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00:08tonight on secrets declassified experiments considered so wild dangerous or deadly they
00:15have to be hidden from the public from building an aircraft carrier made of ice to defeat nazi
00:21u-boats this thing will be the largest naval vessel ever constructed to a man mission to
00:27mars that never leaves earth these men are subjected to every form of stress that their
00:33soviet overlords can think of or even to stalin's obsession with understanding his rivals they want
00:41to profile mao by analyzing his poo these are the astonishing and sometimes terrible things done by
00:48governments and the people who work for them it's time to bring them to light
01:01it's world war ii in the atlantic hitler's u-boats are hunting british ships relentlessly
01:07so britain gambles on a daring experiment build an unsinkable ship not from steel but from ice
01:20by 1942 britain feels like it's against the ropes u-boats hunting in the mid-atlantic are sinking
01:27650 000 tons of shipping every month the killing zone is called u-boat alley it's a stretch of the
01:35mid-atlantic where allied ships are unprotected air force planes can't reach that far from land bases
01:41and the british can't send aircraft carriers to help because they would be sunk by the u-boats too
01:46what they need is an aircraft carrier that can't be sunk enter jeffrey pike an eccentric adventurer
01:56and inventor now working for allied hq jeffrey pike comes up with the realization that nature already
02:03produces giant unsinkable platforms in the ocean they're called icebergs so he comes up with
02:11the idea that you could flatten one and tow it wherever you wanted it to be you can use it
02:17as
02:18an unsinkable aircraft carrier and it can close the mid-atlantic gap but pike soon realizes icebergs
02:26won't work they have this nasty tendency to flip which would put your aircraft and your crew in the
02:32cold atlantic water so no not a not a good solution pike won't be stopped so easily he begins to
02:41design
02:41an artificial iceberg pike's idea is to create a giant aircraft carrier not from steel but from
02:50blocks of carved ice he could have a system of cooling pipes throughout the ice to keep it frozen
02:57and also use diesel engines to propel it forward at a secret lab hidden in a refrigerated storage unit
03:05at london smithfield's meat market pike's team starts experimenting there's one big shortcoming with
03:13ice it is extremely brittle if it came under enemy attack it will fracture so as pike considers this
03:22problem he takes some inspiration from reinforced concrete and the idea that perhaps combining water
03:28with another element would produce a harder ice product pike's team begins to experiment with additives
03:36to increase the durability of ice they find a research paper from scientists in brooklyn new york
03:42testing cotton as a reinforcer but this makes a slushy uneven ice block finally after lots of
03:50experimentation they come up with just the right recipe and that is four percent wood pulp and 96 percent
03:57water this combination creates an incredibly durable block of ice pike's new ice behaves like nothing else
04:04on earth it's strong as concrete and almost bulletproof but can be cast like metal and cut like wood
04:15they name this new miracle material pikerete after its inventor british prime minister winston
04:22churchill is the kind of guy who likes unusual bold daring ideas so he says yeah let's do this pike's
04:29project is given the code name habakkuk habakkuk is an old testament prophet who records god's promise to the
04:38doubtful i'm going to do something in your days that you would not believe even if you were told pike
04:51but britain is too warm to build it so the entire project moves to canada they turn the frozen surface
05:00of patricia lake into a giant laboratory and build a 1000 ton 60 foot long scale model
05:09the habakkuk team starts experimenting and they find that in order to keep the ice stable the ship's
05:16refrigerators need to keep it at a frosty five degrees they also discover that to stop a torpedo
05:23the hull has to be at least 30 feet thick when they complete their design it is an absolute behemoth
05:31pipe wanted an ice ship with a runway 2000 feet long and 300 feet wide it has 40 foot thick
05:39walls and
05:41it can carry over 150 bombers at one time this will be the largest naval vessel ever built
05:51project habakkuk is now becoming hugely expensive so it needs american backing
05:57in august 1943 at the allied conference in quebec the brits make their pitch to prove the properties
06:06of pycrete to the americans one of the uk's top commanders lord mountbatten stages a demo mountbatten
06:14gives us general hap arnold an axe and asks him to smash a block of pycrete arnold swings at the
06:20pycrete with
06:20all his might the axe bounces off then mountbatten draws his pistol and fires it at the pycrete
06:28the bullet ricochets off sending the generals diving for cover the room erupts but the point is made
06:35the americans are on board for habakkuk before production can begin the tides turn in the atlantic
06:43long-range aircraft and new anti-submarine tactics blunt the u-boat threat with the crisis over the ice
06:53ship is no longer needed in january 1944 project habakkuk is cancelled a prototype ship they built on
07:04patricia lake is allowed to melt away soon the war comes to an end but the british military keeps details
07:11of pycrete on ice for the next 30 years we only learn the full details through declassified documents
07:19that are discovered in 1973 they speak to an hour of desperation when england faced an existential threat
07:27as a result of the u-boat winston churchill isn't the only leader to greenlight an audacious experiment
07:35when the soviets decide to beat the u.s to mars three cosmonauts are locked in a test chamber
