Speaker 1: I recall, as it were, but yesterday, the night of
Speaker 1: that momentous occasion upon which we were to test the
Speaker 1: practicality of that wondrous invention. It was near midnight when
Speaker 1: we repaired to the lofty tower in which Perry had
Speaker 1: constructed his iron mole, as he was wont to call
Speaker 1: the thing, the great nose rested upon the bare earth
Speaker 1: of the floor. We passed through the doors into the
Speaker 1: outer jacket, secured them, and then passing on into the cabin,
Speaker 1: which contained the controlling mechanism within the inner tube, switched
Speaker 1: on the electric lights. Perry looked to his generator, to
Speaker 1: the great tanks that held the life giving chemicals with
Speaker 1: which he was to manufacture fresh air to replace that
Speaker 1: which we consumed in breathing, to his instruments for recording temperature, speed, distance,
Speaker 1: and for examining the materials through which we were to pass.
Speaker 1: He tested his steering device and overlooked the mighty cogs
Speaker 1: which transmitted its marvelous velocity to the giant drill at
Speaker 1: the nose of his strange craft. Our seats into which
Speaker 1: we strapped ourselves were so arranged upon transverse bars that
Speaker 1: we would be upright whether the craft were plowing her
Speaker 1: way downward into the bowels of the earth, or running
Speaker 1: horizontally along some great seam of coal, or rising vertically
Speaker 1: towards the surface again at length, all was ready. Perry
Speaker 1: bowed his head in prayer. For a moment we were silent,
Speaker 1: and then the old man's hand grasped the starting lever.
Speaker 1: There was a frightful roaring beneath us. The giant frame
Speaker 1: trembled and vibrated. There was a rush of sound as
Speaker 1: the loose earth passed up through the hollow space between
Speaker 1: the inner and outer jackets to be deposited in our wake,
Speaker 1: and we were off. Welcome to stuff to blow your mind,
Speaker 1: the production of My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And that was that little coal
Speaker 1: reading there was from at the Earth's Core by Edgar
Speaker 1: Rice Burrows, published in nineteen fourteen. Is that the one
Speaker 1: where Tarzan goes to the center of the Earth. No,
Speaker 1: and I know you're joking, but Tarzan does go to
Speaker 1: the center of the Earth in a follow up novel.
Speaker 1: Because this particular novel, because this was this this kick
Speaker 1: started a series that dealt with essentially like an inner world,
Speaker 1: a hollow earth environment. This was the the Pellucidar series.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, so Tarzan I think goes to Pellucidar and
Speaker 1: a follow up and we'll we'll talk more about Pellucidar
Speaker 1: here in a in a few minutes. But the reason
Speaker 1: that we're were we kicked off with this reading is
Speaker 1: that this is this is pivotal, This is uh this
Speaker 1: what is being described here. The iron mole is a subterine, right,
Speaker 1: So that was not a mistake. You weren't trying to
Speaker 1: say submarine that is a subterrean as in beneath the earth,
Speaker 1: as in the same way that a submarine is beneath
Speaker 1: the ocean. So what we're talking about today is a
Speaker 1: submarine for the ground. Yes, like submarines, but underground. Some
Speaker 1: sort of vehicle uh that has some sort of drilling
Speaker 1: or melting apparatus um on its front end or perhaps
Speaker 1: on the rear end as well, then enables it to
Speaker 1: travel through the earth to so to burrow through even
Speaker 1: solid rock, as if it were some sort of giant
Speaker 1: worm making its way through the ground. Now, you might
Speaker 1: not have heard of a subdarine before but I bet
Speaker 1: you have seen one in science fiction. Uh So, before
Speaker 1: we dive into the science and the actual and in
Speaker 1: some cases alleged technological history of the submarine, I thought
Speaker 1: we might run through some fun examples from film and TV,
Speaker 1: and then we'll also come back around to Edgar Rice
Speaker 1: Burrows again before we venture into the real world. Now, Robert,
Speaker 1: right when I jumped in the video chat today, you
Speaker 1: and Seth were tall king about the like seventy thousand
Speaker 1: episodes of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated TV series,
Speaker 1: and immediately it came to mind, like, oh, yes, didn't Shredder?
Speaker 1: Was it Shredder or was it Krang One of the
Speaker 1: villains rides around in a giant underground drill in that show? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was. I was chatting with Seth about this because
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it was the first time I
Speaker 1: saw a sci fi vision of a subterarine, but I
Speaker 1: have a very clear memory of those um but believe
Speaker 1: it was the especially the arcade Beat Him Up teena
Speaker 1: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. I think it was a
Speaker 1: good week Konami, right, Maybe it was Konami. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: remember the arcade version was a lot better than the
Speaker 1: port to the nes Oh yeah, yeah, the arcade version
Speaker 1: was really kind of beautiful, and I've seen some more
Speaker 1: recent ports of it, uh that that you know, really
Speaker 1: really felt all right, you know. I mean it was
Speaker 1: a total quarter guzzler. It was just how many how
Speaker 1: many quarters can you put into this machine at your
Speaker 1: local pizza hut in order to beat it? But it
Speaker 1: was it was so much fun. And and one of
Speaker 1: the things was that frequently the boss at the end
Speaker 1: of the level would arrive via a transport module this
Speaker 1: thing that looked like a rocket, except the cone of
Speaker 1: the rocket is a big drill and it comes burrowing
Speaker 1: up through the earth and then it opens up and
Speaker 1: here's the bad guy for your fight. Here's Bebop the
Speaker 1: punk bore yeah or yeah, or it's Shredder, or it's
Speaker 1: Crane himself, and they're coming up. The idea is that,
Speaker 1: of course Krane's layer is the subterranean techno dome, this
Speaker 1: big uh you know, domed vehicle base that is often
Speaker 1: like in the molten core of the Earth, and they
Speaker 1: have to send up their their myrmidons, their their foot
Speaker 1: soldiers up to the surface in these specialized subterranes and
Speaker 1: the techno dome or the techno drome. I always thought
Speaker 1: it was like the like video drome. Oh, we have
Speaker 1: just received an update from Seth. It is in fact
Speaker 1: techno drome um, which can be a little confused. I
Speaker 1: think I trans figured it into my head because it
Speaker 1: is a a like a spherical looking structure it had.
Speaker 1: It looks kind of like a dome. It is a
Speaker 1: technodrome whatever that is actually supposed to be. You would
Speaker 1: imagine that the interior has a domed ceiling, perhaps painted
Speaker 1: by michel Angelo or something. Is yes, but it's a
Speaker 1: picture of of crying and shredder about to have this
Speaker 1: divine type yeah, crying reaching out. Yeah. So there's the series,
Speaker 1: which which certainly Seth can attest to and I have
Speaker 1: memories of. It was a lot of fun and had
Speaker 1: these vehicles in there as well. There was even a
Speaker 1: toy version of it. I included a picture of this
Speaker 1: for you, Joe. I don't know if you remember this
Speaker 1: or not from your the toys of your childhood, but
Speaker 1: it is a more ornate version of the subcarine from
Speaker 1: the cartoon. I remember it, but I didn't have it
Speaker 1: that this was an object of coveting for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I remember for me personally teenage Mutan, Ninja, Turtles,
Speaker 1: the cartoon, and just the overall like sensation of the
Speaker 1: toys and all. It came around this weird time where
Speaker 1: I still very much I certainly watched all these shows
Speaker 1: and I wanted to have the figures. I wanted to
Speaker 1: have these action figures, especially Shredder and Crane. But there
Speaker 1: was this kind of feeling at that point that you
Speaker 1: weren't supposed to have toys anymore, Like you weren't supposed
Speaker 1: to enjoy this stuff, which is total b s. And
Speaker 1: I'm thankfully snapped out of that and have spent the
Speaker 1: rest of my you know, adult life, um, you know,
Speaker 1: realizing that action figures are awesome and and I should
Speaker 1: buy them for myself or my child. Uh. It's it's
Speaker 1: that horrible middle period. I mean, it's just like with
Speaker 1: movies too. It's like how Roger Ebert talks about how
Speaker 1: you know, when you're a little kid, GAMMERA is great
Speaker 1: because it's a rocket powered turtle. And then you get
Speaker 1: older and more mature, and you think this is stupid
Speaker 1: because it's not realistic. And then you get even more
Speaker 1: mature than that, and then you realize Gamera is great again. Yes,
Speaker 1: and Gamera is great. Um and and and I and
Speaker 1: I will say that you look back at Teenage Ninas,
Speaker 1: I had so many crazy just on zo elements in it. Uh,
Speaker 1: it was fabulous. I mean you had this armored Ninja
Speaker 1: and he's with there with an alien brain that's in
Speaker 1: this giant android body, and they're sending Ninja's up to
Speaker 1: the surface in these crazy drill submarines to fight. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously teenage Mutant Ninja turtles, which is in
Speaker 1: itself such a strange concept. So that was one subterarine
Speaker 1: that I think a lot of people probably remember. Older
Speaker 1: viewers or certainly viewers who caught this show like on
Speaker 1: Sci Fi Channel in reruns, might remember the Thunderbirds, you know,
Speaker 1: like Thunderbirds or go well the this was the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties puppet show with these very signature looking characters. Um
Speaker 1: that I understand. I was reading that they were partially
Speaker 1: inspiration for the animation style on the long running Star
Speaker 1: Wars clone World War series that I'm watching now with
Speaker 1: my son, Um. But in this show, the characters had
Speaker 1: these crazy vehicles and one of them was the Thunderbird too,
Speaker 1: and it featured all these different pods, and one of
Speaker 1: them was called the Mole, and it was a drill
Speaker 1: headed vehicle then enabled the team to venture into the Earth. Now,
Speaker 1: this establishes a theme that's going to continue throughout the episode,
Speaker 1: which is that there is a lack of imagination among
Speaker 1: the people who create under underground drilling machines for science
Speaker 1: fiction because it's always a mole. It's always a darn mole. Like,
Speaker 1: why can't you think of some kind of other burrowing creature.
