 1: own right, he was definitely inspired by technological achievements in

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Speaker 1: tunneling and burrowing that had taken they were taking place

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Speaker 1: at the time, and had taken place towards the end

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Speaker 1: of the previous century. Well, maybe we should take a

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Speaker 1: quick break and then when we come back we can

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Speaker 1: talk about some of the real science and technology of

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Speaker 1: burrowing vehicles. Thank alright, we're back. So like I was

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Speaker 1: I was saying here earlier, burrows I think would have

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Speaker 1: definitely been inspired by the real life advances and tunnel

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Speaker 1: boring machines during the nineteenth century. UH tunneling shield technology

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Speaker 1: came first successfully used for the first time to excavate

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Speaker 1: UH the Thim's tunnel beginning in eight But this is

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Speaker 1: just as the name implies a protective structure that allows

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Speaker 1: human excavators to work underground. It's not even a machine, right,

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Speaker 1: So describe briefly the the tunneling shield. This is basically

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Speaker 1: kind of like a movable roof shield that you can

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Speaker 1: take with you as you continually remove new material from

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Speaker 1: as the tunnel is made. Yeah, I would say combine

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Speaker 1: that with the concept of say a drilling template, and

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Speaker 1: that's pretty much what you have. But then this leads

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Speaker 1: into some of the first tunnel boring machines UH. And

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Speaker 1: what is often brought up as the first tunnel boring machine,

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Speaker 1: though it's a real stretch to call it a vehicle,

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Speaker 1: came in eighteen forty five with the Mountain Slicer. Is

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Speaker 1: that really what it was called. Yeah, it was called

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Speaker 1: the mountain slicer. It was not named it wasn't called

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Speaker 1: a mole at all. Again again, it wasn't a vehicle really.

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Speaker 1: But it was commissioned by the King of Sardinia in

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Speaker 1: eighteen forty five to dig the French rail tunnel between

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Speaker 1: France and Italy through the Alps. And it was the

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Speaker 1: work of Belgian engineer Henry Joseph Mouse And this was

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Speaker 1: the first UH. This is often considered the first tunnel

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Speaker 1: boring machine or TBM. It consisted of more than one

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Speaker 1: d percussion drills mounted at the runt of a locomotive

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Speaker 1: sized machine which was mechanically power driven at the entrance

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Speaker 1: to the tunnel. So think about what kind of of

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Speaker 1: an engineering project it is to do something like this,

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Speaker 1: especially to have a single machine, because tunneling is you know,

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Speaker 1: it's not just like moving through water, which kind of

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Speaker 1: like is is easily displaced around you as you dive

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Speaker 1: through it. Of course, when you're tunneling through hard material,

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Speaker 1: one of the big problems you're gonna have is continually

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Speaker 1: removing everything that you're drilling out of place in front

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Speaker 1: of you as you go. Right. And then if we're

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Speaker 1: thinking of saying, we keep talking about the mole as

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Speaker 1: the bio biological uh analog for all of this. Well,

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Speaker 1: when you're talking about the ocean, right, you're talking about

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Speaker 1: ships and submarines basically doing the things that other organisms,

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Speaker 1: even large organisms, are capable of doing. But when you're

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Speaker 1: talking about you know, you're not just talking about burrowing

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Speaker 1: through loose soil here, we're talking about burrowing through solid rock,

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Speaker 1: which is is not something that is general they considered

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Speaker 1: within the realm of certainly you know, a vertebrates capabilities

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Speaker 1: or or even or any kind of you know, or

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Speaker 1: organisms capabilities. This is this is something new well certainly

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Speaker 1: not at any speed that would be useful from like

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Speaker 1: a civil engineering point of view. Right, um, so uh

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Speaker 1: I want to talk just a little bit more about

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Speaker 1: the idea of the tunnel boring machine or t b M.

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Speaker 1: There there's tons of information out there written about t

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Speaker 1: pms because this is a this is a huge area

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Speaker 1: of engineering, right figuring out how to improve these machines

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Speaker 1: for the production of tunnels. UH. One particular definition I

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Speaker 1: came across in laboratory testing of materials for tunnel boring

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Speaker 1: machine drag bits by Catuition at All UH defines a

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Speaker 1: t b M as a quote machine used to excavate

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Speaker 1: tunnels with a circular cross section through a variety of

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Speaker 1: soil and rock strata. So that's something to keep in

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Speaker 1: mind too, is when you're dealing with tunnels, you're dealing

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Speaker 1: with boring through not just one type of rock or soil,

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Speaker 1: but multiple. Yeah, and I think it's important that it

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Speaker 1: mentions the circularity of the tunnel because this is a

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Speaker 1: feature that This will actually come up again later in

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Speaker 1: the episode when we talk about different methods for producing

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Speaker 1: a whole tunnels in rock. The drill based method, which

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Speaker 1: is based on grinding and removing material, tends to be

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Speaker 1: by nature circular, right, just because of the limitations of

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Speaker 1: the kind of machine you have to use to drill

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Speaker 1: and bore out. Yeah. Absolutely. Um another source on the

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Speaker 1: mountain slicer I was looking at in hard Rock Tunnel

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Speaker 1: Boring Machines by um Metal, Schmidt and Rits. The authors

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Speaker 1: described the mountain slicer as having quote worked with hammer drills,

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Speaker 1: chiseling deep annular grooves in the stone, dividing the face

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Speaker 1: into four two by point five meter high stone blocks. Now,

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Speaker 1: the interesting thing here is that supposedly the mountain slicer

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Speaker 1: successfully demonstrated it was you know, there was a successful

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Speaker 1: demonstration of this technology in a test tunnel for something

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Speaker 1: like two years EARS, but it was ultimately not used

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Speaker 1: for the Alpine project in question due to doubts about

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Speaker 1: the drive equipment and its power requirements and its ability

425
00:23:09,119 --> 00:23:11,800
Speaker 1: to sustain the wear of its usage. So they ended

426
00:23:11,880 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 1: up just using traditional tunneling tunnel boring techniques instead. But

427
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:18,000
Speaker 1: I think this this drives home like just the real

428
00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:22,359
Speaker 1: the true engineering challenge here. You know, it's quite a

429
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:24,520
Speaker 1: feat to even create a what seems to be you know,

430
00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:28,280
Speaker 1: working prototype like the mountain slicer, but then it's quite

431
00:23:28,280 --> 00:23:30,680
Speaker 1: another to actually use it and use it and use

432
00:23:30,760 --> 00:23:33,360
Speaker 1: it for the extended period of time required to actually

433
00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:36,920
Speaker 1: complete the project. Yeah, exactly. And we should emphasize again

434
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:39,360
Speaker 1: that when we're talking about these types of boring machines

435
00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:42,920
Speaker 1: like the Mountain Slicer, this would again not be a

436
00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:47,240
Speaker 1: vehicle designed to just like autonomously run around under the ground.

437
00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:51,919
Speaker 1: This would be a stationary like institute machine that's for

438
00:23:52,040 --> 00:23:55,679
Speaker 1: a particular project, right, Yeah, and and certainly is not

439
00:23:55,800 --> 00:24:00,000
Speaker 1: working in isolation. Um. So this is all, like I said,

440
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:01,720
Speaker 1: you could you could see the mountain Slicer as a

441
00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:04,840
Speaker 1: potential first for TBMs. But a lot of people give

442
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 1: credit to American designer Charles Wilson, who designed a t

443
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:11,160
Speaker 1: b M in eighteen fifty one, patented in eighteen fifty six.

444
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 1: It was called Wilson's patented stone cutting Machine, which doesn't

445
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:17,119
Speaker 1: I don't know, it doesn't have as much it It

446
00:24:17,080 --> 00:24:21,560
Speaker 1: doesn't sound as a uh you know, is wagnery as

447
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:24,320
Speaker 1: that to previous one. I should have called it, what, uh,

448
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:32,199
Speaker 1: Wilson's rock stapper. Yeah. So anyway, Wilson's patented stone cutting machine,

449
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 1: and and it was successful. They used it to bore

450
00:24:35,119 --> 00:24:39,800
Speaker 1: the Hoosic Tunnel in northwest Massachusetts, and it had rotate

451
00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 1: a rotating mount for the disc cutters at the front

452
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 1: of it. Now, there's obviously a lot more to the

453
00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 1: science and subsequent development of tb ms, but I thought

454
00:24:49,280 --> 00:24:51,280
Speaker 1: we might cut to the chase here. I think we

455
00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 1: can already see how Yeah, Mountain, We're gonna Mountain. Cut

456
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:56,280
Speaker 1: to the chase. Even, I think we can already see

457
00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:59,760
Speaker 1: how how even their early forms help inspire the idea

458
00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:04,439
Speaker 1: of subterarine. But even considering the more modern forms of

459
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,760
Speaker 1: the TBM, you know, you have to ask how close

460
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:11,359
Speaker 1: does the idea of a subterarine really get to a TBM.

461
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:14,120
Speaker 1: So we have to consider the facts. So first of all,

462
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:17,600
Speaker 1: as as we mentioned already, generally speaking, a t b M,

463
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 1: and there are different varieties of TBM for different types

464
00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:23,119
Speaker 1: of rock. It is a tool, not a vehicle. It is,

465
00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:26,040
Speaker 1: you know, a piece of equipment. It's used to make

466
00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 1: a tunnel, not to simply tunnel from one place to another.

467
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 1: I suppose you can say it does both, but the

468
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:34,080
Speaker 1: tunnel making is the key focus. Plus it's part of

469
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:37,920
Speaker 1: a system and an overall project that entails workers, specialized

470
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:40,800
Speaker 1: trucks to haul away the rock, etcetera. You're not gonna

471
00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:43,480
Speaker 1: hijack one of these things and bore a rogue tunnel

472
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 1: with it. Also, TBMs are in general neither independent nor

473
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:51,359
Speaker 1: truly mobile, and here this is important too. They are

474
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:55,119
Speaker 1: certainly not fast. Yeah. Now, I think another thing is

475
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 1: that a lot of these are going to be in

476
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:00,359
Speaker 1: some kind of way, and not exactly like a train,

477
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:03,360
Speaker 1: but sort of on rails like in a way. They

478
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 1: will have infrastructure that is supporting the forward movement of

479
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:11,000
Speaker 1: the vehicle. And it's not just like rolling ahead on

480
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 1: its own right. It is a thing you move up

481
00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:19,520
Speaker 1: or you have at the front of your tunnel boring project. Now,

482
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:23,919
Speaker 1: one of the more exciting players in the realm of

483
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:27,800
Speaker 1: of of TBMs these days is none other than Elon Musk.

484
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 1: Okay doak. Yeah. I don't know if you're familiar with

485
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:34,159
Speaker 1: this joke, but he founded the Boring Company in I

486
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: was trying to read about it, but I just fell asleep.

487
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:42,160
Speaker 1: You just, uh joke I've ever made on the show.

488
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: Let's cut it. No, let's leave it. Let me deal

489
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:49,520
Speaker 1: with the shame. Now you can laugh at Elon Musk jokes. Um,

490
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 1: it's it's it's clever. They really commit to it. Um.