Speaker 1: Why isn't it a sicilian or or something like that,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, come on, how many moles can
Speaker 1: there be? Or even a naked mole rat that's close enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's so many other ways to go, but everyone
Speaker 1: comes back to the mole. And and that also includes
Speaker 1: Pixar because I know a number of Certainly, if you're
Speaker 1: you're too young to remember a teenage Mutiny Turtles or
Speaker 1: certainly Thunderbirds, then perhaps you remember the Incredibles. At the
Speaker 1: very end of this film, we're introduced to a new
Speaker 1: supervillain called the Underminer, who arrives in an epic uh
Speaker 1: and an epic subterine with a drill, this time on
Speaker 1: either end. Uh. It's a a fun scene, just kind
Speaker 1: of like a way to close out the film. He's
Speaker 1: a bigger character in the sequel. Have I have seen
Speaker 1: the sequel? Uh, Yeah, he plays a larger role in that.
Speaker 1: But he's also mole themed. Clearly, Yes, yes, clearly mole themed. Um,
Speaker 1: let's see. Oh and and this is so weird. We
Speaker 1: were we kind of decided to do this episode and
Speaker 1: I had it in my mind, and then I happened
Speaker 1: to check out. Uh, this new series on Hulu titled
Speaker 1: Solar Opposites. It's a it's a new show from Rick
Speaker 1: and Morty co creator Justin Royland along with Mike McMahon,
Speaker 1: who also worked on that show. Uh. They dropped the
Speaker 1: entire first season on Hulu, and it's it's it's a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. It's it's definitely for grown ups. But
Speaker 1: it's the you know, a similar vibe to Rick and Morty,
Speaker 1: but perhaps a little less meta and um, with characters
Speaker 1: that are a little more likable. Um. But I've started
Speaker 1: watching it in BAM. Right there in the opening of
Speaker 1: the first episode, there's this vehicle called the Earth Drill
Speaker 1: that's used by the character Corvo to obtain nickel alloy
Speaker 1: from the Earth's core in order to try and fix
Speaker 1: his spaceship. And there's this great sequence where core of
Speaker 1: a you know, fires it up and starts drilling into
Speaker 1: the earth to go get the nickel, and it started
Speaker 1: immediately causes earthquakes in like China and London, and there's
Speaker 1: a big tidal wave somewhere else in the world due
Speaker 1: to the seismic disruption of the thing. I like that
Speaker 1: the design is a little bit trown shaped, is a
Speaker 1: little bit light cycle kind of in profile at least. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a really cool design like that. They didn't just
Speaker 1: you know, slap together something that looked like the like
Speaker 1: the the transport module all over again. It has has
Speaker 1: some really cool wheels. But anyway, these are just a
Speaker 1: few examples. You'll find submarines all over the place in
Speaker 1: science fiction if you really start looking for them, like
Speaker 1: it'll just turn up eventually, I think, in any kind
Speaker 1: of science fiction scenario. For instance, there's one in Fallout
Speaker 1: seventy six, the current Fallout game. I looked around, I
Speaker 1: was like, there's gotta be one in Star Wars somewhere,
Speaker 1: and it looks like there is a combat drill in
Speaker 1: the Darth Vader comic books, like Darth Vader rides one
Speaker 1: into battle at some point, like an a T dril ty. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be a T drilt. I like that, Um yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I figured Star Wars University's room for there's certainly
Speaker 1: room for a subdarane. There's some rocky planet somewhere where
Speaker 1: there's a battle between uh, you know, the the Empire
Speaker 1: and um, you know, some hapless species of subterranean creature.
Speaker 1: But I feel like we got to bring it back
Speaker 1: to the Edgar Ice Burrows because I will admit so
Speaker 1: I have never read this book. At Earth's Core his
Speaker 1: novel about the drill that goes down, and uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know, actually, I guess timing wise, this would be
Speaker 1: coming after Jules Verne's journey to the Center of the Earth,
Speaker 1: So I don't know how derivative of it it is. Um.
Speaker 1: But I did manage to watch about the first twenty
Speaker 1: minutes of the nineteen seventy six film adaptation of this
Speaker 1: book Last Night, starring our old friend Doug McClure. You
Speaker 1: know the man. Hi, I'm Doug McClure. You might remember
Speaker 1: me from such films as that one with the Fish People,
Speaker 1: and it also had Peter Cushing in probably definitely, not
Speaker 1: even no doubt at all, the goober reest role I've
Speaker 1: ever seen Peter Cushing in, where he is just like
Speaker 1: a bumbling doo fast with a high pitched, uh cartoon
Speaker 1: professor voice. Yeah, this was This was the ninety six adaptation,
Speaker 1: directed by Kevin Conner, and um, yeah, you might expect,
Speaker 1: like Doug, with Doug McClure and Peter Cushing, you might think, Okay,
Speaker 1: Doug's gonna play kind of the meaty doofist, which he
Speaker 1: did so wellbe Doug McClure is awesome. He's a he's
Speaker 1: a treat. When you see his name pop up in
Speaker 1: one of these older films, you know you're you've got
Speaker 1: a nice film ahead of you. But Peter Cushing, you
Speaker 1: think especially all right, we're thinking seventy six, we're thinking
Speaker 1: Star Wars is just after this practically, and you know,
Speaker 1: you think the dignified, stoic Peter Cushing, He's gonna play
Speaker 1: this dignified scientist who invince this thing. But no, he
Speaker 1: plays this goofy doofist character as well. Uh, and it's great.
Speaker 1: I mean, Cushing is is wonderful. He has he has ranged,
Speaker 1: so I guess in a way, it's nice to see
Speaker 1: him flexes his acting muscles in another direction. I mean
Speaker 1: it's an unfamiliar setup. Normally, I think you'd have more like,
Speaker 1: you know, the Dufus in The straight Man, but it's
Speaker 1: like a dual Dufus lead. Yeah. Yeah. And then you
Speaker 1: have Carolyn Monroe in there as well, a screen legend
Speaker 1: in her own ride. Yeah. She played still a star
Speaker 1: in Star Crash. Yeah, she was in I think she
Speaker 1: was in a James Bond film yeah yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: and numerous so she was very much an icon of
Speaker 1: of the day. Hi, I'm Doug McClure. And I didn't
Speaker 1: get a haircut before filming this. Oh yeah, he's pretty
Speaker 1: shaggy in this. Yeah. It looks and it doesn't even
Speaker 1: look like it's intentional. It looks like he just, you know,
Speaker 1: it was meaning to get it trimmed and he didn't. Yeah. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: a lot of people where I think we're reintroduced to
Speaker 1: the summer, introduced to it to the for the first time.
Speaker 1: The most recent season of Mystery Science Theater three thousand
Speaker 1: that aired on Netflix, because this is one of the
Speaker 1: films that they riff and it's I remembered as being
Speaker 1: one of the best episode odes of the the MST
Speaker 1: three K Revival. But the film in and of itself,
Speaker 1: it's just is tons of fun. It's colorful, It's it's
Speaker 1: weird and wacky, you know, it's it's I feel like,
Speaker 1: even though I haven't read this particular Edgar Rice Burrows novel,
Speaker 1: it does feel true to the spirit of them because
Speaker 1: they're they're There are a number of cool things going
Speaker 1: on in this. First of all, we do have the
Speaker 1: Iron Mole. We have a drill headed subterine vehicle that
Speaker 1: takes our characters deep into the earth and it takes
Speaker 1: us to this hollow earth realm called Pellucidar and Uh
Speaker 1: and here we have a number of crazy elements taking
Speaker 1: place as well, because we have a species of telepathic
Speaker 1: terra saurs called the Mahars that rule over stone age
Speaker 1: humans that are also there. There's also like a giant
Speaker 1: bipedal bird Tyrannosaurus rex thing. It's kind of like Sam
Speaker 1: the Eagle and it runs around chasing Doug and Peter
Speaker 1: Cushing in this giant underground corn field. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's in the book. Yeah, I don't know. I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from someone who who's who's red this one,
Speaker 1: because I've read a couple of Burrows books um back
Speaker 1: in the day, and I remember them as being pretty fun.
Speaker 1: You know. He gets into a little bit of scientific
Speaker 1: speculation while also getting into lots of you know, swashbuckling
Speaker 1: style action, but then occasionally like some really atmospheric you
Speaker 1: almost kind of like pulp horror moments as well. Uh So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and of course he wrote a ton of books. This
Speaker 1: was this one just kicked off a mini series that
Speaker 1: he did dealing with this inner world he created. Uh
Speaker 1: and and he was he was a highly influential fiction
Speaker 1: writer at the time. So it seems to me it's
Speaker 1: possible that he might be the originator of our like
Speaker 1: popular culture and to a certain extent, scientific obsession with
Speaker 1: subterranes in especially in the twentieth century. So I was
Speaker 1: looking around to see if there were any hard bio
Speaker 1: biographical details on where Burrows got the idea for the
Speaker 1: iron mole um, because it seems like he might have
Speaker 1: been the first I don't know for sure. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's very possible that there's some other short stories from
Speaker 1: the time period, or some book I'm missing in which
Speaker 1: a character introduces the idea of a of the subterine,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't able to come across it myself. Let
Speaker 1: me know if you if you have an answer to
Speaker 1: that now. Certainly, Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of
Speaker 1: the Earth came out earlier in eighteen sixty four, but
Speaker 1: this book does not feature a fantastic drilling vehicle. No,
Speaker 1: they just they just find a hole in the earth
Speaker 1: and just kind of walk all the way down. It's
Speaker 1: more of a spelunking adventure. They traveled down via lava tubes,
Speaker 1: I think. So I ended up consulting I think three
Speaker 1: different Burrows biographies in search of any answers on you know,
Speaker 1: where he got his ideas. I'm just a little nugget
Speaker 1: of like, hey, he was reading in Popular Mechanics or something,
Speaker 1: you know, but nothing turned up. So it seems entirely
Speaker 1: possible that Burrows might have invented the sci fi subterine
Speaker 1: as we know it, and in doing so, as is
Speaker 1: often the nature with sci fi influenced scientific minds all
Speaker 1: of that century to investigate the idea further. Um. However,
Speaker 1: even if he invented the sci Fi subterine in his
Speaker 1: own right, he was definitely inspired by technological achievements in
Speaker 1: tunneling and burrowing that had taken they were taking place
Speaker 1: at the time, and had taken place towards the end
Speaker 1: of the previous century. Well, maybe we should take a
Speaker 1: quick break and then when we come back we can
Speaker 1: talk about some of the real science and technology of
Speaker 1: burrowing vehicles. Thank alright, we're back. So like I was
Speaker 1: I was saying here earlier, burrows I think would have
Speaker 1: definitely been inspired by the real life advances and tunnel
Speaker 1: boring machines during the nineteenth century. UH tunneling shield technology
Speaker 1: came first successfully used for the first time to excavate
Speaker 1: UH the Thim's tunnel beginning in eight But this is
Speaker 1: just as the name implies a protective structure that allows
Speaker 1: human excavators to work underground. It's not even a machine, right,
Speaker 1: So describe briefly the the tunneling shield. This is basically
Speaker 1: kind of like a movable roof shield that you can
Speaker 1: take with you as you continually remove new material from
Speaker 1: as the tunnel is made. Yeah, I would say combine
Speaker 1: that with the concept of say a drilling template, and
Speaker 1: that's pretty much what you have. But then this leads
Speaker 1: into some of the first tunnel boring machines UH. And
Speaker 1: what is often brought up as the first tunnel boring machine,
Speaker 1: though it's a real stretch to call it a vehicle,
Speaker 1: came in eighteen forty five with the Mountain Slicer. Is
Speaker 1: that really what it was called. Yeah, it was called
Speaker 1: the mountain slicer. It was not named it wasn't called
Speaker 1: a mole at all. Again again, it wasn't a vehicle really.
Speaker 1: But it was commissioned by the King of Sardinia in
Speaker 1: eighteen forty five to dig the French rail tunnel between
Speaker 1: France and Italy through the Alps. And it was the
Speaker 1: work of Belgian engineer Henry Joseph Mouse And this was
Speaker 1: the first UH. This is often considered the first tunnel
Speaker 1: boring machine or TBM. It consisted of more than one
Speaker 1: d percussion drills mounted at the runt of a locomotive
Speaker 1: sized machine which was mechanically power driven at the entrance
Speaker 1: to the tunnel. So think about what kind of of
Speaker 1: an engineering project it is to do something like this,
Speaker 1: especially to have a single machine, because tunneling is you know,
Speaker 1: it's not just like moving through water, which kind of
Speaker 1: like is is easily displaced around you as you dive
Speaker 1: through it. Of course, when you're tunneling through hard material,
Speaker 1: one of the big problems you're gonna have is continually
Speaker 1: removing everything that you're drilling out of place in front
Speaker 1: of you as you go. Right. And then if we're
Speaker 1: thinking of saying, we keep talking about the mole as
Speaker 1: the bio biological uh analog for all of this. Well,
Speaker 1: when you're talking about the ocean, right, you're talking about
Speaker 1: ships and submarines basically doing the things that other organisms,
Speaker 1: even large organisms, are capable of doing. But when you're
Speaker 1: talking about you know, you're not just talking about burrowing
Speaker 1: through loose soil here, we're talking about burrowing through solid rock,
Speaker 1: which is is not something that is general they considered
Speaker 1: within the realm of certainly you know, a vertebrates capabilities
Speaker 1: or or even or any kind of you know, or
Speaker 1: organisms capabilities. This is this is something new well certainly
Speaker 1: not at any speed that would be useful from like
Speaker 1: a civil engineering point of view. Right, um, so uh
Speaker 1: I want to talk just a little bit more about
Speaker 1: the idea of the tunnel boring machine or t b M.
Speaker 1: There there's tons of information out there written about t
Speaker 1: pms because this is a this is a huge area
Speaker 1: of engineering, right figuring out how to improve these machines
Speaker 1: for the production of tunnels. UH. One particular definition I
Speaker 1: came across in laboratory testing of materials for tunnel boring
Speaker 1: machine drag bits by Catuition at All UH defines a
Speaker 1: t b M as a quote machine used to excavate
Speaker 1: tunnels with a circular cross section through a variety of
Speaker 1: soil and rock strata. So that's something to keep in
Speaker 1: mind too, is when you're dealing with tunnels, you're dealing
Speaker 1: with boring through not just one type of rock or soil,
Speaker 1: but multiple. Yeah, and I think it's important that it
Speaker 1: mentions the circularity of the tunnel because this is a
Speaker 1: feature that This will actually come up again later in
Speaker 1: the episode when we talk about different methods for producing
Speaker 1: a whole tunnels in rock. The drill based method, which
Speaker 1: is based on grinding and removing material, tends to be
Speaker 1: by nature circular, right, just because of the limitations of
Speaker 1: the kind of machine you have to use to drill
Speaker 1: and bore out. Yeah. Absolutely. Um another source on the
Speaker 1: mountain slicer I was looking at in hard Rock Tunnel
Speaker 1: Boring Machines by um Metal, Schmidt and Rits. The authors
Speaker 1: described the mountain slicer as having quote worked with hammer drills,
Speaker 1: chiseling deep annular grooves in the stone, dividing the face
Speaker 1: into four two by point five meter high stone blocks. Now,
Speaker 1: the interesting thing here is that supposedly the mountain slicer
Speaker 1: successfully demonstrated it was you know, there was a successful
Speaker 1: demonstration of this technology in a test tunnel for something
Speaker 1: like two years EARS, but it was ultimately not used
Speaker 1: for the Alpine project in question due to doubts about
Speaker 1: the drive equipment and its power requirements and its ability
Speaker 1: to sustain the wear of its usage. So they ended
Speaker 1: up just using traditional tunneling tunnel boring techniques instead. But
Speaker 1: I think this this drives home like just the real
Speaker 1: the true engineering challenge here. You know, it's quite a
Speaker 1: feat to even create a what seems to be you know,
Speaker 1: working prototype like the mountain slicer, but then it's quite
Speaker 1: another to actually use it and use it and use
Speaker 1: it for the extended period of time required to actually
Speaker 1: complete the project. Yeah, exactly. And we should emphasize again
Speaker 1: that when we're talking about these types of boring machines
Speaker 1: like the Mountain Slicer, this would again not be a
Speaker 1: vehicle designed to just like autonomously run around under the ground.
Speaker 1: This would be a stationary like institute machine that's for
Speaker 1: a particular project, right, Yeah, and and certainly is not
Speaker 1: working in isolation. Um. So this is all, like I said,
Speaker 1: you could you could see the mountain Slicer as a
Speaker 1: potential first for TBMs. But a lot of people give
Speaker 1: credit to American designer Charles Wilson, who designed a t
Speaker 1: b M in eighteen fifty one, patented in eighteen fifty six.
Speaker 1: It was called Wilson's patented stone cutting Machine, which doesn't
Speaker 1: I don't know, it doesn't have as much it It
Speaker 1: doesn't sound as a uh you know, is wagnery as
Speaker 1: that to previous one. I should have called it, what, uh,
Speaker 1: Wilson's rock stapper. Yeah. So anyway, Wilson's patented stone cutting machine,
Speaker 1: and and it was successful. They used it to bore
Speaker 1: the Hoosic Tunnel in northwest Massachusetts, and it had rotate
Speaker 1: a rotating mount for the disc cutters at the front
Speaker 1: of it. Now, there's obviously a lot more to the
Speaker 1: science and subsequent development of tb ms, but I thought
Speaker 1: we might cut to the chase here. I think we
Speaker 1: can already see how Yeah, Mountain, We're gonna Mountain. Cut
Speaker 1: to the chase. Even, I think we can already see
Speaker 1: how how even their early forms help inspire the idea
Speaker 1: of subterarine. But even considering the more modern forms of
Speaker 1: the TBM, you know, you have to ask how close
Speaker 1: does the idea of a subterarine really get to a TBM.
Speaker 1: So we have to consider the facts. So first of all,
Speaker 1: as as we mentioned already, generally speaking, a t b M,
Speaker 1: and there are different varieties of TBM for different types
Speaker 1: of rock. It is a tool, not a vehicle. It is,
Speaker 1: you know, a piece of equipment. It's used to make
Speaker 1: a tunnel, not to simply tunnel from one place to another.
Speaker 1: I suppose you can say it does both, but the
Speaker 1: tunnel making is the key focus. Plus it's part of
Speaker 1: a system and an overall project that entails workers, specialized
Speaker 1: trucks to haul away the rock, etcetera. You're not gonna
Speaker 1: hijack one of these things and bore a rogue tunnel
Speaker 1: with it. Also, TBMs are in general neither independent nor
Speaker 1: truly mobile, and here this is important too. They are
Speaker 1: certainly not fast. Yeah. Now, I think another thing is
Speaker 1: that a lot of these are going to be in
Speaker 1: some kind of way, and not exactly like a train,
Speaker 1: but sort of on rails like in a way. They
Speaker 1: will have infrastructure that is supporting the forward movement of
Speaker 1: the vehicle. And it's not just like rolling ahead on
Speaker 1: its own right. It is a thing you move up
Speaker 1: or you have at the front of your tunnel boring project. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the more exciting players in the realm of
Speaker 1: of of TBMs these days is none other than Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: Okay doak. Yeah. I don't know if you're familiar with
Speaker 1: this joke, but he founded the Boring Company in I
Speaker 1: was trying to read about it, but I just fell asleep.