491
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:54,719
Speaker 1: If you can look at the website and you can

492
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:56,600
Speaker 1: see that there's a lot of tongue in cheek there,

493
00:26:56,640 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 1: but but it is a real project, and then it

494
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:01,560
Speaker 1: looks like they're making a lot of exciting progress here.

495
00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:04,640
Speaker 1: So part of the whole idea of the Boring Company

496
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:08,120
Speaker 1: is that they want to they want to see tunnel

497
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 1: usage being a huge part of our sustainable future, Like

498
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:17,359
Speaker 1: in terms of of creating more sustainable infrastructure, it's better

499
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:19,760
Speaker 1: to get as much of it underground as possible. And

500
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:22,280
Speaker 1: then this has been a trend in futurism UM for

501
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:24,719
Speaker 1: a while. This isn't in and in and of itself

502
00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 1: anything new, but these are some of the reasons that

503
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:32,159
Speaker 1: they cite UH for investing UM in the improvement of

504
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 1: TBM technology. First of all, there's no practical limit to

505
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:37,640
Speaker 1: how many layers of tunnels can be built, so any

506
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:40,760
Speaker 1: level of traffic can then be addressed through these tunnels.

507
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:45,480
Speaker 1: Tunnels or weather proof tunnel construction and operation is ultimately

508
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:48,840
Speaker 1: silent and invisible to anyone on the surface. And this

509
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 1: is not something that I saw them touch on, but

510
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:54,199
Speaker 1: certainly as a part of the larger sort of futurism

511
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:57,800
Speaker 1: design focus of underground systems. Is, of course, if you

512
00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 1: put your highways under round, then you can have more

513
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:05,280
Speaker 1: like trees on top. You know, you can have some

514
00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 1: sort of a return to nature. You can take the

515
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 1: you can give back the land that the that are so,

516
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 1: you know, our highways and streets have stolen. But to

517
00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:16,239
Speaker 1: do all this you've got to make tunnels. And the

518
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 1: thing is, tunnels are expensive to bore. The price that

519
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 1: they quote in their materials is one billion dollars per mile,

520
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: and and then it's a slow process on top of that.

521
00:28:27,359 --> 00:28:31,560
Speaker 1: In fact, musk Uh joked that a snail travels fourteen

522
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:35,879
Speaker 1: times faster than a traditional TBM, and as such, they

523
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: did this whole bit where they said they had this

524
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 1: pet snail named Gary, and their goal was to beat

525
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 1: Gary and a foot race with their TBM. So in

526
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: order to do that, the company stresses the importance of

527
00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 1: increasing TBM power output, making tb ms capable of continuous

528
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:56,840
Speaker 1: tunneling without breaks for support structure building as is currently

529
00:28:56,880 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 1: the norm, also the importance of making tb ms autonomous,

530
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:04,120
Speaker 1: and also creating a system by which the excavated rock

531
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: is then made into bricks on site or perhaps even

532
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:11,600
Speaker 1: within the t b M itself for use in the

533
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:14,280
Speaker 1: support structure. Oh and that's another thing I should probably

534
00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 1: describe what these t b ms, and sort of all

535
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 1: modern t b ms look like. They look like, um

536
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: that they do not have a conical drill at the front. Uh.

537
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 1: It tends to, at least at first glance, look a

538
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:29,719
Speaker 1: lot like flattery. It looks like a cross between an

539
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:33,920
Speaker 1: east cigarette and a tape worm. Oh, two great things

540
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:37,520
Speaker 1: not to put in your mouth. Yeah. Um. The Boring

541
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: Company also promotes the idea of smaller tunnels, So instead

542
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:43,520
Speaker 1: of relying just on like enormous tunnels through which you

543
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:46,520
Speaker 1: put like a you know, a four lane highway, instead

544
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 1: make a smaller tunnel with a one way, uh, one

545
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: lane highway for one way traffic as well. This also

546
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,800
Speaker 1: factors into the various loop and hyperloop projects that Musk

547
00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:00,800
Speaker 1: has involved in. So you, I have to say a

548
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:02,920
Speaker 1: lot of that, especially when you're talking about, you know,

549
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 1: looking into the future, A lot of that certainly sounds

550
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 1: more like the subterarine we know and love. Though at

551
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 1: the same time, I think it all further underlines the

552
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:16,719
Speaker 1: realities of boring that tend to limit these fictional visions. Um.

553
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 1: And and I should also know the boring company is

554
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 1: actually building tunnel, so it's we're not just talking about

555
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 1: a pure futurism project. Um. They have I believe, three

556
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:29,280
Speaker 1: different TBMs, all of them with with wonderful names. There's

557
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: the Good, there's the line Storm, which I believe I

558
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 1: read is named for um, Robert Frost poem or a

559
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:39,920
Speaker 1: line in Robert Frost poem. And then there's the proof Rock.

560
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 1: Oh j Alfred proof Rock. Yeah. Um, the proof Rock,

561
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 1: which is is two words in the name here is

562
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:50,960
Speaker 1: one that's still in development, but we will be used soon.

563
00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:53,640
Speaker 1: Why is it named the proof Rock? Is it is

564
00:30:53,680 --> 00:30:57,320
Speaker 1: it lying like an patient eutherized upon a table or

565
00:30:57,400 --> 00:30:59,600
Speaker 1: is it let's um, I think maybe it's just like

566
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 1: the proof if it's in the r I don't know

567
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 1: how deeply it is invoking the poem. It has measured

568
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: its progressing coffee spoons, well, whatever you know, we want

569
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 1: to call them. Um. These are some of the stats.

570
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: The line Storm is said to be two to three

571
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 1: times faster than conventional TBMs. Proof Rock is supposed to

572
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:20,200
Speaker 1: be as much as ten times faster than conventional machines.

573
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 1: And I I was reading about this in the publication

574
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: Tunnel Insider, which I've never read before. I was not

575
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 1: I'm not a subscriber to Tunnel Insider. But as they

576
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 1: put it in quote, if they and by they we

577
00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:36,240
Speaker 1: mean the Boring Company, if they are able to pull

578
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 1: this one off, it will mark a quantum leap in

579
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:42,440
Speaker 1: the history of tunnel boring technology and catapult the Boring

580
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 1: Company to the pinnacle of subterranean engineering. These these particular

581
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 1: TBMs are also electric and are claimed to be three

582
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 1: times more powerful than conventional TBMs. Uh. The Boring Company

583
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:55,720
Speaker 1: is still going strong, it seems. In fact, I was

584
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 1: reading that they recently finished a pair of Las Vegas

585
00:31:58,760 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 1: tunnels ahead of a plane opening. Well, more power to them,

586
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,040
Speaker 1: I mean, I I gotta say, just from a puristetic sense,

587
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:08,640
Speaker 1: in addition to all the practical reasons for it, I

588
00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:14,400
Speaker 1: I like the idea of relegating transportation infrastructure underground. Yeah. Absolutely,

589
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 1: it all makes sense to me. Uh, And it seems

590
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:20,040
Speaker 1: like they're making progress. Um. You know, of course they're

591
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:22,600
Speaker 1: always questions and all of this, Like, you know, you

592
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 1: have to you're wanting to push the technology, but also

593
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 1: it needs to be the affordable choice as well. Um.

594
00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 1: But you know, the future. The future remains to be seen,

595
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:35,240
Speaker 1: but but I'm hopeful. It seems seems like this might

596
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: be the way. Okay, Robert, are you ready to talk

597
00:32:37,480 --> 00:32:42,240
Speaker 1: about atomic battle moles? Yes, or as well atomic battle

598
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:45,720
Speaker 1: I think it is time because we've we've spoken about

599
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 1: the pure sci fi, We've spoken about the the the

600
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 1: the the actual technological history and and our current place

601
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 1: concerning TBMs. Let's start dealing with some of the murcury

602
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:00,840
Speaker 1: Er territory here. Okay, so he are, We're going to

603
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 1: dive into a bit of alleged Cold War crypto history,

604
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 1: and we will have to warn you up front. The

605
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:09,960
Speaker 1: sourcing that's available in English on this subject, I think

606
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:14,000
Speaker 1: is very murky, and there's a lot of uncertainty. Possibly

607
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 1: even in fact, I would say more than possibly, I

608
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 1: think quite probably. We're getting into some Edison Louis La

609
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:25,240
Speaker 1: Prince murder confession territory. If you listen to our Invention

610
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:29,320
Speaker 1: episode on that, where a possible hoax document or work

611
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 1: of fiction is being misinterpreted by later writers as a

612
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 1: factual report and then built upon by embellishment, but with

613
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 1: some major caveats. Are are you ready to dig in? Yes?

614
00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:43,880
Speaker 1: I do want to just throw in one quick nugget here.

615
00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:48,640
Speaker 1: We're gonna be talking about about Russian UH advances, advancements

616
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 1: or also or alleged advancements, and it's worth it's worth

617
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:54,880
Speaker 1: noting that, first of all, UH Edgar Rice Burrows was

618
00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 1: very influential just around the world, but there was also

619
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 1: a key Russia sci fi author bad the name of

620
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: Gregory Adamov, who wrote about subterines in Conquerors of the

621
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:09,479
Speaker 1: Underground in ninety seven. Oh yeah, I was reading about

622
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:11,640
Speaker 1: this and one of the articles that I'm going to

623
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:14,920
Speaker 1: reference in a minute here points out a hilariously machine

624
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:19,040
Speaker 1: translated version of that title Conquerors of the Underground, which

625
00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:24,280
Speaker 1: is Winners of the Bowels. Well that's good, okay, okay,

626
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 1: but yeah, well, what's what's the prompting for all this? Well,

627
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago you you might have seen

628
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:33,320
Speaker 1: a number of double take headlines running around the internet

629
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:39,240
Speaker 1: about the Soviets developing a nuclear powered subterine weapon during

630
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:42,200
Speaker 1: the Cold War. We can I know there was an

631
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:45,000
Speaker 1: article on like I f L Science about it. There

632
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 1: there's one we can check in with hero in, our

633
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 1: old arch nemesis, The Daily Mail, The headline is quote

634
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:56,280
Speaker 1: revealed the nuclear powered mole the Soviets built to burrow

635
00:34:56,360 --> 00:35:01,520
Speaker 1: beneath America and deliver atomic bombs under ground undergrounds in

636
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:04,839
Speaker 1: all caps. Oh yeah, this is a great headline, right.

637
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:08,440
Speaker 1: So I was looking to trace back to the source

638
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:11,319
Speaker 1: some of the claims in this article. So this is

639
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:13,799
Speaker 1: not the main source of the of it, but I

640
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 1: think it gets to the core of some of what

641
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: we're going to be looking at here. So there's an

642
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:23,440
Speaker 1: English article from June in an online publication called Russia Beyond.