Speaker 1: You just, uh joke I've ever made on the show.
Speaker 1: Let's cut it. No, let's leave it. Let me deal
Speaker 1: with the shame. Now you can laugh at Elon Musk jokes. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's clever. They really commit to it. Um.
Speaker 1: If you can look at the website and you can
Speaker 1: see that there's a lot of tongue in cheek there,
Speaker 1: but but it is a real project, and then it
Speaker 1: looks like they're making a lot of exciting progress here.
Speaker 1: So part of the whole idea of the Boring Company
Speaker 1: is that they want to they want to see tunnel
Speaker 1: usage being a huge part of our sustainable future, Like
Speaker 1: in terms of of creating more sustainable infrastructure, it's better
Speaker 1: to get as much of it underground as possible. And
Speaker 1: then this has been a trend in futurism UM for
Speaker 1: a while. This isn't in and in and of itself
Speaker 1: anything new, but these are some of the reasons that
Speaker 1: they cite UH for investing UM in the improvement of
Speaker 1: TBM technology. First of all, there's no practical limit to
Speaker 1: how many layers of tunnels can be built, so any
Speaker 1: level of traffic can then be addressed through these tunnels.
Speaker 1: Tunnels or weather proof tunnel construction and operation is ultimately
Speaker 1: silent and invisible to anyone on the surface. And this
Speaker 1: is not something that I saw them touch on, but
Speaker 1: certainly as a part of the larger sort of futurism
Speaker 1: design focus of underground systems. Is, of course, if you
Speaker 1: put your highways under round, then you can have more
Speaker 1: like trees on top. You know, you can have some
Speaker 1: sort of a return to nature. You can take the
Speaker 1: you can give back the land that the that are so,
Speaker 1: you know, our highways and streets have stolen. But to
Speaker 1: do all this you've got to make tunnels. And the
Speaker 1: thing is, tunnels are expensive to bore. The price that
Speaker 1: they quote in their materials is one billion dollars per mile,
Speaker 1: and and then it's a slow process on top of that.
Speaker 1: In fact, musk Uh joked that a snail travels fourteen
Speaker 1: times faster than a traditional TBM, and as such, they
Speaker 1: did this whole bit where they said they had this
Speaker 1: pet snail named Gary, and their goal was to beat
Speaker 1: Gary and a foot race with their TBM. So in
Speaker 1: order to do that, the company stresses the importance of
Speaker 1: increasing TBM power output, making tb ms capable of continuous
Speaker 1: tunneling without breaks for support structure building as is currently
Speaker 1: the norm, also the importance of making tb ms autonomous,
Speaker 1: and also creating a system by which the excavated rock
Speaker 1: is then made into bricks on site or perhaps even
Speaker 1: within the t b M itself for use in the
Speaker 1: support structure. Oh and that's another thing I should probably
Speaker 1: describe what these t b ms, and sort of all
Speaker 1: modern t b ms look like. They look like, um
Speaker 1: that they do not have a conical drill at the front. Uh.
Speaker 1: It tends to, at least at first glance, look a
Speaker 1: lot like flattery. It looks like a cross between an
Speaker 1: east cigarette and a tape worm. Oh, two great things
Speaker 1: not to put in your mouth. Yeah. Um. The Boring
Speaker 1: Company also promotes the idea of smaller tunnels, So instead
Speaker 1: of relying just on like enormous tunnels through which you
Speaker 1: put like a you know, a four lane highway, instead
Speaker 1: make a smaller tunnel with a one way, uh, one
Speaker 1: lane highway for one way traffic as well. This also
Speaker 1: factors into the various loop and hyperloop projects that Musk
Speaker 1: has involved in. So you, I have to say a
Speaker 1: lot of that, especially when you're talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: looking into the future, A lot of that certainly sounds
Speaker 1: more like the subterarine we know and love. Though at
Speaker 1: the same time, I think it all further underlines the
Speaker 1: realities of boring that tend to limit these fictional visions. Um.
Speaker 1: And and I should also know the boring company is
Speaker 1: actually building tunnel, so it's we're not just talking about
Speaker 1: a pure futurism project. Um. They have I believe, three
Speaker 1: different TBMs, all of them with with wonderful names. There's
Speaker 1: the Good, there's the line Storm, which I believe I
Speaker 1: read is named for um, Robert Frost poem or a
Speaker 1: line in Robert Frost poem. And then there's the proof Rock.
Speaker 1: Oh j Alfred proof Rock. Yeah. Um, the proof Rock,
Speaker 1: which is is two words in the name here is
Speaker 1: one that's still in development, but we will be used soon.
Speaker 1: Why is it named the proof Rock? Is it is
Speaker 1: it lying like an patient eutherized upon a table or
Speaker 1: is it let's um, I think maybe it's just like
Speaker 1: the proof if it's in the r I don't know
Speaker 1: how deeply it is invoking the poem. It has measured
Speaker 1: its progressing coffee spoons, well, whatever you know, we want
Speaker 1: to call them. Um. These are some of the stats.
Speaker 1: The line Storm is said to be two to three
Speaker 1: times faster than conventional TBMs. Proof Rock is supposed to
Speaker 1: be as much as ten times faster than conventional machines.
Speaker 1: And I I was reading about this in the publication
Speaker 1: Tunnel Insider, which I've never read before. I was not
Speaker 1: I'm not a subscriber to Tunnel Insider. But as they
Speaker 1: put it in quote, if they and by they we
Speaker 1: mean the Boring Company, if they are able to pull
Speaker 1: this one off, it will mark a quantum leap in
Speaker 1: the history of tunnel boring technology and catapult the Boring
Speaker 1: Company to the pinnacle of subterranean engineering. These these particular
Speaker 1: TBMs are also electric and are claimed to be three
Speaker 1: times more powerful than conventional TBMs. Uh. The Boring Company
Speaker 1: is still going strong, it seems. In fact, I was
Speaker 1: reading that they recently finished a pair of Las Vegas
Speaker 1: tunnels ahead of a plane opening. Well, more power to them,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I gotta say, just from a puristetic sense,
Speaker 1: in addition to all the practical reasons for it, I
Speaker 1: I like the idea of relegating transportation infrastructure underground. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it all makes sense to me. Uh, And it seems
Speaker 1: like they're making progress. Um. You know, of course they're
Speaker 1: always questions and all of this, Like, you know, you
Speaker 1: have to you're wanting to push the technology, but also
Speaker 1: it needs to be the affordable choice as well. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, the future. The future remains to be seen,
Speaker 1: but but I'm hopeful. It seems seems like this might
Speaker 1: be the way. Okay, Robert, are you ready to talk
Speaker 1: about atomic battle moles? Yes, or as well atomic battle
Speaker 1: I think it is time because we've we've spoken about
Speaker 1: the pure sci fi, We've spoken about the the the
Speaker 1: the the actual technological history and and our current place
Speaker 1: concerning TBMs. Let's start dealing with some of the murcury
Speaker 1: Er territory here. Okay, so he are, We're going to
Speaker 1: dive into a bit of alleged Cold War crypto history,
Speaker 1: and we will have to warn you up front. The
Speaker 1: sourcing that's available in English on this subject, I think
Speaker 1: is very murky, and there's a lot of uncertainty. Possibly
Speaker 1: even in fact, I would say more than possibly, I
Speaker 1: think quite probably. We're getting into some Edison Louis La
Speaker 1: Prince murder confession territory. If you listen to our Invention
Speaker 1: episode on that, where a possible hoax document or work
Speaker 1: of fiction is being misinterpreted by later writers as a
Speaker 1: factual report and then built upon by embellishment, but with
Speaker 1: some major caveats. Are are you ready to dig in? Yes?
Speaker 1: I do want to just throw in one quick nugget here.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be talking about about Russian UH advances, advancements
Speaker 1: or also or alleged advancements, and it's worth it's worth
Speaker 1: noting that, first of all, UH Edgar Rice Burrows was
Speaker 1: very influential just around the world, but there was also
Speaker 1: a key Russia sci fi author bad the name of
Speaker 1: Gregory Adamov, who wrote about subterines in Conquerors of the
Speaker 1: Underground in ninety seven. Oh yeah, I was reading about
Speaker 1: this and one of the articles that I'm going to
Speaker 1: reference in a minute here points out a hilariously machine
Speaker 1: translated version of that title Conquerors of the Underground, which
Speaker 1: is Winners of the Bowels. Well that's good, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: but yeah, well, what's what's the prompting for all this? Well,
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago you you might have seen
Speaker 1: a number of double take headlines running around the internet
Speaker 1: about the Soviets developing a nuclear powered subterine weapon during
Speaker 1: the Cold War. We can I know there was an
Speaker 1: article on like I f L Science about it. There
Speaker 1: there's one we can check in with hero in, our
Speaker 1: old arch nemesis, The Daily Mail, The headline is quote
Speaker 1: revealed the nuclear powered mole the Soviets built to burrow
Speaker 1: beneath America and deliver atomic bombs under ground undergrounds in
Speaker 1: all caps. Oh yeah, this is a great headline, right.
Speaker 1: So I was looking to trace back to the source
Speaker 1: some of the claims in this article. So this is
Speaker 1: not the main source of the of it, but I
Speaker 1: think it gets to the core of some of what
Speaker 1: we're going to be looking at here. So there's an
Speaker 1: English article from June in an online publication called Russia Beyond.