643
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:26,839
Speaker 1: The headlines. Now, it's just known as Russia Beyond, which

644
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:30,480
Speaker 1: is a multi lingual arm of the major Russian state

645
00:35:30,600 --> 00:35:35,360
Speaker 1: newspaper rosie Skaya Gazetta. And I'm not generally very familiar

646
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:38,080
Speaker 1: with rosy Skya Gazetta Russia Beyond, I don't have a

647
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:41,319
Speaker 1: very good sense of how generally reliable it is. But

648
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 1: this article is derived from reporting from a government funded

649
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 1: newspaper of the Russian Federation, and it doesn't actually name

650
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:53,080
Speaker 1: most of its sources. So I think we have to

651
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 1: treat the claims in this article with an extremely heavy

652
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 1: dose of skepticism. Uh that's not to say everything in

653
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 1: it is necessarily untrue. But I would not hang my

654
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:04,640
Speaker 1: hat on anything here, but just so we can lay

655
00:36:04,640 --> 00:36:06,719
Speaker 1: it on the table, let's at least look at what

656
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:10,000
Speaker 1: this article claims. So it talks about how during the

657
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:13,600
Speaker 1: middle of the Cold War, the Soviet Premier Nikita Krutzchev

658
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:17,760
Speaker 1: ordered the construction of mechanized units that would be able

659
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 1: to burrow underground to destroy military targets. And these might

660
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 1: be underground bunkers or command centers or strategic missile launch sites,

661
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:33,880
Speaker 1: or to destroy underground communications infrastructure. And this hypothetical tunneling

662
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:37,480
Speaker 1: weapon that Krutzchev supposedly ordered the construction of would be

663
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:39,840
Speaker 1: known as a battle mole. So we're back to the

664
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:44,160
Speaker 1: moles again. Now. One of the supposed advantages of the

665
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 1: battle mole would be its ability to tunnel the targets

666
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:53,000
Speaker 1: deep behind enemy lines undetected and detonate charges, or even

667
00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:56,160
Speaker 1: to surface and deposit Soviet troops, sort of like an

668
00:36:56,239 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: underground APC. So was there any historical press for this well.

669
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:05,160
Speaker 1: The article claims that the first self powered underground military

670
00:37:05,239 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 1: vehicle was designed by someone named Pyotr Raskazov in Moscow

671
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:13,920
Speaker 1: and nineteen oh four, but that this was just a design.

672
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 1: It was never realized. He made some drawings, but the

673
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:20,240
Speaker 1: designs were lost around the outbreak of the First World

674
00:37:20,239 --> 00:37:24,040
Speaker 1: War ten years later, and then there were attempts to

675
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 1: bring the project back in the nineteen thirties under the

676
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 1: Soviet Union. Again, according to this article, the person in

677
00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 1: charge of this effort to to revive the underground battle

678
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:37,560
Speaker 1: mule idea was somebody identified in this article simply as

679
00:37:37,760 --> 00:37:42,200
Speaker 1: engineer treble Leev, which sounds like it's it sounds like

680
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:45,000
Speaker 1: Kirk selecting a red shirt for the landing party and

681
00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:50,600
Speaker 1: Star Trek, you know. Um, but engineer Trebellev wanted to

682
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:55,920
Speaker 1: quote design a machine which would look like a real mole. No,

683
00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:59,040
Speaker 1: no further explanation though. I actually I did find an

684
00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:02,319
Speaker 1: article from from the nineteen fifties that explains what this

685
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 1: is referring to. I'll leave that as a surprise for

686
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:06,839
Speaker 1: a little bit later. I mean, I would hope that

687
00:38:06,840 --> 00:38:09,400
Speaker 1: the translations a little off, and the ideas that it

688
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:12,240
Speaker 1: functions like a mole and not that it just looks

689
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:14,759
Speaker 1: like one. Though that's exciting in its own right. I mean,

690
00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 1: this is an English language article, this wasn't machine translated. Okay, well,

691
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:20,960
Speaker 1: maybe maybe it's just supposed to look like a Molden

692
00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:23,279
Speaker 1: wanted to design a machine which would look like a

693
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:26,040
Speaker 1: real mole. But eventually, you know, whatever happened here, the

694
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 1: project fizzled. And so then Nikita Krutzchev comes to power

695
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:32,400
Speaker 1: as the first Secretary of the Communist Party in nineteen

696
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:35,640
Speaker 1: fifty three after the death of Joseph Stalin, and according

697
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:39,120
Speaker 1: to this reporting, Krutzschev was big into the idea of

698
00:38:39,120 --> 00:38:43,480
Speaker 1: the battle mole and he strongly supported its redevelopment. So

699
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 1: you know, go out there, create the people's mole. And uh.

700
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 1: Supposedly there was a secret underground facility in Ukraine for

701
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:56,040
Speaker 1: developing and producing these moles, and the first nuclear powered

702
00:38:56,120 --> 00:39:01,239
Speaker 1: prototype for the battle mole was completed in nineteen sixty four. Now,

703
00:39:01,239 --> 00:39:03,759
Speaker 1: according to the article, this would have been a tunneling

704
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 1: vehicle powered by an internal nuclear reactor like a nuclear submarine,

705
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:12,440
Speaker 1: which again, this would be an ideal power source for

706
00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 1: like any kind of long term stealth vehicle for the

707
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 1: same reasons it's useful for like strategic ballistic missile subs. Right. Uh,

708
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:23,880
Speaker 1: you know, the the nuclear power allows you to run

709
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:27,239
Speaker 1: silently for a long period of time without having to

710
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:29,799
Speaker 1: return and get fuel. Somewhere and it doesn't you know,

711
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:32,799
Speaker 1: it doesn't produce any emissions other than heat, so you know,

712
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:35,360
Speaker 1: it's an ideal fuel choice. Just as a note of

713
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 1: historical comparison, uh, the first nuclear powered submarines I looked

714
00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:41,000
Speaker 1: this up. They were produced by the United States and

715
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:43,520
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union, and like the mid to late fifties.

716
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:46,839
Speaker 1: I think the US put out their first nuclear sub

717
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:51,359
Speaker 1: in then in nineteen fifty five and the USSR by night. Yeah.

718
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 1: And and of course it was just the overall atomic

719
00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:56,720
Speaker 1: trend of of looking at ways to power various types

720
00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 1: of vehicles. I mean, there was there's the whole realm

721
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:04,360
Speaker 1: of the atomic power aircraft they're looking at. Yeah, and

722
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 1: I think that that's clear that we could do a

723
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:08,440
Speaker 1: whole podcast on that in the future, or certainly the

724
00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:12,759
Speaker 1: ideas of atomic powered automobiles and so forth. Um, So

725
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 1: there was a lot of this line of thinking back

726
00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:17,080
Speaker 1: and in the day there's a lot of enthusiasm enthusiasm

727
00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:20,280
Speaker 1: for this, uh, this sort of power. But to defend

728
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 1: the idea here, like I think the idea of nuclear

729
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:25,480
Speaker 1: power does make a whole lot of sense for for

730
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 1: a vehicle like a strategic missile sub because the whole

731
00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:31,239
Speaker 1: point is that it needs to go out there and

732
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:34,600
Speaker 1: be hidden, and uh, you know, the strategic purpose of

733
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:36,319
Speaker 1: it is that you don't know where it is, and

734
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:38,319
Speaker 1: it's somewhere on the Earth, and it can be out

735
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 1: there for a long time without coming back to refuel. Right. Yeah,

736
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 1: I mean this is if we I think we've discussed

737
00:40:44,200 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 1: this on the show before. I mean, this is one

738
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:49,719
Speaker 1: of the key parts of of for instance, the United Kingdoms,

739
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:54,320
Speaker 1: uh nuclear deterrent. Yeah. But so back to this article

740
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 1: from Russia. Beyond so other claims that it makes about

741
00:40:57,239 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 1: this alleged battle mole, it says, quote it had a

742
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:04,840
Speaker 1: stretched titanium cylindrical body with a pointed end and a

743
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:08,720
Speaker 1: powerful drill. It says the size would have been between

744
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:11,640
Speaker 1: twenty five and thirty five meters in length and then

745
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:15,480
Speaker 1: between three to four meters in diameter, and its speed

746
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 1: underground as it's tunneling, would be between seven and fifteen

747
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:24,280
Speaker 1: kilometers per hour. Now, I am no expert on tunneling vehicles,

748
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:27,279
Speaker 1: I admit, so my judgment may be way off, but

749
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:31,360
Speaker 1: this is huge red flag for me. This sounds really

750
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:35,279
Speaker 1: really fast. That sounds much faster than a snail to

751
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:40,200
Speaker 1: go back to uh Elon Musk's u um snail race. Right,

752
00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:43,279
Speaker 1: this thing can tunnel through the ground faster than some

753
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:48,480
Speaker 1: people can run. I don't know. Yeah, okay, but the

754
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:52,919
Speaker 1: article also claims that quote the nuclear physicist Andrei Sakarov

755
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:56,200
Speaker 1: was involved with the creation of this machine, possibly with

756
00:41:56,239 --> 00:41:59,800
Speaker 1: the development of the original soil crushing and propulsion system

757
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:04,240
Speaker 1: to tchnology, the cavitation flow created around the battle mole's

758
00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:08,080
Speaker 1: body reduced friction and enabled it to bore through granite

759
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:12,759
Speaker 1: and basalt. Again, I very much doubt if there's any

760
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:16,400
Speaker 1: truth to this association, but for those who aren't familiar,

761
00:42:16,719 --> 00:42:20,080
Speaker 1: Andrei Sakarov is absolutely a very real and very important

762
00:42:20,120 --> 00:42:24,400
Speaker 1: figure in twentieth century history. Uh Sakarov was a Russian

763
00:42:24,520 --> 00:42:27,960
Speaker 1: nuclear physicist who worked on the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons

764
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:31,320
Speaker 1: program in the late forties and the fifties. He's considered

765
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 1: in some ways the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb,

766
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:37,760
Speaker 1: but he later became an activist, protesting for civil liberties

767
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:40,120
Speaker 1: and human rights within the Soviet Union, and he received

768
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:44,480
Speaker 1: a Nobel Peace Prize in nineteen I know he was

769
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:48,280
Speaker 1: not popular with the with the Soviet government for his activism.

770
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 1: At some point I know he was sent into internal exile. Um.

771
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 1: But anyway, So back to the article. So the article

772
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 1: claims that the battle Mole took a crew of five

773
00:42:57,200 --> 00:43:00,480
Speaker 1: people to operate, and it could carry up to fifteen

774
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:03,280
Speaker 1: paratroopers on top of that, So again, it is actually

775
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:06,520
Speaker 1: being alleged that this thing would bore in under the earth,

776
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:09,319
Speaker 1: drill up to the surface, and then let out a

777
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 1: bunch of dudes. Yeah, it's I mean, it's it's straight

778
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:18,239
Speaker 1: It sounds straight up Ninja turtles. It sounds like I mean,

779
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:20,600
Speaker 1: it makes me think of stormtroopers jumping out of one

780
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:23,560
Speaker 1: of these things, right right, Or of course if it

781
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:27,279
Speaker 1: wasn't you know, fifteen paratroopers could deliver a payload of

782
00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:30,839
Speaker 1: weapons or equipment or especially an explosive charge, and this

783
00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 1: payload could be of up to a ton. Now here's

784
00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:36,960
Speaker 1: here's the part where it gets really interesting. The article

785
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:41,640
Speaker 1: alleges there was a secret plan for an underground strike

786
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:44,640
Speaker 1: on America which would be triggered It said if the

787
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:50,000
Speaker 1: United States quote deteriorated beyond the point. No further explanation there,

788
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:51,560
Speaker 1: but I guess the idea is like, if if the

789
00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:55,080
Speaker 1: US is starting to look weak, then like this, these

790
00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:58,280
Speaker 1: things could drill in, So how would they tunnel underneath

791
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:00,560
Speaker 1: the United States? Well, allegedly the play and was to

792
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:04,719
Speaker 1: bring them to the United States coast inside nuclear submarines,

793
00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:08,279
Speaker 1: specifically to the California coast, and the California coast is

794
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 1: singled out for its seismic instability, and then the moles

795
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:14,719
Speaker 1: would be released from underwater to tunnel into California and

796
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:18,880
Speaker 1: plant nuclear explosive charges under strategic facilities and fault lines

797
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:22,680
Speaker 1: without being noticed right at all. And also this would

798
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:25,560
Speaker 1: this turn, this attack, it alleges, would be a kind

799
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:30,239
Speaker 1: of false flag for nature where the nuclear charges they'd

800
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:33,360
Speaker 1: be detonated, but it would just look like naturally occurring

801
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:36,239
Speaker 1: earthquakes and tsunamis all over the place, and it'd be like,

802
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:39,399
Speaker 1: I guess Mother Nature is just mad at us. Oh man,

803
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:42,200
Speaker 1: I mean this is there's so many sci fi possibilities

804
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 1: just in this, like the idea of say, ultimately slow

805
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:49,000
Speaker 1: moving nuclear drill machines have been slowly making their way

806
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:51,680
Speaker 1: from the California coast to the heartland, and when they

807
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:55,759
Speaker 1: finally open up, you have all these like hideously atomic

808
00:44:55,960 --> 00:45:00,760
Speaker 1: mutated paratroopers that emerge. All the talk sick of injured.

809
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:03,759
Speaker 1: Now speaking Russian, so much fun to you can have

810
00:45:03,840 --> 00:45:06,799
Speaker 1: with this concept. But anyway, so I've I've just got

811
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:11,200
Speaker 1: to read the conclusion here verbatim quote. According to some reports,

812
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:14,440
Speaker 1: test runs of the Soviet nuclear subterine were carried out

813
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:18,839
Speaker 1: in different geological conditions in suburban Moscow's soils, in the

814
00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 1: Rostov region and in the Urals. Witnesses who observed the

815
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:26,759
Speaker 1: tests were most struck by the capabilities the subterine demonstrated

816
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:30,359
Speaker 1: in the Ural mountains, the battle mole easily bit into

817
00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:34,400
Speaker 1: hard rock and destroyed the underground target. However, a tragedy

818
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:38,320
Speaker 1: occurred during the repeated trials. For reasons unknown, the machine

819
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:41,880
Speaker 1: exploded deep within the bowels of the Urals, killing the

820
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:46,279
Speaker 1: entire crew. Shortly thereafter, the project was shelved. Oh man,

821
00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 1: there's a whole like cool Indie historic horror film concept

822
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:53,600
Speaker 1: right there, This doomed subterine. It gets I don't know,

823
00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:56,839
Speaker 1: eaten by Judd's or something, right. I think this would

824
00:45:56,920 --> 00:46:00,520
Speaker 1: make a great movie. But I have serries us doubts

825
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 1: about this report, like even if this were published by

826
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:05,880
Speaker 1: a source that I thought to be trustworthy. Again, I

827
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 1: don't know much about the source and it is related

828
00:46:08,200 --> 00:46:11,880
Speaker 1: to like a government funded paper. Some of like my

829
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:16,399
Speaker 1: basic plausibility alarms are flashing red. But anyway, so back

830
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:18,920
Speaker 1: to like a lot of the ten circulation of the

831
00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:21,959
Speaker 1: story that was going around and you know, daily mail.

832
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:24,239
Speaker 1: In all these places, it seems to trace back to

833
00:46:24,280 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 1: an article in Gelopnik by senior editor Jason Torchinsky, who,

834
00:46:29,080 --> 00:46:32,040
Speaker 1: to his credit, does show skepticism about some of these claims,

835
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 1: maybe more so than some of the derivative articles do.

836
00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:38,160
Speaker 1: Um which but it tries to follow up on these

837
00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:42,600
Speaker 1: claims by consulting some contemporary articles in Russian language sources,

838
00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:45,960
Speaker 1: a lot of it machine translated, though um So. It

839
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:48,120
Speaker 1: was Torchinsky, by the way, who pointed out that idea

840
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:50,879
Speaker 1: of the machine translation of conquerors of the underground being

841
00:46:50,880 --> 00:46:54,000
Speaker 1: winners of the bowels. So he is the winner of

842
00:46:54,040 --> 00:46:57,440
Speaker 1: the winner of the bowels. But um he develops on

843
00:46:57,480 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 1: the assertion that this this guy, remember engineer trabellev that

844
00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:04,719
Speaker 1: he wanted it to look like a mole. Uh. Twarcensky

845
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:08,920
Speaker 1: points out that this is supposedly because he studied X

846
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:12,640
Speaker 1: rays of a mole skeleton in order to design the machine.

847
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:15,759
Speaker 1: That makes a little bit more sense uh and will

848
00:47:15,760 --> 00:47:18,240
Speaker 1: be further developed even more by another source I found.

849
00:47:18,960 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 1: As for the reports of this nineteen thirties model, there's

850
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:25,200
Speaker 1: all this vagueness in the sources. It's hard to tell

851
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:29,399
Speaker 1: from what's available, how large Trabelle's model was supposed to be,

852
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:34,080
Speaker 1: whether it was crude, etcetera. Um Regarding the prototype built

853
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:37,640
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four, Twarcensky turns up some more claims

854
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:39,759
Speaker 1: about how the project came to an end from the

855
00:47:40,120 --> 00:47:43,319
Speaker 1: Russian reporting and rosy Skaya Gazetta, which is apparently what

856
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:46,719
Speaker 1: that Russia Beyond article was sort of derivative of. But

857
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 1: here here's additional detail machine translated, of course. Quote. However,

858
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:56,400
Speaker 1: during next tests in nineteen sixty four, a car that

859
00:47:56,520 --> 00:47:59,800
Speaker 1: penetrated the Ural mountains near Nisney tag Gil for a

860
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:04,640
Speaker 1: stance of ten kilometers for unknown reasons, exploded. Since the

861
00:48:04,680 --> 00:48:07,680
Speaker 1: explosion was nuclear, the apparatus with the people in it

862
00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:11,960
Speaker 1: simply evaporated and the broken tunnel collapsed. In the press

863
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:14,920
Speaker 1: was the name of the deceased commander of the Battle Mole,

864
00:48:15,320 --> 00:48:20,680
Speaker 1: Colonel Semyon Budnikov, but official confirmation of this never sounded.

865
00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:24,319
Speaker 1: The project was closed. All documentary evidence of it was

866
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:29,200
Speaker 1: liquidated as if nothing had ever happened, very conveniently here, right,

867
00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:32,160
Speaker 1: So all physical evidence of this experiment is completely erased

868
00:48:32,160 --> 00:48:34,759
Speaker 1: from the earth. And then it gets even fishier and

869
00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:38,799
Speaker 1: starts to get into territory where I'm wondering who's fooling who.

870
00:48:38,880 --> 00:48:41,480
Speaker 1: So this is again from the Rosy skya Gazetta report

871
00:48:42,200 --> 00:48:47,200
Speaker 1: explaining why the explosion happened. Quote or maybe another civilization

872
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:50,560
Speaker 1: exists literally under our feet, and the guards did not

873
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 1: want the Soviet mole to penetrate the forbidden limits. After all,

874
00:48:54,680 --> 00:48:58,040
Speaker 1: the technical characteristics allowed the battle mole to reach the

875
00:48:58,080 --> 00:49:02,200
Speaker 1: center of the Earth. Therefore, unique underground machine was destroyed,

876
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:05,720
Speaker 1: and the mystery of the longstanding Soviet project is likely

877
00:49:05,800 --> 00:49:13,239
Speaker 1: to never be fully revealed. Oh okay, so the underground

878
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:19,279
Speaker 1: civilization might have sabotaged it. Yeah, that doesn't sound pas right,

879
00:49:19,320 --> 00:49:22,000
Speaker 1: So there's definitely something wrong with this story. It doesn't

880
00:49:22,040 --> 00:49:26,000
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that all of the reports of historical Soviet

881
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:29,680
Speaker 1: battle mole development are untrue, though here I'm getting the

882
00:49:29,719 --> 00:49:32,759
Speaker 1: feeling that a lot of these reports may be embellished,

883
00:49:33,080 --> 00:49:36,600
Speaker 1: and this report about the nineteen sixty four vehicle specifically

884
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:39,920
Speaker 1: might be a complete or near complete fiction. So the

885
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:41,520
Speaker 1: next thing I was looking to was seeing if we

886
00:49:41,560 --> 00:49:44,840
Speaker 1: can figure out about mid century subterrane projects from like

887
00:49:44,960 --> 00:49:48,360
Speaker 1: contemporaneous sources, like was anything published about it at the

888
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:52,040
Speaker 1: time that I can access in English and understand? And

889
00:49:52,360 --> 00:49:54,799
Speaker 1: so I did come across something this was this was

890
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:57,920
Speaker 1: linked through another source I found there was a nineteen

891
00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:02,239
Speaker 1: fifty six, actually December thirteen, nineteen fifty article in New

892
00:50:02,320 --> 00:50:07,400
Speaker 1: Scientists called Russia's Battle Moles. Okay, now we're dealing with

893
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:10,720
Speaker 1: a publication we can get behind, I mean to an extent,

894
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:13,360
Speaker 1: Like now, I don't necessarily trust all of the claims

895
00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:15,600
Speaker 1: in this article either, but at least it might give

896
00:50:15,680 --> 00:50:19,240
Speaker 1: us a better idea of not necessarily what really happened,

897
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:23,839
Speaker 1: but what ideas were actually being discussed in the nineteen fifties. Uh.

898
00:50:23,840 --> 00:50:26,440
Speaker 1: You know, this isn't like a you know, decades later source.

899
00:50:26,480 --> 00:50:29,280
Speaker 1: Now we can find out whether or not the idea

900
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:32,000
Speaker 1: of these machines was actually in the air, regardless of

901
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:34,399
Speaker 1: whether or not they were actually built. And I will

902
00:50:34,440 --> 00:50:37,040
Speaker 1: know this is a very early article for New Scientists.

903
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:39,480
Speaker 1: It was founded a New Scientist I think was founded

904
00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:42,000
Speaker 1: just a month or two before this article was published.