Speaker 1: The headlines. Now, it's just known as Russia Beyond, which
Speaker 1: is a multi lingual arm of the major Russian state
Speaker 1: newspaper rosie Skaya Gazetta. And I'm not generally very familiar
Speaker 1: with rosy Skya Gazetta Russia Beyond, I don't have a
Speaker 1: very good sense of how generally reliable it is. But
Speaker 1: this article is derived from reporting from a government funded
Speaker 1: newspaper of the Russian Federation, and it doesn't actually name
Speaker 1: most of its sources. So I think we have to
Speaker 1: treat the claims in this article with an extremely heavy
Speaker 1: dose of skepticism. Uh that's not to say everything in
Speaker 1: it is necessarily untrue. But I would not hang my
Speaker 1: hat on anything here, but just so we can lay
Speaker 1: it on the table, let's at least look at what
Speaker 1: this article claims. So it talks about how during the
Speaker 1: middle of the Cold War, the Soviet Premier Nikita Krutzchev
Speaker 1: ordered the construction of mechanized units that would be able
Speaker 1: to burrow underground to destroy military targets. And these might
Speaker 1: be underground bunkers or command centers or strategic missile launch sites,
Speaker 1: or to destroy underground communications infrastructure. And this hypothetical tunneling
Speaker 1: weapon that Krutzchev supposedly ordered the construction of would be
Speaker 1: known as a battle mole. So we're back to the
Speaker 1: moles again. Now. One of the supposed advantages of the
Speaker 1: battle mole would be its ability to tunnel the targets
Speaker 1: deep behind enemy lines undetected and detonate charges, or even
Speaker 1: to surface and deposit Soviet troops, sort of like an
Speaker 1: underground APC. So was there any historical press for this well.
Speaker 1: The article claims that the first self powered underground military
Speaker 1: vehicle was designed by someone named Pyotr Raskazov in Moscow
Speaker 1: and nineteen oh four, but that this was just a design.
Speaker 1: It was never realized. He made some drawings, but the
Speaker 1: designs were lost around the outbreak of the First World
Speaker 1: War ten years later, and then there were attempts to
Speaker 1: bring the project back in the nineteen thirties under the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union. Again, according to this article, the person in
Speaker 1: charge of this effort to to revive the underground battle
Speaker 1: mule idea was somebody identified in this article simply as
Speaker 1: engineer treble Leev, which sounds like it's it sounds like
Speaker 1: Kirk selecting a red shirt for the landing party and
Speaker 1: Star Trek, you know. Um, but engineer Trebellev wanted to
Speaker 1: quote design a machine which would look like a real mole. No,
Speaker 1: no further explanation though. I actually I did find an
Speaker 1: article from from the nineteen fifties that explains what this
Speaker 1: is referring to. I'll leave that as a surprise for
Speaker 1: a little bit later. I mean, I would hope that
Speaker 1: the translations a little off, and the ideas that it
Speaker 1: functions like a mole and not that it just looks
Speaker 1: like one. Though that's exciting in its own right. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is an English language article, this wasn't machine translated. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe it's just supposed to look like a Molden
Speaker 1: wanted to design a machine which would look like a
Speaker 1: real mole. But eventually, you know, whatever happened here, the
Speaker 1: project fizzled. And so then Nikita Krutzchev comes to power
Speaker 1: as the first Secretary of the Communist Party in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three after the death of Joseph Stalin, and according
Speaker 1: to this reporting, Krutzschev was big into the idea of
Speaker 1: the battle mole and he strongly supported its redevelopment. So
Speaker 1: you know, go out there, create the people's mole. And uh.
Speaker 1: Supposedly there was a secret underground facility in Ukraine for
Speaker 1: developing and producing these moles, and the first nuclear powered
Speaker 1: prototype for the battle mole was completed in nineteen sixty four. Now,
Speaker 1: according to the article, this would have been a tunneling
Speaker 1: vehicle powered by an internal nuclear reactor like a nuclear submarine,
Speaker 1: which again, this would be an ideal power source for
Speaker 1: like any kind of long term stealth vehicle for the
Speaker 1: same reasons it's useful for like strategic ballistic missile subs. Right. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the the nuclear power allows you to run
Speaker 1: silently for a long period of time without having to
Speaker 1: return and get fuel. Somewhere and it doesn't you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't produce any emissions other than heat, so you know,
Speaker 1: it's an ideal fuel choice. Just as a note of
Speaker 1: historical comparison, uh, the first nuclear powered submarines I looked
Speaker 1: this up. They were produced by the United States and
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union, and like the mid to late fifties.
Speaker 1: I think the US put out their first nuclear sub
Speaker 1: in then in nineteen fifty five and the USSR by night. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and of course it was just the overall atomic
Speaker 1: trend of of looking at ways to power various types
Speaker 1: of vehicles. I mean, there was there's the whole realm
Speaker 1: of the atomic power aircraft they're looking at. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that that's clear that we could do a
Speaker 1: whole podcast on that in the future, or certainly the
Speaker 1: ideas of atomic powered automobiles and so forth. Um, So
Speaker 1: there was a lot of this line of thinking back
Speaker 1: and in the day there's a lot of enthusiasm enthusiasm
Speaker 1: for this, uh, this sort of power. But to defend
Speaker 1: the idea here, like I think the idea of nuclear
Speaker 1: power does make a whole lot of sense for for
Speaker 1: a vehicle like a strategic missile sub because the whole
Speaker 1: point is that it needs to go out there and
Speaker 1: be hidden, and uh, you know, the strategic purpose of
Speaker 1: it is that you don't know where it is, and
Speaker 1: it's somewhere on the Earth, and it can be out
Speaker 1: there for a long time without coming back to refuel. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this is if we I think we've discussed
Speaker 1: this on the show before. I mean, this is one
Speaker 1: of the key parts of of for instance, the United Kingdoms,
Speaker 1: uh nuclear deterrent. Yeah. But so back to this article
Speaker 1: from Russia. Beyond so other claims that it makes about
Speaker 1: this alleged battle mole, it says, quote it had a
Speaker 1: stretched titanium cylindrical body with a pointed end and a
Speaker 1: powerful drill. It says the size would have been between
Speaker 1: twenty five and thirty five meters in length and then
Speaker 1: between three to four meters in diameter, and its speed
Speaker 1: underground as it's tunneling, would be between seven and fifteen
Speaker 1: kilometers per hour. Now, I am no expert on tunneling vehicles,
Speaker 1: I admit, so my judgment may be way off, but
Speaker 1: this is huge red flag for me. This sounds really
Speaker 1: really fast. That sounds much faster than a snail to
Speaker 1: go back to uh Elon Musk's u um snail race. Right,
Speaker 1: this thing can tunnel through the ground faster than some
Speaker 1: people can run. I don't know. Yeah, okay, but the
Speaker 1: article also claims that quote the nuclear physicist Andrei Sakarov
Speaker 1: was involved with the creation of this machine, possibly with
Speaker 1: the development of the original soil crushing and propulsion system
Speaker 1: to tchnology, the cavitation flow created around the battle mole's
Speaker 1: body reduced friction and enabled it to bore through granite
Speaker 1: and basalt. Again, I very much doubt if there's any
Speaker 1: truth to this association, but for those who aren't familiar,
Speaker 1: Andrei Sakarov is absolutely a very real and very important
Speaker 1: figure in twentieth century history. Uh Sakarov was a Russian
Speaker 1: nuclear physicist who worked on the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons
Speaker 1: program in the late forties and the fifties. He's considered
Speaker 1: in some ways the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb,
Speaker 1: but he later became an activist, protesting for civil liberties
Speaker 1: and human rights within the Soviet Union, and he received
Speaker 1: a Nobel Peace Prize in nineteen I know he was
Speaker 1: not popular with the with the Soviet government for his activism.
Speaker 1: At some point I know he was sent into internal exile. Um.
Speaker 1: But anyway, So back to the article. So the article
Speaker 1: claims that the battle Mole took a crew of five
Speaker 1: people to operate, and it could carry up to fifteen
Speaker 1: paratroopers on top of that, So again, it is actually
Speaker 1: being alleged that this thing would bore in under the earth,
Speaker 1: drill up to the surface, and then let out a
Speaker 1: bunch of dudes. Yeah, it's I mean, it's it's straight
Speaker 1: It sounds straight up Ninja turtles. It sounds like I mean,
Speaker 1: it makes me think of stormtroopers jumping out of one
Speaker 1: of these things, right right, Or of course if it
Speaker 1: wasn't you know, fifteen paratroopers could deliver a payload of
Speaker 1: weapons or equipment or especially an explosive charge, and this
Speaker 1: payload could be of up to a ton. Now here's
Speaker 1: here's the part where it gets really interesting. The article
Speaker 1: alleges there was a secret plan for an underground strike
Speaker 1: on America which would be triggered It said if the
Speaker 1: United States quote deteriorated beyond the point. No further explanation there,
Speaker 1: but I guess the idea is like, if if the
Speaker 1: US is starting to look weak, then like this, these
Speaker 1: things could drill in, So how would they tunnel underneath
Speaker 1: the United States? Well, allegedly the play and was to
Speaker 1: bring them to the United States coast inside nuclear submarines,
Speaker 1: specifically to the California coast, and the California coast is
Speaker 1: singled out for its seismic instability, and then the moles
Speaker 1: would be released from underwater to tunnel into California and
Speaker 1: plant nuclear explosive charges under strategic facilities and fault lines
Speaker 1: without being noticed right at all. And also this would
Speaker 1: this turn, this attack, it alleges, would be a kind
Speaker 1: of false flag for nature where the nuclear charges they'd
Speaker 1: be detonated, but it would just look like naturally occurring
Speaker 1: earthquakes and tsunamis all over the place, and it'd be like,
Speaker 1: I guess Mother Nature is just mad at us. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I mean this is there's so many sci fi possibilities
Speaker 1: just in this, like the idea of say, ultimately slow
Speaker 1: moving nuclear drill machines have been slowly making their way
Speaker 1: from the California coast to the heartland, and when they
Speaker 1: finally open up, you have all these like hideously atomic
Speaker 1: mutated paratroopers that emerge. All the talk sick of injured.
Speaker 1: Now speaking Russian, so much fun to you can have
Speaker 1: with this concept. But anyway, so I've I've just got
Speaker 1: to read the conclusion here verbatim quote. According to some reports,
Speaker 1: test runs of the Soviet nuclear subterine were carried out
Speaker 1: in different geological conditions in suburban Moscow's soils, in the
Speaker 1: Rostov region and in the Urals. Witnesses who observed the
Speaker 1: tests were most struck by the capabilities the subterine demonstrated
Speaker 1: in the Ural mountains, the battle mole easily bit into
Speaker 1: hard rock and destroyed the underground target. However, a tragedy
Speaker 1: occurred during the repeated trials. For reasons unknown, the machine
Speaker 1: exploded deep within the bowels of the Urals, killing the
Speaker 1: entire crew. Shortly thereafter, the project was shelved. Oh man,
Speaker 1: there's a whole like cool Indie historic horror film concept
Speaker 1: right there, This doomed subterine. It gets I don't know,
Speaker 1: eaten by Judd's or something, right. I think this would
Speaker 1: make a great movie. But I have serries us doubts
Speaker 1: about this report, like even if this were published by
Speaker 1: a source that I thought to be trustworthy. Again, I
Speaker 1: don't know much about the source and it is related
Speaker 1: to like a government funded paper. Some of like my
Speaker 1: basic plausibility alarms are flashing red. But anyway, so back
Speaker 1: to like a lot of the ten circulation of the
Speaker 1: story that was going around and you know, daily mail.
Speaker 1: In all these places, it seems to trace back to
Speaker 1: an article in Gelopnik by senior editor Jason Torchinsky, who,
Speaker 1: to his credit, does show skepticism about some of these claims,
Speaker 1: maybe more so than some of the derivative articles do.
Speaker 1: Um which but it tries to follow up on these
Speaker 1: claims by consulting some contemporary articles in Russian language sources,
Speaker 1: a lot of it machine translated, though um So. It
Speaker 1: was Torchinsky, by the way, who pointed out that idea
Speaker 1: of the machine translation of conquerors of the underground being
Speaker 1: winners of the bowels. So he is the winner of
Speaker 1: the winner of the bowels. But um he develops on
Speaker 1: the assertion that this this guy, remember engineer trabellev that
Speaker 1: he wanted it to look like a mole. Uh. Twarcensky
Speaker 1: points out that this is supposedly because he studied X
Speaker 1: rays of a mole skeleton in order to design the machine.
Speaker 1: That makes a little bit more sense uh and will
Speaker 1: be further developed even more by another source I found.
Speaker 1: As for the reports of this nineteen thirties model, there's
Speaker 1: all this vagueness in the sources. It's hard to tell
Speaker 1: from what's available, how large Trabelle's model was supposed to be,
Speaker 1: whether it was crude, etcetera. Um Regarding the prototype built
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four, Twarcensky turns up some more claims
Speaker 1: about how the project came to an end from the
Speaker 1: Russian reporting and rosy Skaya Gazetta, which is apparently what
Speaker 1: that Russia Beyond article was sort of derivative of. But
Speaker 1: here here's additional detail machine translated, of course. Quote. However,
Speaker 1: during next tests in nineteen sixty four, a car that
Speaker 1: penetrated the Ural mountains near Nisney tag Gil for a
Speaker 1: stance of ten kilometers for unknown reasons, exploded. Since the
Speaker 1: explosion was nuclear, the apparatus with the people in it
Speaker 1: simply evaporated and the broken tunnel collapsed. In the press
Speaker 1: was the name of the deceased commander of the Battle Mole,
Speaker 1: Colonel Semyon Budnikov, but official confirmation of this never sounded.
Speaker 1: The project was closed. All documentary evidence of it was
Speaker 1: liquidated as if nothing had ever happened, very conveniently here, right,
Speaker 1: So all physical evidence of this experiment is completely erased
Speaker 1: from the earth. And then it gets even fishier and
Speaker 1: starts to get into territory where I'm wondering who's fooling who.
Speaker 1: So this is again from the Rosy skya Gazetta report
Speaker 1: explaining why the explosion happened. Quote or maybe another civilization
Speaker 1: exists literally under our feet, and the guards did not
Speaker 1: want the Soviet mole to penetrate the forbidden limits. After all,
Speaker 1: the technical characteristics allowed the battle mole to reach the
Speaker 1: center of the Earth. Therefore, unique underground machine was destroyed,
Speaker 1: and the mystery of the longstanding Soviet project is likely
Speaker 1: to never be fully revealed. Oh okay, so the underground
Speaker 1: civilization might have sabotaged it. Yeah, that doesn't sound pas right,
Speaker 1: So there's definitely something wrong with this story. It doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that all of the reports of historical Soviet
Speaker 1: battle mole development are untrue, though here I'm getting the
Speaker 1: feeling that a lot of these reports may be embellished,
Speaker 1: and this report about the nineteen sixty four vehicle specifically
Speaker 1: might be a complete or near complete fiction. So the
Speaker 1: next thing I was looking to was seeing if we
Speaker 1: can figure out about mid century subterrane projects from like
Speaker 1: contemporaneous sources, like was anything published about it at the
Speaker 1: time that I can access in English and understand? And
Speaker 1: so I did come across something this was this was
Speaker 1: linked through another source I found there was a nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty six, actually December thirteen, nineteen fifty article in New
Speaker 1: Scientists called Russia's Battle Moles. Okay, now we're dealing with
Speaker 1: a publication we can get behind, I mean to an extent,
Speaker 1: Like now, I don't necessarily trust all of the claims
Speaker 1: in this article either, but at least it might give
Speaker 1: us a better idea of not necessarily what really happened,
Speaker 1: but what ideas were actually being discussed in the nineteen fifties. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, this isn't like a you know, decades later source.
Speaker 1: Now we can find out whether or not the idea
Speaker 1: of these machines was actually in the air, regardless of
Speaker 1: whether or not they were actually built. And I will
Speaker 1: know this is a very early article for New Scientists.
Speaker 1: It was founded a New Scientist I think was founded
Speaker 1: just a month or two before this article was published.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty six. But it starts off talking about
Speaker 1: how slow and labor intensive the process of tunneling is
Speaker 1: and how great it would be to have a machine
Speaker 1: that's like a mechanical mole or an underground boat that
Speaker 1: can speed up the process of digging tunnels. And then
Speaker 1: they go on to report an unnamed contemporary Russian technical
Speaker 1: journal that is describing the attempts of Soviet scientists to
Speaker 1: build a machine like this um, something that would be
Speaker 1: able to independently drive around underground boring tunnels. And they
Speaker 1: corroborate the idea that this research is based on bio mimicry,
Speaker 1: the biomimicry of the mammalian mole quote. The investigation of
Speaker 1: moles technique was carried out in the Ural mountains. Local
Speaker 1: hunters taught the Russian scientists how to catch moles. Then
Speaker 1: the lengths of the captured moles from tip to tail
Speaker 1: were measured. Next, the animals were allowed to burrow and
Speaker 1: the duration of their task was timed with a stop watch,
Speaker 1: from the moment they started digging to the moment that
Speaker 1: the end of their tails disappeared into the earth. In
Speaker 1: this way, the speed of digging under various conditions was calculated.
Speaker 1: In clay, the mole borrowed at a rate of two
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty four ft per hour and in black
Speaker 1: earth three d and sixty one ft per hour. In
Speaker 1: some cases even higher speed were attained. The second part
Speaker 1: of the investigation was carried out in the laboratory. A
Speaker 1: box measuring sixteen inches square by eight feet long was used.
Speaker 1: The box was packed with clay soil and arranged in
Speaker 1: front of an X ray machine. A mole was placed
Speaker 1: at the front end of the box and it started
Speaker 1: to burrow its way through the soil in the box.
Speaker 1: By X ray photography, a record of the moles progress
Speaker 1: was obtained, showing the movement of its muscles and skeleton. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this is starting to become actually clear to me now, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this is this is where we're again. We're
Speaker 1: talking about biomimicry. Here we said, we're talking about uh,
Speaker 1: scientists considering a problem, an engineering problem, and then looking
Speaker 1: for an answer in um evolved biology. Right. So they
Speaker 1: discovered that the mole digs by working its head and
Speaker 1: its paws back and forth along and access in the
Speaker 1: front to to loosen the soil ahead of it, and
Speaker 1: then it moves the displaced earth out of the way
Speaker 1: and presses it up into the side of the tunnel,
Speaker 1: sort of packing it against the edges of the tunnel
Speaker 1: with its what they call its withers. I guess that's
Speaker 1: like the back of its neck and upper back area,
Speaker 1: and with its shoulders, and then it continually applies forward
Speaker 1: pressure by digging in and pushing with its hind legs.
Speaker 1: And the article claims that this pressing out of the
Speaker 1: displaced earth by the strong withers and the shoulder muscles
Speaker 1: of the mole is actually the most important discovery here,
Speaker 1: because again, one of the biggest problems with with drilling, tunneling, boring,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, is how to deal
Speaker 1: with the displaced material as you go right. The New
Speaker 1: Scientist article goes on quote from the lessons learned with
Speaker 1: the mole, the Russians built a mechanical model, followed by
Speaker 1: a larger scale machine consisting of a cutter corresponding to
Speaker 1: the mole's head, a worm for ramming loosened earth into
Speaker 1: the walls of the tunnel corresponding to the withers, and
Speaker 1: propellers corresponding to the hind legs. In the front part
Speaker 1: of the body of the machine is a powerful cutter
Speaker 1: made of hard alloy. Behind the four propellers, which push
Speaker 1: against the walls of the tunnel and move the machine
Speaker 1: forward at a speed of thirty ft per hour. The
Speaker 1: cutter rotates at a speed of three revolutions per minute
Speaker 1: for use in hard soils. The cutter can also be
Speaker 1: given hammer blows as it rotates. Uh and it says yes,
Speaker 1: this would have needed a human pilot to steer it. So.