905
00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:45,680
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty six. But it starts off talking about

906
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:49,480
Speaker 1: how slow and labor intensive the process of tunneling is

907
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:51,640
Speaker 1: and how great it would be to have a machine

908
00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:55,120
Speaker 1: that's like a mechanical mole or an underground boat that

909
00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:58,359
Speaker 1: can speed up the process of digging tunnels. And then

910
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:02,680
Speaker 1: they go on to report an unnamed contemporary Russian technical

911
00:51:02,800 --> 00:51:06,480
Speaker 1: journal that is describing the attempts of Soviet scientists to

912
00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:10,160
Speaker 1: build a machine like this um, something that would be

913
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:15,399
Speaker 1: able to independently drive around underground boring tunnels. And they

914
00:51:15,400 --> 00:51:18,840
Speaker 1: corroborate the idea that this research is based on bio mimicry,

915
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:23,279
Speaker 1: the biomimicry of the mammalian mole quote. The investigation of

916
00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:27,120
Speaker 1: moles technique was carried out in the Ural mountains. Local

917
00:51:27,239 --> 00:51:31,239
Speaker 1: hunters taught the Russian scientists how to catch moles. Then

918
00:51:31,320 --> 00:51:33,799
Speaker 1: the lengths of the captured moles from tip to tail

919
00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:36,799
Speaker 1: were measured. Next, the animals were allowed to burrow and

920
00:51:36,840 --> 00:51:39,960
Speaker 1: the duration of their task was timed with a stop watch,

921
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:42,360
Speaker 1: from the moment they started digging to the moment that

922
00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:45,799
Speaker 1: the end of their tails disappeared into the earth. In

923
00:51:45,840 --> 00:51:49,600
Speaker 1: this way, the speed of digging under various conditions was calculated.

924
00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:52,239
Speaker 1: In clay, the mole borrowed at a rate of two

925
00:51:52,280 --> 00:51:55,280
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty four ft per hour and in black

926
00:51:55,320 --> 00:51:58,359
Speaker 1: earth three d and sixty one ft per hour. In

927
00:51:58,400 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 1: some cases even higher speed were attained. The second part

928
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:04,879
Speaker 1: of the investigation was carried out in the laboratory. A

929
00:52:04,920 --> 00:52:08,720
Speaker 1: box measuring sixteen inches square by eight feet long was used.

930
00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:11,920
Speaker 1: The box was packed with clay soil and arranged in

931
00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:14,640
Speaker 1: front of an X ray machine. A mole was placed

932
00:52:14,680 --> 00:52:16,600
Speaker 1: at the front end of the box and it started

933
00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:18,960
Speaker 1: to burrow its way through the soil in the box.

934
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:22,560
Speaker 1: By X ray photography, a record of the moles progress

935
00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:27,200
Speaker 1: was obtained, showing the movement of its muscles and skeleton. Okay,

936
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:30,279
Speaker 1: so this is starting to become actually clear to me now, yeah,

937
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:32,480
Speaker 1: I mean this is this is where we're again. We're

938
00:52:32,480 --> 00:52:35,520
Speaker 1: talking about biomimicry. Here we said, we're talking about uh,

939
00:52:35,600 --> 00:52:40,320
Speaker 1: scientists considering a problem, an engineering problem, and then looking

940
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:44,680
Speaker 1: for an answer in um evolved biology. Right. So they

941
00:52:44,719 --> 00:52:48,279
Speaker 1: discovered that the mole digs by working its head and

942
00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:51,279
Speaker 1: its paws back and forth along and access in the

943
00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:54,239
Speaker 1: front to to loosen the soil ahead of it, and

944
00:52:54,280 --> 00:52:57,320
Speaker 1: then it moves the displaced earth out of the way

945
00:52:57,600 --> 00:53:00,720
Speaker 1: and presses it up into the side of the tunnel,

946
00:53:00,840 --> 00:53:03,360
Speaker 1: sort of packing it against the edges of the tunnel

947
00:53:03,680 --> 00:53:06,399
Speaker 1: with its what they call its withers. I guess that's

948
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:08,600
Speaker 1: like the back of its neck and upper back area,

949
00:53:08,880 --> 00:53:13,240
Speaker 1: and with its shoulders, and then it continually applies forward

950
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:16,160
Speaker 1: pressure by digging in and pushing with its hind legs.

951
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:20,000
Speaker 1: And the article claims that this pressing out of the

952
00:53:20,040 --> 00:53:23,520
Speaker 1: displaced earth by the strong withers and the shoulder muscles

953
00:53:24,200 --> 00:53:27,040
Speaker 1: of the mole is actually the most important discovery here,

954
00:53:27,360 --> 00:53:31,280
Speaker 1: because again, one of the biggest problems with with drilling, tunneling, boring,

955
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:33,360
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, is how to deal

956
00:53:33,440 --> 00:53:37,200
Speaker 1: with the displaced material as you go right. The New

957
00:53:37,239 --> 00:53:40,360
Speaker 1: Scientist article goes on quote from the lessons learned with

958
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:43,520
Speaker 1: the mole, the Russians built a mechanical model, followed by

959
00:53:43,520 --> 00:53:47,239
Speaker 1: a larger scale machine consisting of a cutter corresponding to

960
00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:50,879
Speaker 1: the mole's head, a worm for ramming loosened earth into

961
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:54,000
Speaker 1: the walls of the tunnel corresponding to the withers, and

962
00:53:54,080 --> 00:53:57,879
Speaker 1: propellers corresponding to the hind legs. In the front part

963
00:53:57,880 --> 00:53:59,920
Speaker 1: of the body of the machine is a powerful cutter

964
00:54:00,040 --> 00:54:03,640
Speaker 1: made of hard alloy. Behind the four propellers, which push

965
00:54:03,680 --> 00:54:06,320
Speaker 1: against the walls of the tunnel and move the machine

966
00:54:06,400 --> 00:54:09,279
Speaker 1: forward at a speed of thirty ft per hour. The

967
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:12,640
Speaker 1: cutter rotates at a speed of three revolutions per minute

968
00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:15,239
Speaker 1: for use in hard soils. The cutter can also be

969
00:54:15,320 --> 00:54:19,160
Speaker 1: given hammer blows as it rotates. Uh and it says yes,

970
00:54:19,160 --> 00:54:22,360
Speaker 1: this would have needed a human pilot to steer it. So.

971
00:54:22,440 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 1: The article claims that the machine was built and tested

972
00:54:25,160 --> 00:54:29,799
Speaker 1: in the Ural Mountains in nineteen six, and Soviet engineers

973
00:54:29,880 --> 00:54:33,320
Speaker 1: have it says, made improvements in its speed and size

974
00:54:33,360 --> 00:54:36,080
Speaker 1: since then. The article does not really even though it's

975
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:40,360
Speaker 1: called battle mole, The article does not really mention military applications. Instead,

976
00:54:40,400 --> 00:54:43,600
Speaker 1: it emphasizes how useful this kind of device would be

977
00:54:43,680 --> 00:54:46,080
Speaker 1: for the kind of tunneling we were talking about earlier,

978
00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:49,440
Speaker 1: like for mining or for urban engineering. One thought that

979
00:54:49,480 --> 00:54:53,319
Speaker 1: comes to mind thinking about this is if well, I mean,

980
00:54:53,320 --> 00:54:55,360
Speaker 1: first of all, if you wanted to solve this engineering

981
00:54:55,400 --> 00:54:57,920
Speaker 1: problem like looking to the mole, is is is certainly

982
00:54:58,120 --> 00:55:01,560
Speaker 1: one way to to try and answer those questions. Even

983
00:55:01,600 --> 00:55:04,200
Speaker 1: if things might not scale up all the way, but

984
00:55:04,440 --> 00:55:07,000
Speaker 1: in terms of a warfare scenario, it seems like this

985
00:55:07,040 --> 00:55:08,920
Speaker 1: is the sort of thing that, if you could pull

986
00:55:08,920 --> 00:55:13,880
Speaker 1: it off, would be very advantageous in older modes of warfare.

987
00:55:14,000 --> 00:55:16,880
Speaker 1: You know, like if you're dealing with with siege warfare,

988
00:55:17,280 --> 00:55:21,600
Speaker 1: having a battle mole could really turn the tide. Perhaps

989
00:55:21,719 --> 00:55:25,080
Speaker 1: even in trench warfare, you know where you have you know,

990
00:55:25,120 --> 00:55:28,520
Speaker 1: these hard fronts, uh, in these Noman lands. You know

991
00:55:28,600 --> 00:55:31,040
Speaker 1: that I could see that being a factor. But it

992
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:34,600
Speaker 1: is certainly I don't know. People may disagree with me,

993
00:55:34,680 --> 00:55:37,000
Speaker 1: but it seems like once you get into the World

994
00:55:37,040 --> 00:55:38,959
Speaker 1: War two era and the post War War two era,

995
00:55:39,520 --> 00:55:42,400
Speaker 1: the usefulness of this kind of a device, even if

996
00:55:42,400 --> 00:55:45,560
Speaker 1: you could pull it off, becomes um uh, you know,

997
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:49,480
Speaker 1: less obvious. Yeah, it's I mean, it seems much more

998
00:55:49,560 --> 00:55:52,480
Speaker 1: useful in the world that doesn't already depend on air power.

999
00:55:53,320 --> 00:55:55,759
Speaker 1: You've already conquered the skies at this point. Now you

1000
00:55:56,040 --> 00:55:59,880
Speaker 1: could say that well maybe the maybe an underground mole,

1001
00:56:00,360 --> 00:56:04,440
Speaker 1: at least hypothetically could be more stealthy than air power.

1002
00:56:04,680 --> 00:56:06,640
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, we have stealth bombers and

1003
00:56:06,680 --> 00:56:10,160
Speaker 1: stuff now, but um well, you know it reminds me

1004
00:56:10,200 --> 00:56:14,520
Speaker 1: of uh, the super secret weapon um of the Byzantines,

1005
00:56:14,560 --> 00:56:17,200
Speaker 1: the Greek Fire. We did an episode on that and

1006
00:56:17,239 --> 00:56:19,279
Speaker 1: one of the things that came out about it was

1007
00:56:19,360 --> 00:56:22,160
Speaker 1: that it was it was useful if you used it

1008
00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:26,600
Speaker 1: every once in a while under very specific circumstances, but

1009
00:56:26,640 --> 00:56:30,600
Speaker 1: if people were expecting it, uh, then it lost its usefulness. Yeah,

1010
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:32,840
Speaker 1: it's like more useful as a kind of shock weapon

1011
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:36,000
Speaker 1: than as like a regular mainstay of how you win battles.

1012
00:56:36,920 --> 00:56:39,239
Speaker 1: But anyway, so I want to kind of put a

1013
00:56:39,280 --> 00:56:42,680
Speaker 1: bow on this issue of the Soviet atomic battle mole.