Speaker 1: The article claims that the machine was built and tested
Speaker 1: in the Ural Mountains in nineteen six, and Soviet engineers
Speaker 1: have it says, made improvements in its speed and size
Speaker 1: since then. The article does not really even though it's
Speaker 1: called battle mole, The article does not really mention military applications. Instead,
Speaker 1: it emphasizes how useful this kind of device would be
Speaker 1: for the kind of tunneling we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: like for mining or for urban engineering. One thought that
Speaker 1: comes to mind thinking about this is if well, I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, if you wanted to solve this engineering
Speaker 1: problem like looking to the mole, is is is certainly
Speaker 1: one way to to try and answer those questions. Even
Speaker 1: if things might not scale up all the way, but
Speaker 1: in terms of a warfare scenario, it seems like this
Speaker 1: is the sort of thing that, if you could pull
Speaker 1: it off, would be very advantageous in older modes of warfare.
Speaker 1: You know, like if you're dealing with with siege warfare,
Speaker 1: having a battle mole could really turn the tide. Perhaps
Speaker 1: even in trench warfare, you know where you have you know,
Speaker 1: these hard fronts, uh, in these Noman lands. You know
Speaker 1: that I could see that being a factor. But it
Speaker 1: is certainly I don't know. People may disagree with me,
Speaker 1: but it seems like once you get into the World
Speaker 1: War two era and the post War War two era,
Speaker 1: the usefulness of this kind of a device, even if
Speaker 1: you could pull it off, becomes um uh, you know,
Speaker 1: less obvious. Yeah, it's I mean, it seems much more
Speaker 1: useful in the world that doesn't already depend on air power.
Speaker 1: You've already conquered the skies at this point. Now you
Speaker 1: could say that well maybe the maybe an underground mole,
Speaker 1: at least hypothetically could be more stealthy than air power.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, we have stealth bombers and
Speaker 1: stuff now, but um well, you know it reminds me
Speaker 1: of uh, the super secret weapon um of the Byzantines,
Speaker 1: the Greek Fire. We did an episode on that and
Speaker 1: one of the things that came out about it was
Speaker 1: that it was it was useful if you used it
Speaker 1: every once in a while under very specific circumstances, but
Speaker 1: if people were expecting it, uh, then it lost its usefulness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like more useful as a kind of shock weapon
Speaker 1: than as like a regular mainstay of how you win battles.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so I want to kind of put a
Speaker 1: bow on this issue of the Soviet atomic battle mole.
Speaker 1: There appears to be a very good, skeptical and well
Speaker 1: sided dive into the issue of the atomic subterine from
Speaker 1: way back in twelve at the Atomic Sky's blog, and
Speaker 1: it's called the atomic subterine. Uh. The author of this blog,
Speaker 1: I think, offers a very reasonable assessment of this weird
Speaker 1: in murky subject, in addition to a very good right
Speaker 1: up in general of atomic subterarine ideas as they were
Speaker 1: explored in the United States, which Robert I know you're
Speaker 1: going to get into in a minute here. But the
Speaker 1: author here he just goes by Mark, but he acknowledges
Speaker 1: the claims we've talked about so far regarding the alleged
Speaker 1: Soviet atomic battle mole, and he concludes that there probably
Speaker 1: was a real Russian program in the nineteen fifties to
Speaker 1: develop a conventional chemical powered tunneling machine known as an
Speaker 1: underground boat, but that the part about the atomic battle
Speaker 1: mole and krutz Chev's attack plan, uh you know, attack
Speaker 1: the US from below, that this is not just untrue,
Speaker 1: but possibly a prank gone wrong. Uh So, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: read from his in note here quote I strongly suspect
Speaker 1: that the supposed nuclear powered prototype was an April fools
Speaker 1: hoax by the Russian language Popular Mechanics magazine. The first
Speaker 1: mention of it I can find online and comes from
Speaker 1: the April issue of that magazine, and the diagram they
Speaker 1: include incorporates what appeared to be mechanical tentacles. In any case, however,
Speaker 1: neither of these were a subterraine, but rather tunnel boring machines,
Speaker 1: And based on everything I've read, I think he's very
Speaker 1: possibly correct. In fact, I might even say probably, And
Speaker 1: if so, this would be interesting because we'd be again
Speaker 1: in territory I mentioned this earlier, like the territory of
Speaker 1: the Edison murder confession that we talked about in the
Speaker 1: Louis La Prince episode of Invention, where something originally intended
Speaker 1: as what I think was a non malicious, explicit, explicitly
Speaker 1: fictional document is later misinterpreted by a bunch of other
Speaker 1: writers as a legitimate news report. And this is why
Speaker 1: April Fool's articles should be exiled to Siberia forever like
Speaker 1: no more of them ever. I agree. And on that note,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. But when we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll discuss uh some of the US based research into
Speaker 1: the idea of a subterarine. Thank alright, we're back, alright.
Speaker 1: So we think that these reports about the Soviet atomic
Speaker 1: subterine and the the attack America from below planned that
Speaker 1: this is probably not true. It's you know, it may
Speaker 1: be based on some actual research that took place, but
Speaker 1: the the overall story is not real and this thing
Speaker 1: was never actually built or tested in the Earl Mountains,
Speaker 1: at least as best we can tell. Um. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that the idea of an atomic subtarine was
Speaker 1: never seriously investigated at all. That's right, Uh, so, I
Speaker 1: I too was looking at that atomic Skuy's blog post
Speaker 1: and I was also looking at a piece by Steve
Speaker 1: wentz H in the National Interest that that also cites
Speaker 1: that particular blog post um and Yeah. The United States
Speaker 1: also looked into this technology, into this idea of a
Speaker 1: subterarine UH specifically um during the n lost Alamos National
Speaker 1: Laboratory explore the use of nuclear of a nuclear powered subterarine.
Speaker 1: Engineer Bob Porter was allegedly inspired by at Earth's Core
Speaker 1: by the by the Boroughs novel after noting the three
Speaker 1: thousand degrees integrade temperatures of a prototype reactor in the fifties,
Speaker 1: and then in experiment by Potter showed that this sort
Speaker 1: of drilling could be possible. The resulting project was intended
Speaker 1: to produce a vehicle quote capable of penetrating the Earth
Speaker 1: to depths of ten kilometers to extend geological and geophysical
Speaker 1: exploration into the Earth's mantle. Now, the important idea here
Speaker 1: is that this subterine envisioned by Potter here would not
Speaker 1: drill just through traditional boring like a you know, a
Speaker 1: drill bit or a bunch of drill bits, that it
Speaker 1: would primarily work through melting right using the superheating from
Speaker 1: either a nuclear or an electrical source to to superheat
Speaker 1: something like some tongue sten or something that would melt
Speaker 1: the rock away and allow you to just kind of
Speaker 1: like go through it like a hot knife through butter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in a way, it would be swimming through the earth.
Speaker 1: It would be creating its own lava tube and sliding
Speaker 1: through it. Uh yeah, So I mean it's it's an
Speaker 1: ingenious solution, you know, um or potential solution. So apparently
Speaker 1: the first of all, I do want to like you,
Speaker 1: like you mentioned earlier, I would I would encourage everyone
Speaker 1: to check out that Atomic Sky's blog post because he
Speaker 1: also goes into a little more detail about this supposed
Speaker 1: a scenario where they were talking about it at at
Speaker 1: out luncheon or at a diner or something. Yeah, bar
Speaker 1: and um, and it just kind of the idea of
Speaker 1: it was got picked up by um, was it a
Speaker 1: it was a politician this politician. Yeah, the the scientists
Speaker 1: from the lab on Friday, we're hanging out just like
Speaker 1: having drinks and talking about ideas that occurred to them
Speaker 1: in a some politician, I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: a US rap or a New Mexico reps. Some politician
Speaker 1: legislator walks in and overhears them talking about this subterine
Speaker 1: idea and gets really excited about it. Yeah, he's like,
Speaker 1: that sounds great, let's fund it. And so they did
Speaker 1: and got funded. Um. So, apparently, in addition to mining,
Speaker 1: tunneling and exploration, the project also entailed this idea that
Speaker 1: the tech could be used to create storage cavities in
Speaker 1: the earth, in the deep Earth, not only for toxic
Speaker 1: and nuclear waste. And we've discussed on the show before
Speaker 1: about out the the the the deep geologic isolation of
Speaker 1: nuclear waste is actually a you know, a really supported idea.
Speaker 1: But they also got into this idea of how putting
Speaker 1: pressurized gases in these storage cavities that could then be
Speaker 1: unleashed to drive turbines for energy. It's an interesting idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would not have thought of that, but yeah, that's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. So um. According to again that National Interest
Speaker 1: article and the Atomic Skuy's blog post, uh, the everything
Speaker 1: kind of came together like this. So in the National
Speaker 1: Science Foundation funded a full scale study of the nuclear
Speaker 1: subtu rain and then a small scale electrically powered prototype
Speaker 1: drills were built and one was used by the National
Speaker 1: Park Service to drill drainage holes at Bandalier National Monument
Speaker 1: near Los Alamos. The rock penetrator's lack of vibration. This
Speaker 1: was apparently essential to preserving an archaeological site close by
Speaker 1: while the holes were being drilled. And this, uh, this
Speaker 1: emphasizes again like some of the advantages that you would
Speaker 1: have if you're just moving through rock primarily by melting
Speaker 1: rather than standard grinding drilling stuff. Also, it's like you
Speaker 1: don't produce a lot of dust and pollutants from the process.
Speaker 1: There are many ways that melting down into the earth
Speaker 1: is a quite elegant solution for tunneling. Yeah, I saw
Speaker 1: this referenced in some of the other like tunneling and
Speaker 1: boring articles. I was coming across the idea of of
Speaker 1: creating a tunnel in your wake that is like lined
Speaker 1: in glass. You know, again, it's like a lava tube.