1014
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:45,640
Speaker 1: There appears to be a very good, skeptical and well

1015
00:56:45,680 --> 00:56:49,839
Speaker 1: sided dive into the issue of the atomic subterine from

1016
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:53,239
Speaker 1: way back in twelve at the Atomic Sky's blog, and

1017
00:56:53,320 --> 00:56:56,800
Speaker 1: it's called the atomic subterine. Uh. The author of this blog,

1018
00:56:56,840 --> 00:57:00,200
Speaker 1: I think, offers a very reasonable assessment of this weird

1019
00:57:00,200 --> 00:57:02,960
Speaker 1: in murky subject, in addition to a very good right

1020
00:57:03,040 --> 00:57:06,680
Speaker 1: up in general of atomic subterarine ideas as they were

1021
00:57:06,680 --> 00:57:08,759
Speaker 1: explored in the United States, which Robert I know you're

1022
00:57:08,760 --> 00:57:11,279
Speaker 1: going to get into in a minute here. But the

1023
00:57:11,320 --> 00:57:14,279
Speaker 1: author here he just goes by Mark, but he acknowledges

1024
00:57:14,560 --> 00:57:17,240
Speaker 1: the claims we've talked about so far regarding the alleged

1025
00:57:17,280 --> 00:57:21,000
Speaker 1: Soviet atomic battle mole, and he concludes that there probably

1026
00:57:21,240 --> 00:57:25,000
Speaker 1: was a real Russian program in the nineteen fifties to

1027
00:57:25,200 --> 00:57:29,760
Speaker 1: develop a conventional chemical powered tunneling machine known as an

1028
00:57:29,840 --> 00:57:34,040
Speaker 1: underground boat, but that the part about the atomic battle

1029
00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:37,560
Speaker 1: mole and krutz Chev's attack plan, uh you know, attack

1030
00:57:37,640 --> 00:57:40,720
Speaker 1: the US from below, that this is not just untrue,

1031
00:57:40,800 --> 00:57:44,800
Speaker 1: but possibly a prank gone wrong. Uh So, I'm gonna

1032
00:57:44,840 --> 00:57:48,040
Speaker 1: read from his in note here quote I strongly suspect

1033
00:57:48,120 --> 00:57:52,440
Speaker 1: that the supposed nuclear powered prototype was an April fools

1034
00:57:52,520 --> 00:57:58,200
Speaker 1: hoax by the Russian language Popular Mechanics magazine. The first

1035
00:57:58,320 --> 00:58:00,760
Speaker 1: mention of it I can find online and comes from

1036
00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:04,480
Speaker 1: the April issue of that magazine, and the diagram they

1037
00:58:04,520 --> 00:58:09,880
Speaker 1: include incorporates what appeared to be mechanical tentacles. In any case, however,

1038
00:58:10,160 --> 00:58:14,040
Speaker 1: neither of these were a subterraine, but rather tunnel boring machines,

1039
00:58:14,720 --> 00:58:17,160
Speaker 1: And based on everything I've read, I think he's very

1040
00:58:17,200 --> 00:58:20,040
Speaker 1: possibly correct. In fact, I might even say probably, And

1041
00:58:20,200 --> 00:58:23,360
Speaker 1: if so, this would be interesting because we'd be again

1042
00:58:23,400 --> 00:58:26,760
Speaker 1: in territory I mentioned this earlier, like the territory of

1043
00:58:26,800 --> 00:58:30,200
Speaker 1: the Edison murder confession that we talked about in the

1044
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:34,920
Speaker 1: Louis La Prince episode of Invention, where something originally intended

1045
00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:39,000
Speaker 1: as what I think was a non malicious, explicit, explicitly

1046
00:58:39,080 --> 00:58:43,280
Speaker 1: fictional document is later misinterpreted by a bunch of other

1047
00:58:43,320 --> 00:58:47,000
Speaker 1: writers as a legitimate news report. And this is why

1048
00:58:47,080 --> 00:58:50,520
Speaker 1: April Fool's articles should be exiled to Siberia forever like

1049
00:58:50,840 --> 00:58:54,480
Speaker 1: no more of them ever. I agree. And on that note,

1050
00:58:54,920 --> 00:58:56,840
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. But when we come back,

1051
00:58:57,160 --> 00:59:02,320
Speaker 1: we'll discuss uh some of the US based research into

1052
00:59:02,360 --> 00:59:08,560
Speaker 1: the idea of a subterarine. Thank alright, we're back, alright.

1053
00:59:08,600 --> 00:59:11,760
Speaker 1: So we think that these reports about the Soviet atomic

1054
00:59:11,840 --> 00:59:15,520
Speaker 1: subterine and the the attack America from below planned that

1055
00:59:15,560 --> 00:59:18,280
Speaker 1: this is probably not true. It's you know, it may

1056
00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:21,000
Speaker 1: be based on some actual research that took place, but

1057
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:23,800
Speaker 1: the the overall story is not real and this thing

1058
00:59:23,880 --> 00:59:26,520
Speaker 1: was never actually built or tested in the Earl Mountains,

1059
00:59:26,720 --> 00:59:29,400
Speaker 1: at least as best we can tell. Um. But that

1060
00:59:29,480 --> 00:59:32,320
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that the idea of an atomic subtarine was

1061
00:59:32,400 --> 00:59:36,680
Speaker 1: never seriously investigated at all. That's right, Uh, so, I

1062
00:59:36,680 --> 00:59:40,080
Speaker 1: I too was looking at that atomic Skuy's blog post

1063
00:59:40,640 --> 00:59:44,360
Speaker 1: and I was also looking at a piece by Steve

1064
00:59:44,440 --> 00:59:47,960
Speaker 1: wentz H in the National Interest that that also cites

1065
00:59:48,080 --> 00:59:51,920
Speaker 1: that particular blog post um and Yeah. The United States

1066
00:59:52,000 --> 00:59:55,200
Speaker 1: also looked into this technology, into this idea of a

1067
00:59:55,240 --> 01:00:00,959
Speaker 1: subterarine UH specifically um during the n lost Alamos National

1068
01:00:01,040 --> 01:00:04,680
Speaker 1: Laboratory explore the use of nuclear of a nuclear powered subterarine.

1069
01:00:05,200 --> 01:00:09,760
Speaker 1: Engineer Bob Porter was allegedly inspired by at Earth's Core

1070
01:00:10,240 --> 01:00:13,800
Speaker 1: by the by the Boroughs novel after noting the three

1071
01:00:13,800 --> 01:00:17,880
Speaker 1: thousand degrees integrade temperatures of a prototype reactor in the fifties,

1072
01:00:18,360 --> 01:00:21,960
Speaker 1: and then in experiment by Potter showed that this sort

1073
01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:26,560
Speaker 1: of drilling could be possible. The resulting project was intended

1074
01:00:26,600 --> 01:00:29,600
Speaker 1: to produce a vehicle quote capable of penetrating the Earth

1075
01:00:29,640 --> 01:00:33,560
Speaker 1: to depths of ten kilometers to extend geological and geophysical

1076
01:00:33,600 --> 01:00:37,280
Speaker 1: exploration into the Earth's mantle. Now, the important idea here

1077
01:00:37,360 --> 01:00:40,160
Speaker 1: is that this subterine envisioned by Potter here would not

1078
01:00:40,320 --> 01:00:43,840
Speaker 1: drill just through traditional boring like a you know, a

1079
01:00:43,960 --> 01:00:46,160
Speaker 1: drill bit or a bunch of drill bits, that it

1080
01:00:46,160 --> 01:00:51,120
Speaker 1: would primarily work through melting right using the superheating from

1081
01:00:51,160 --> 01:00:55,520
Speaker 1: either a nuclear or an electrical source to to superheat

1082
01:00:55,640 --> 01:00:58,680
Speaker 1: something like some tongue sten or something that would melt

1083
01:00:58,760 --> 01:01:01,200
Speaker 1: the rock away and allow you to just kind of

1084
01:01:01,240 --> 01:01:03,919
Speaker 1: like go through it like a hot knife through butter. Yeah,

1085
01:01:03,960 --> 01:01:06,600
Speaker 1: in a way, it would be swimming through the earth.

1086
01:01:06,640 --> 01:01:09,680
Speaker 1: It would be creating its own lava tube and sliding

1087
01:01:09,720 --> 01:01:13,120
Speaker 1: through it. Uh yeah, So I mean it's it's an

1088
01:01:13,240 --> 01:01:18,560
Speaker 1: ingenious solution, you know, um or potential solution. So apparently

1089
01:01:18,680 --> 01:01:20,520
Speaker 1: the first of all, I do want to like you,

1090
01:01:20,800 --> 01:01:23,480
Speaker 1: like you mentioned earlier, I would I would encourage everyone

1091
01:01:23,520 --> 01:01:26,040
Speaker 1: to check out that Atomic Sky's blog post because he

1092
01:01:26,080 --> 01:01:28,680
Speaker 1: also goes into a little more detail about this supposed

1093
01:01:28,880 --> 01:01:32,120
Speaker 1: a scenario where they were talking about it at at

1094
01:01:32,160 --> 01:01:36,200
Speaker 1: out luncheon or at a diner or something. Yeah, bar

1095
01:01:36,680 --> 01:01:39,680
Speaker 1: and um, and it just kind of the idea of

1096
01:01:39,680 --> 01:01:42,240
Speaker 1: it was got picked up by um, was it a

1097
01:01:42,760 --> 01:01:45,880
Speaker 1: it was a politician this politician. Yeah, the the scientists

1098
01:01:45,880 --> 01:01:48,560
Speaker 1: from the lab on Friday, we're hanging out just like

1099
01:01:48,640 --> 01:01:51,480
Speaker 1: having drinks and talking about ideas that occurred to them

1100
01:01:51,480 --> 01:01:53,640
Speaker 1: in a some politician, I don't know if it was

1101
01:01:53,680 --> 01:01:56,360
Speaker 1: a US rap or a New Mexico reps. Some politician

1102
01:01:56,880 --> 01:02:00,640
Speaker 1: legislator walks in and overhears them talking about this subterine

1103
01:02:00,680 --> 01:02:03,760
Speaker 1: idea and gets really excited about it. Yeah, he's like,

1104
01:02:03,760 --> 01:02:05,880
Speaker 1: that sounds great, let's fund it. And so they did

1105
01:02:06,600 --> 01:02:10,920
Speaker 1: and got funded. Um. So, apparently, in addition to mining,

1106
01:02:11,040 --> 01:02:15,200
Speaker 1: tunneling and exploration, the project also entailed this idea that

1107
01:02:15,240 --> 01:02:18,760
Speaker 1: the tech could be used to create storage cavities in

1108
01:02:18,800 --> 01:02:21,160
Speaker 1: the earth, in the deep Earth, not only for toxic

1109
01:02:21,200 --> 01:02:23,760
Speaker 1: and nuclear waste. And we've discussed on the show before

1110
01:02:23,760 --> 01:02:26,720
Speaker 1: about out the the the the deep geologic isolation of

1111
01:02:26,800 --> 01:02:30,040
Speaker 1: nuclear waste is actually a you know, a really supported idea.

1112
01:02:30,520 --> 01:02:33,240
Speaker 1: But they also got into this idea of how putting

1113
01:02:33,280 --> 01:02:37,440
Speaker 1: pressurized gases in these storage cavities that could then be

1114
01:02:37,560 --> 01:02:42,120
Speaker 1: unleashed to drive turbines for energy. It's an interesting idea. Yeah,

1115
01:02:42,200 --> 01:02:45,440
Speaker 1: I would not have thought of that, but yeah, that's

1116
01:02:45,440 --> 01:02:49,280
Speaker 1: pretty cool. So um. According to again that National Interest

1117
01:02:49,360 --> 01:02:54,280
Speaker 1: article and the Atomic Skuy's blog post, uh, the everything

1118
01:02:54,360 --> 01:02:56,800
Speaker 1: kind of came together like this. So in the National

1119
01:02:56,800 --> 01:02:59,560
Speaker 1: Science Foundation funded a full scale study of the nuclear

1120
01:02:59,600 --> 01:03:04,280
Speaker 1: subtu rain and then a small scale electrically powered prototype

1121
01:03:04,360 --> 01:03:07,120
Speaker 1: drills were built and one was used by the National

1122
01:03:07,200 --> 01:03:11,520
Speaker 1: Park Service to drill drainage holes at Bandalier National Monument

1123
01:03:11,520 --> 01:03:16,440
Speaker 1: near Los Alamos. The rock penetrator's lack of vibration. This

1124
01:03:16,480 --> 01:03:20,840
Speaker 1: was apparently essential to preserving an archaeological site close by

1125
01:03:20,920 --> 01:03:23,960
Speaker 1: while the holes were being drilled. And this, uh, this

1126
01:03:24,040 --> 01:03:26,800
Speaker 1: emphasizes again like some of the advantages that you would

1127
01:03:26,880 --> 01:03:30,360
Speaker 1: have if you're just moving through rock primarily by melting

1128
01:03:30,480 --> 01:03:33,640
Speaker 1: rather than standard grinding drilling stuff. Also, it's like you

1129
01:03:33,640 --> 01:03:38,000
Speaker 1: don't produce a lot of dust and pollutants from the process.

1130
01:03:38,200 --> 01:03:40,800
Speaker 1: There are many ways that melting down into the earth

1131
01:03:40,880 --> 01:03:44,080
Speaker 1: is a quite elegant solution for tunneling. Yeah, I saw

1132
01:03:44,120 --> 01:03:46,680
Speaker 1: this referenced in some of the other like tunneling and

1133
01:03:46,720 --> 01:03:49,840
Speaker 1: boring articles. I was coming across the idea of of

1134
01:03:49,920 --> 01:03:53,160
Speaker 1: creating a tunnel in your wake that is like lined

1135
01:03:53,160 --> 01:03:56,080
Speaker 1: in glass. You know, again, it's like a lava tube.

1136
01:03:56,400 --> 01:04:00,000
Speaker 1: And therefore, you know, you wouldn't necessarily have this issue

1137
01:04:00,080 --> 01:04:01,960
Speaker 1: of Okay, we have all this leftover stone, what are

1138
01:04:01,960 --> 01:04:04,520
Speaker 1: we gonna do? How's the how's our subtermarine gonna then

1139
01:04:04,560 --> 01:04:08,600
Speaker 1: turn that into blocks to reinforce the wreckage it leaves

1140
01:04:08,600 --> 01:04:11,520
Speaker 1: in its wake. So the sources here they point out

1141
01:04:11,520 --> 01:04:15,440
Speaker 1: that the according to the designs two cutting head designs

1142
01:04:15,520 --> 01:04:17,760
Speaker 1: were looked at, one for common rock and one for

1143
01:04:17,840 --> 01:04:20,880
Speaker 1: hard rock. So you had a traditional rotary cutting head

1144
01:04:21,520 --> 01:04:24,240
Speaker 1: with the cylindrical rock melters, and then you also had

1145
01:04:24,240 --> 01:04:28,480
Speaker 1: one with dozens of nuclear powered needle probs. Um, which

1146
01:04:28,480 --> 01:04:30,400
Speaker 1: is a pretty crazy idea, Like these are in a way,

1147
01:04:30,400 --> 01:04:32,960
Speaker 1: these are like little tentacles. Are almost like the tentacle, uh,

1148
01:04:33,000 --> 01:04:35,240
Speaker 1: you know the head of the star faced mole right

1149
01:04:35,440 --> 01:04:37,520
Speaker 1: where they kind of dig in and then but then

1150
01:04:37,560 --> 01:04:41,000
Speaker 1: they melt right. And this again, it wouldn't have necessarily

1151
01:04:41,040 --> 01:04:43,240
Speaker 1: like a conical tip. It might be more like a

1152
01:04:43,320 --> 01:04:46,680
Speaker 1: flat disc type shape with the melting elements and then

1153
01:04:46,760 --> 01:04:50,280
Speaker 1: the drilling elements. Yeah. Really more in line with traditional

1154
01:04:50,320 --> 01:04:53,680
Speaker 1: TBMs in that in that respect, um. And then they

1155
01:04:53,680 --> 01:04:57,040
Speaker 1: also mentioned that the probes would would would unevenly heat

1156
01:04:57,080 --> 01:04:59,320
Speaker 1: the rock face, causing it to crack and crumble, so

1157
01:04:59,360 --> 01:05:02,720
Speaker 1: that would be an an aspect of it as well. Um.

1158
01:05:02,760 --> 01:05:05,520
Speaker 1: And then yeah, I mentioned the glass walls. But so

1159
01:05:05,600 --> 01:05:08,480
Speaker 1: ultimately the project transfers to the Department of Energy in

1160
01:05:08,560 --> 01:05:12,400
Speaker 1: ninety five and from there it apparently mostly vanished. It

1161
01:05:12,400 --> 01:05:14,760
Speaker 1: would pop up again in the nineteen eighties as a

1162
01:05:14,800 --> 01:05:17,680
Speaker 1: possible way to tunnel for bases on the Moon. And

1163
01:05:17,720 --> 01:05:20,480
Speaker 1: this was apparently this has been six and this was

1164
01:05:20,520 --> 01:05:23,720
Speaker 1: a proposal by one doctor John Rowley. Yeah, well, and

1165
01:05:23,720 --> 01:05:26,240
Speaker 1: and two other co authors. Yeah, and they published a

1166
01:05:26,280 --> 01:05:29,360
Speaker 1: paper about, uh, excavating tunnels on the surface of the

1167
01:05:29,360 --> 01:05:32,360
Speaker 1: Moon to shield colonists from the radiation that you would

1168
01:05:32,800 --> 01:05:34,280
Speaker 1: be exposed to if you were trying to create a

1169
01:05:34,320 --> 01:05:37,560
Speaker 1: nuclear base or not a nuclear base, sorry, a moon base. Uh.

1170
01:05:37,800 --> 01:05:39,880
Speaker 1: This is a very common problem when people talk about

1171
01:05:40,200 --> 01:05:43,760
Speaker 1: making moon bases. Right, You've basically just got again underground somehow.

1172
01:05:44,080 --> 01:05:46,880
Speaker 1: And they called this idea not a subterine, but a

1173
01:05:46,920 --> 01:05:51,240
Speaker 1: sub selline because it's the nice Yeah. Well, I think

1174
01:05:51,320 --> 01:05:53,200
Speaker 1: that that in and of itself is a it's a

1175
01:05:53,200 --> 01:05:56,160
Speaker 1: pretty um elegant idea. Um. You know, you can certainly

1176
01:05:56,240 --> 01:06:01,560
Speaker 1: imagine your lander delivers uh, the the subterine or subsiline

1177
01:06:01,600 --> 01:06:07,440
Speaker 1: vehicle and then like that is necessary to burrow to safety. Um. Yeah.

1178
01:06:07,560 --> 01:06:11,280
Speaker 1: So in that Atomic Sky's post, Mark also touches on

1179
01:06:11,320 --> 01:06:15,320
Speaker 1: a weaponized concept that was discussed to use the technology.

1180
01:06:15,360 --> 01:06:18,560
Speaker 1: This would have been the radio isotope powered thermal penetrator

1181
01:06:19,040 --> 01:06:22,760
Speaker 1: or the the rip TP, in which the machine quote

1182
01:06:22,840 --> 01:06:26,080
Speaker 1: would form a bubble of magna and hot high pressure

1183
01:06:26,120 --> 01:06:30,200
Speaker 1: gases behind itself. When it nears the underground base that is,

1184
01:06:30,200 --> 01:06:32,800
Speaker 1: you know, presumably the target here, the pressure of the

1185
01:06:32,840 --> 01:06:36,960
Speaker 1: gas and magma would burst the base walls explosively, destroying

1186
01:06:37,000 --> 01:06:41,840
Speaker 1: the facilities near the breach through blast and fire. On

1187
01:06:41,880 --> 01:06:45,200
Speaker 1: that blog post, he include some black and white too

1188
01:06:45,240 --> 01:06:48,240
Speaker 1: illustrations of what these concepts would have looked like. You

1189
01:06:48,280 --> 01:06:51,320
Speaker 1: get to see those, uh those needles at the front.

1190
01:06:51,440 --> 01:06:54,760
Speaker 1: There's also this image of a tunnel that has been

1191
01:06:54,800 --> 01:06:57,840
Speaker 1: board of what this would look like, this kind of

1192
01:06:57,880 --> 01:07:00,160
Speaker 1: glass line tunnel, and it has kind of look kind

1193
01:07:00,160 --> 01:07:02,920
Speaker 1: of like a colon oscary um, you know it, it

1194
01:07:02,960 --> 01:07:06,720
Speaker 1: has kind of a colonic appearance. Uh Now. Another one

1195
01:07:06,720 --> 01:07:10,520
Speaker 1: of the advantages that that they talk about with respect

1196
01:07:10,520 --> 01:07:14,720
Speaker 1: to the rock melting versus just the traditional drill type

1197
01:07:15,120 --> 01:07:19,360
Speaker 1: excavator is that a rock melting model for a subtrain

1198
01:07:19,400 --> 01:07:22,200
Speaker 1: would allow you to to potentially create a tunnel of

1199
01:07:22,200 --> 01:07:24,760
Speaker 1: any shape you wanted. It wouldn't have to be a

1200
01:07:24,840 --> 01:07:28,360
Speaker 1: circular tube. It could be square, it could be triangular.