Speaker 1: And therefore, you know, you wouldn't necessarily have this issue
Speaker 1: of Okay, we have all this leftover stone, what are
Speaker 1: we gonna do? How's the how's our subtermarine gonna then
Speaker 1: turn that into blocks to reinforce the wreckage it leaves
Speaker 1: in its wake. So the sources here they point out
Speaker 1: that the according to the designs two cutting head designs
Speaker 1: were looked at, one for common rock and one for
Speaker 1: hard rock. So you had a traditional rotary cutting head
Speaker 1: with the cylindrical rock melters, and then you also had
Speaker 1: one with dozens of nuclear powered needle probs. Um, which
Speaker 1: is a pretty crazy idea, Like these are in a way,
Speaker 1: these are like little tentacles. Are almost like the tentacle, uh,
Speaker 1: you know the head of the star faced mole right
Speaker 1: where they kind of dig in and then but then
Speaker 1: they melt right. And this again, it wouldn't have necessarily
Speaker 1: like a conical tip. It might be more like a
Speaker 1: flat disc type shape with the melting elements and then
Speaker 1: the drilling elements. Yeah. Really more in line with traditional
Speaker 1: TBMs in that in that respect, um. And then they
Speaker 1: also mentioned that the probes would would would unevenly heat
Speaker 1: the rock face, causing it to crack and crumble, so
Speaker 1: that would be an an aspect of it as well. Um.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, I mentioned the glass walls. But so
Speaker 1: ultimately the project transfers to the Department of Energy in
Speaker 1: ninety five and from there it apparently mostly vanished. It
Speaker 1: would pop up again in the nineteen eighties as a
Speaker 1: possible way to tunnel for bases on the Moon. And
Speaker 1: this was apparently this has been six and this was
Speaker 1: a proposal by one doctor John Rowley. Yeah, well, and
Speaker 1: and two other co authors. Yeah, and they published a
Speaker 1: paper about, uh, excavating tunnels on the surface of the
Speaker 1: Moon to shield colonists from the radiation that you would
Speaker 1: be exposed to if you were trying to create a
Speaker 1: nuclear base or not a nuclear base, sorry, a moon base. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a very common problem when people talk about
Speaker 1: making moon bases. Right, You've basically just got again underground somehow.
Speaker 1: And they called this idea not a subterine, but a
Speaker 1: sub selline because it's the nice Yeah. Well, I think
Speaker 1: that that in and of itself is a it's a
Speaker 1: pretty um elegant idea. Um. You know, you can certainly
Speaker 1: imagine your lander delivers uh, the the subterine or subsiline
Speaker 1: vehicle and then like that is necessary to burrow to safety. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So in that Atomic Sky's post, Mark also touches on
Speaker 1: a weaponized concept that was discussed to use the technology.
Speaker 1: This would have been the radio isotope powered thermal penetrator
Speaker 1: or the the rip TP, in which the machine quote
Speaker 1: would form a bubble of magna and hot high pressure
Speaker 1: gases behind itself. When it nears the underground base that is,
Speaker 1: you know, presumably the target here, the pressure of the
Speaker 1: gas and magma would burst the base walls explosively, destroying
Speaker 1: the facilities near the breach through blast and fire. On
Speaker 1: that blog post, he include some black and white too
Speaker 1: illustrations of what these concepts would have looked like. You
Speaker 1: get to see those, uh those needles at the front.
Speaker 1: There's also this image of a tunnel that has been
Speaker 1: board of what this would look like, this kind of
Speaker 1: glass line tunnel, and it has kind of look kind
Speaker 1: of like a colon oscary um, you know it, it
Speaker 1: has kind of a colonic appearance. Uh Now. Another one
Speaker 1: of the advantages that that they talk about with respect
Speaker 1: to the rock melting versus just the traditional drill type
Speaker 1: excavator is that a rock melting model for a subtrain
Speaker 1: would allow you to to potentially create a tunnel of
Speaker 1: any shape you wanted. It wouldn't have to be a
Speaker 1: circular tube. It could be square, it could be triangular.
Speaker 1: You know, you can do anything interesting. Yeah, Like especially
Speaker 1: if you're if you're trying to create a space for
Speaker 1: your moon base upon arriving, you know, for that you
Speaker 1: might want say a large cube cubicle space, uh, underneath
Speaker 1: the lunar surface, as opposed to just a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of tunnels to live in. Right, So I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the rock melting subsaline, I'm not sure that idea is
Speaker 1: forever done with. Maybe they'll come back someday. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know, because we've also we've discussed on the show
Speaker 1: before how there are concepts of building such bases and
Speaker 1: craters so you know, a naturally occurring um places to
Speaker 1: hide in the linear surface. So so I don't know, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess it. Basically, we kind of leave this episode
Speaker 1: with still a number of questions, you know, like what
Speaker 1: what what is the future of boring and tunneling here
Speaker 1: on the Earth or even on other you know, on
Speaker 1: moons and planets that we might go to, and and
Speaker 1: what is that going to look like? Are we going
Speaker 1: to actually see subterines in the future, you know, I
Speaker 1: it's it's it's hard to say, but it seems like
Speaker 1: some of the tunnel boring advances that are taking place
Speaker 1: today are encouraging of that. Um, I don't know if
Speaker 1: they're gonna let um Elon musk Uh strap a nuclear
Speaker 1: reactor to one of these things anytime soon. But well,
Speaker 1: that's another interesting thing to point out, which is that,
Speaker 1: um so, obviously there are lots of safety concerns whenever
Speaker 1: you have a nuclear powered vehicle. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: the case with all of the nuclear powered submarines and everything.
Speaker 1: But fortunately, I would say nuclear power safety concerns are
Speaker 1: going to be les, sir, with a device that's being
Speaker 1: used to tunnel deep underground, then they would be with
Speaker 1: a lot of other kinds of vehicles, right, true. I
Speaker 1: mean it's like if it's if it fails, it's down there, right,
Speaker 1: you know, not to say that that that an accidental
Speaker 1: nuclear detonation even underground is ideal, But I don't you know,
Speaker 1: there are it's better than other places I'm saying, like
Speaker 1: relative to an airplane or something. Yes, yeah, absolutely. Now
Speaker 1: I guess another thing we should quickly acknowledges that the
Speaker 1: internet is also full of claims that there are subtraines
Speaker 1: all over the place. They're making tunnels under the whole
Speaker 1: world as we speak. That are you know, that are
Speaker 1: full of like the the Illuminati warriors and everything like that.
Speaker 1: It's I would say subtraines and underground tunnels are a
Speaker 1: very common trope of conspiracy theories, and I wonder why
Speaker 1: that is. Why is it that specifically underground enclosures are
Speaker 1: like such a common image in conspiracy theory thinking is
Speaker 1: like underground bunkers, hidden underground bases, tunnels, there's always tunnels.
Speaker 1: What why is that? Well? I mean, I think part
Speaker 1: of it is that, I mean, these are really cool ideas,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of conspiracy thinking does get
Speaker 1: into areas of taking things that are really cool and
Speaker 1: taking them too far, you know, taking them too far
Speaker 1: into an area where you you want to believe them
Speaker 1: so badly, and then you deal with the ramifications of
Speaker 1: believing that you know, because it's interesting, it's therefore true. Yeah, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea of the hollow Earth, that's it's a very
Speaker 1: fun concept. I I love reading about how Edgar Rice
Speaker 1: Burrows constructed this this world. But if you start buying
Speaker 1: into that concept, there's a whole lot of baggage that
Speaker 1: comes with it. And and likewise, if yeah, if you
Speaker 1: if you want to believe submarines are real and you
Speaker 1: know they're out there in the world, burrowing tunnels and
Speaker 1: what are they doing for whom are they burrowing these tunnels?
Speaker 1: And what are the results? Suh, well I know the answer.
Speaker 1: It's for Lord kin Boat. Sorry that maybe in Next
Speaker 1: Files right? Oh I just remember you're not the Next
Speaker 1: Files person. Yeah, yeah, sorry I was. I'm struggling with
Speaker 1: that reference. Who's Lord Kinboat. Oh he's you know, he's
Speaker 1: the Lord of the Underground Realm from Jose Chunks from
Speaker 1: Outer Space. It's one of the best episodes of all times.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you've You've reckoned. I need to watch that
Speaker 1: one someday. He ends up. Lord Kinboat reveals himself to
Speaker 1: a character who is named after Rocky Ericsson and who
Speaker 1: who gets a visit from Jesse Ventura as one of
Speaker 1: the Men in Black. It's just it's it's NonStop hits,
Speaker 1: all right, I need to check that out. Well, um, well,
Speaker 1: this has been a fun one. I feel like there
Speaker 1: have to be some really cool examples of subterines and
Speaker 1: fiction that we haven't covered. And you know, if anyone
Speaker 1: out there is is more versed in even the conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory realm of subterarines, uh, I mean, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear about it, you know, like like I say, the
Speaker 1: idea of secret underground bases and on link vehicles connecting
Speaker 1: them all like that's that's uh, it's it's pretty pretty
Speaker 1: fun soundings as long as it doesn't end up obscuring
Speaker 1: your understanding of reality. If you can't get them out
Speaker 1: of your mind, write a screenplay, don't post on the
Speaker 1: on the forums. But but that being said, like the
Speaker 1: real the reality of like TBM technology and and the
Speaker 1: kind of work that's going on with the boring company
Speaker 1: like bad and of It's the in and of itself
Speaker 1: is really exciting. So um yeah, there's there's plenty of
Speaker 1: of great stuff to go around just within the realm
Speaker 1: of truth here totally all right. In the meantime, if
Speaker 1: you would like to listen to other episodes of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your mind, you know where to find us.
Speaker 1: That is, wherever you happen to get your podcast and
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Speaker 1: Those are just simple things you can do to help
Speaker 1: out the show. Huge thanks as always to our excellent
Speaker 1: audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to
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Speaker 1: or any other to suggest a topic for the future.
Speaker 1: Just to say hi. You can email us at contact
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