1201
01:07:28,520 --> 01:07:31,560
Speaker 1: You know, you can do anything interesting. Yeah, Like especially

1202
01:07:31,560 --> 01:07:34,440
Speaker 1: if you're if you're trying to create a space for

1203
01:07:34,560 --> 01:07:37,360
Speaker 1: your moon base upon arriving, you know, for that you

1204
01:07:37,440 --> 01:07:42,000
Speaker 1: might want say a large cube cubicle space, uh, underneath

1205
01:07:42,040 --> 01:07:44,720
Speaker 1: the lunar surface, as opposed to just a whole bunch

1206
01:07:44,720 --> 01:07:47,320
Speaker 1: of tunnels to live in. Right, So I don't know. Yeah,

1207
01:07:47,400 --> 01:07:51,280
Speaker 1: the rock melting subsaline, I'm not sure that idea is

1208
01:07:51,320 --> 01:07:54,080
Speaker 1: forever done with. Maybe they'll come back someday. Yeah, I

1209
01:07:54,080 --> 01:07:55,959
Speaker 1: don't know, because we've also we've discussed on the show

1210
01:07:55,960 --> 01:07:58,560
Speaker 1: before how there are concepts of building such bases and

1211
01:07:58,600 --> 01:08:02,800
Speaker 1: craters so you know, a naturally occurring um places to

1212
01:08:02,920 --> 01:08:06,360
Speaker 1: hide in the linear surface. So so I don't know, Um, yeah,

1213
01:08:06,400 --> 01:08:09,440
Speaker 1: I guess it. Basically, we kind of leave this episode

1214
01:08:10,160 --> 01:08:11,960
Speaker 1: with still a number of questions, you know, like what

1215
01:08:11,960 --> 01:08:15,600
Speaker 1: what what is the future of boring and tunneling here

1216
01:08:15,640 --> 01:08:18,240
Speaker 1: on the Earth or even on other you know, on

1217
01:08:18,360 --> 01:08:21,080
Speaker 1: moons and planets that we might go to, and and

1218
01:08:21,160 --> 01:08:22,320
Speaker 1: what is that going to look like? Are we going

1219
01:08:22,360 --> 01:08:25,600
Speaker 1: to actually see subterines in the future, you know, I

1220
01:08:26,800 --> 01:08:29,000
Speaker 1: it's it's it's hard to say, but it seems like

1221
01:08:29,120 --> 01:08:32,040
Speaker 1: some of the tunnel boring advances that are taking place

1222
01:08:32,080 --> 01:08:36,160
Speaker 1: today are encouraging of that. Um, I don't know if

1223
01:08:36,160 --> 01:08:40,120
Speaker 1: they're gonna let um Elon musk Uh strap a nuclear

1224
01:08:40,200 --> 01:08:42,760
Speaker 1: reactor to one of these things anytime soon. But well,

1225
01:08:42,800 --> 01:08:44,960
Speaker 1: that's another interesting thing to point out, which is that,

1226
01:08:45,200 --> 01:08:48,920
Speaker 1: um so, obviously there are lots of safety concerns whenever

1227
01:08:48,960 --> 01:08:50,880
Speaker 1: you have a nuclear powered vehicle. I mean, this is

1228
01:08:50,920 --> 01:08:53,400
Speaker 1: the case with all of the nuclear powered submarines and everything.

1229
01:08:53,920 --> 01:08:59,080
Speaker 1: But fortunately, I would say nuclear power safety concerns are

1230
01:08:59,200 --> 01:09:02,479
Speaker 1: going to be les, sir, with a device that's being

1231
01:09:02,560 --> 01:09:05,080
Speaker 1: used to tunnel deep underground, then they would be with

1232
01:09:05,120 --> 01:09:08,080
Speaker 1: a lot of other kinds of vehicles, right, true. I

1233
01:09:08,080 --> 01:09:13,000
Speaker 1: mean it's like if it's if it fails, it's down there, right,

1234
01:09:13,479 --> 01:09:16,640
Speaker 1: you know, not to say that that that an accidental

1235
01:09:16,720 --> 01:09:20,200
Speaker 1: nuclear detonation even underground is ideal, But I don't you know,

1236
01:09:20,680 --> 01:09:23,920
Speaker 1: there are it's better than other places I'm saying, like

1237
01:09:24,080 --> 01:09:27,800
Speaker 1: relative to an airplane or something. Yes, yeah, absolutely. Now

1238
01:09:27,840 --> 01:09:30,280
Speaker 1: I guess another thing we should quickly acknowledges that the

1239
01:09:30,320 --> 01:09:35,120
Speaker 1: internet is also full of claims that there are subtraines

1240
01:09:35,600 --> 01:09:38,360
Speaker 1: all over the place. They're making tunnels under the whole

1241
01:09:38,400 --> 01:09:40,800
Speaker 1: world as we speak. That are you know, that are

1242
01:09:40,840 --> 01:09:44,559
Speaker 1: full of like the the Illuminati warriors and everything like that.

1243
01:09:44,680 --> 01:09:48,720
Speaker 1: It's I would say subtraines and underground tunnels are a

1244
01:09:48,840 --> 01:09:54,200
Speaker 1: very common trope of conspiracy theories, and I wonder why

1245
01:09:54,240 --> 01:10:00,360
Speaker 1: that is. Why is it that specifically underground enclosures are

1246
01:10:00,560 --> 01:10:04,280
Speaker 1: like such a common image in conspiracy theory thinking is

1247
01:10:04,320 --> 01:10:09,560
Speaker 1: like underground bunkers, hidden underground bases, tunnels, there's always tunnels.

1248
01:10:09,640 --> 01:10:11,920
Speaker 1: What why is that? Well? I mean, I think part

1249
01:10:11,920 --> 01:10:15,000
Speaker 1: of it is that, I mean, these are really cool ideas,

1250
01:10:15,439 --> 01:10:18,320
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of conspiracy thinking does get

1251
01:10:18,320 --> 01:10:21,439
Speaker 1: into areas of taking things that are really cool and

1252
01:10:21,560 --> 01:10:24,400
Speaker 1: taking them too far, you know, taking them too far

1253
01:10:24,439 --> 01:10:27,920
Speaker 1: into an area where you you want to believe them

1254
01:10:27,960 --> 01:10:31,200
Speaker 1: so badly, and then you deal with the ramifications of

1255
01:10:31,400 --> 01:10:36,200
Speaker 1: believing that you know, because it's interesting, it's therefore true. Yeah, Like, yeah,

1256
01:10:36,240 --> 01:10:38,280
Speaker 1: the idea of the hollow Earth, that's it's a very

1257
01:10:38,360 --> 01:10:42,639
Speaker 1: fun concept. I I love reading about how Edgar Rice

1258
01:10:42,720 --> 01:10:46,840
Speaker 1: Burrows constructed this this world. But if you start buying

1259
01:10:46,840 --> 01:10:49,000
Speaker 1: into that concept, there's a whole lot of baggage that

1260
01:10:49,040 --> 01:10:51,680
Speaker 1: comes with it. And and likewise, if yeah, if you

1261
01:10:52,160 --> 01:10:54,400
Speaker 1: if you want to believe submarines are real and you

1262
01:10:54,439 --> 01:10:56,120
Speaker 1: know they're out there in the world, burrowing tunnels and

1263
01:10:56,160 --> 01:10:58,879
Speaker 1: what are they doing for whom are they burrowing these tunnels?

1264
01:10:58,920 --> 01:11:01,799
Speaker 1: And what are the results? Suh, well I know the answer.

1265
01:11:02,360 --> 01:11:06,200
Speaker 1: It's for Lord kin Boat. Sorry that maybe in Next

1266
01:11:06,240 --> 01:11:08,040
Speaker 1: Files right? Oh I just remember you're not the Next

1267
01:11:08,040 --> 01:11:10,720
Speaker 1: Files person. Yeah, yeah, sorry I was. I'm struggling with

1268
01:11:10,720 --> 01:11:13,479
Speaker 1: that reference. Who's Lord Kinboat. Oh he's you know, he's

1269
01:11:13,479 --> 01:11:15,920
Speaker 1: the Lord of the Underground Realm from Jose Chunks from

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01:11:15,920 --> 01:11:17,960
Speaker 1: Outer Space. It's one of the best episodes of all times.

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01:11:18,000 --> 01:11:19,840
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you've You've reckoned. I need to watch that

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01:11:19,880 --> 01:11:23,280
Speaker 1: one someday. He ends up. Lord Kinboat reveals himself to

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01:11:23,320 --> 01:11:27,799
Speaker 1: a character who is named after Rocky Ericsson and who

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01:11:28,120 --> 01:11:31,040
Speaker 1: who gets a visit from Jesse Ventura as one of

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01:11:31,080 --> 01:11:34,200
Speaker 1: the Men in Black. It's just it's it's NonStop hits,

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01:11:35,840 --> 01:11:39,800
Speaker 1: all right, I need to check that out. Well, um, well,

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01:11:39,800 --> 01:11:41,639
Speaker 1: this has been a fun one. I feel like there

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01:11:41,640 --> 01:11:44,400
Speaker 1: have to be some really cool examples of subterines and

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01:11:44,439 --> 01:11:47,719
Speaker 1: fiction that we haven't covered. And you know, if anyone

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01:11:47,760 --> 01:11:51,240
Speaker 1: out there is is more versed in even the conspiracy

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01:11:51,280 --> 01:11:54,120
Speaker 1: theory realm of subterarines, uh, I mean, I'd love to

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01:11:54,160 --> 01:11:56,519
Speaker 1: hear about it, you know, like like I say, the

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01:11:56,560 --> 01:12:01,479
Speaker 1: idea of secret underground bases and on link vehicles connecting

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01:12:01,479 --> 01:12:04,479
Speaker 1: them all like that's that's uh, it's it's pretty pretty

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01:12:04,520 --> 01:12:07,640
Speaker 1: fun soundings as long as it doesn't end up obscuring

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01:12:07,680 --> 01:12:10,920
Speaker 1: your understanding of reality. If you can't get them out

1287
01:12:10,920 --> 01:12:13,320
Speaker 1: of your mind, write a screenplay, don't post on the

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01:12:13,479 --> 01:12:17,559
Speaker 1: on the forums. But but that being said, like the

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01:12:17,680 --> 01:12:21,760
Speaker 1: real the reality of like TBM technology and and the

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01:12:21,840 --> 01:12:23,679
Speaker 1: kind of work that's going on with the boring company

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01:12:23,920 --> 01:12:25,479
Speaker 1: like bad and of It's the in and of itself

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01:12:25,600 --> 01:12:28,960
Speaker 1: is really exciting. So um yeah, there's there's plenty of

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01:12:28,960 --> 01:12:30,880
Speaker 1: of great stuff to go around just within the realm

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01:12:30,920 --> 01:12:33,800
Speaker 1: of truth here totally all right. In the meantime, if

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01:12:33,800 --> 01:12:35,599
Speaker 1: you would like to listen to other episodes of Stuff

1296
01:12:35,600 --> 01:12:37,680
Speaker 1: to Blow your mind, you know where to find us.

1297
01:12:37,840 --> 01:12:40,640
Speaker 1: That is, wherever you happen to get your podcast and

1298
01:12:40,640 --> 01:12:43,800
Speaker 1: wherever that happens to be. Just rate, review, and subscribe.

1299
01:12:44,040 --> 01:12:45,720
Speaker 1: Those are just simple things you can do to help

1300
01:12:45,720 --> 01:12:48,240
Speaker 1: out the show. Huge thanks as always to our excellent

1301
01:12:48,280 --> 01:12:51,160
Speaker 1: audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to

1302
01:12:51,200 --> 01:12:53,360
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode

1303
01:12:53,439 --> 01:12:55,400
Speaker 1: or any other to suggest a topic for the future.

1304
01:12:55,600 --> 01:12:58,400
Speaker 1: Just to say hi. You can email us at contact

1305
01:12:58,439 --> 01:13:08,400
Speaker 1: at Stuff to Blow Your Mind com. Stuff to Blow

1306
01:13:08,439 --> 01:13:11,000
Speaker 1: Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For more

1307
01:13:11,000 --> 01:13:13,040
Speaker 1: podcasts for my heart Radio, this is the i heart

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01:13:13,080 --> 01:13:15,840
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your

1309
01:13:15,840 --> 01:13:29,120
Speaker 1: favorite shows.