07:41for a year-long study they learn that it's not the equipment that fails it's the crew
07:50in moscow leaders are convinced that getting to mars will definitively win the space race
07:56for the soviets putting a man on mars would be a massive prestige win
08:02but a round trip to mars would take a full year
08:06at the time no one knows whether humans can survive that long in space
08:13moscow's institute of biomedical problems hatches a bold experiment they call it a year in a spaceship
08:19but they run it at their labs in moscow the plan is to lock up a cosmonaut test crew for
08:25365 days
08:26inside a cramped metal box they want to find out if the team can endure such a long space flight
08:33and
08:33what the scientists need to do to make it work soviet leadership signs off on the space chamber plan
08:40on november 5th 1967 the top secret experiment begins in order for this experiment to provide
08:48any meaningful results the three cosmonauts are going to have to be actually isolated the only
08:54contact that they will have with the outside world will be through a radio channel and everything will
09:00be documented on film to the men locked inside the chamber feels more like a prison cell than a
09:07starship there is no privacy the living quarters are just 10 by 13 feet and not built for comfort
09:14the crew has a table a stove some medical gear and three flimsy fold-out bunks
09:22soon the conditions begin to take a toll on the cosmonauts
09:27and the space chamber becomes a psychological pressure cooker within a few weeks all of them
09:32are showing signs of psychological stress they're no longer enjoying any collective activities together
09:39they seem to be almost at each other's throats all the time within two months the crewmen are not
09:44speaking to one another if they're holding these churlish grudges against one another they're not
09:49a cohesive team they're not an effective team with the experiment at risk the scientists take action
09:57they build a 200 square foot greenhouse and dock it with the simulated mission
10:04the greenhouse gives them a little bit of dignity to get away from one another
10:08it gives them something positive and constructive to do with their time and suddenly rather than
10:14being at each other's throats constantly they're back to being a cohesive team again
10:20with the experiment back on track the scientists decide to stress test the crew they simulate a
10:27failure of the chamber's life support systems
10:31the soviet lab administrators massively raised the concentration of carbon dioxide in the capsule
10:37they crank the temperature up to 86 degrees they push the humidity to a tropical 90 percent
10:43all of the subjects are suffering from headaches and exhaustion it feels like hell in space
10:50the extreme conditions force the crew to cooperate
10:56on november 5th 1968 after a full year inside the space chamber the experiment comes to an end
11:07the most important lesson learned is that claustrophobia and monotony are two of the biggest challenges a
11:14cosmonaut crew will face on the way to mars
11:18for years the full details of the secret space chamber experiment remained buried deep in kremlin files
11:27it's not until 1975 that they're finally revealed to the world when cosmonaut andrei boschko publishes his memoir
11:38he actually describes the feelings that he and his fellow participants had living inside this tiny capsule for a year
11:46although the cosmonauts never actually leave moscow
11:50the lessons learned from the experiment proved useful for planning future space missions
11:56if we're going to send somebody to mars you can't just simply put them in a capsule and expect them
12:01to endure a 34 million mile voyage you have to provide more space for them otherwise the mission's
12:08going to fail because the individuals are going to fail
12:15at the start of the cold war the u.s wants to know more about biological weapons how to protect
12:21against
12:21them or how to use them to learn more the pentagon comes up with a top secret experiment
12:28the target unsuspecting american cities
12:35at the beginning of the 1950s the pentagon is terrified that the soviets might launch a biological
12:42attack against the united states in the event that such an attack was released on the u.s
12:49what would happen everything is at this point an unknown quantity
12:53the army chemical corps is tasked to investigate the chemical corps consider several options the first
13:01one they come up with is using a wind tunnel to see how it disperses but that's nothing like real
13:06world conditions the second option they consider is building a city in the desert however that turns out
13:13to be too expensive and the third option is to do live testing in real u.s cities but instead
13:20of using a
13:20real biological agent use a stand-in they start by looking for a safe substitute for deadly germ weapons
13:29chemical core scientists find this apparently ideal candidate it's a fluorescent powder used
13:34in tv screens called zinc cadmium sulfide what makes this powder so ideal is that the individual grain
13:42sizes are very similar to the sizes of the known biological agents that an adversarial nation may use
13:49the other thing about them is that they fluoresce under ultraviolet light so it's easy to track them
13:55wherever they go initially at least the army thinks that the substance is harmless what they didn't know
14:03then but we do know now is that cadmium is a top tier carcinogen it causes lung cancer and kidney
14:11cancer
14:13in january 1953 the experiment is ready to begin the army wants to study how a biological agent would
14:21spread through an entire city the question is what city the army needs cities in the united states to be
14:30an approximate match for corresponding soviet cities in the event that one day the u.s wants to carry out
14:37some sort of chemical or biological attack against a soviet city first up is a viable proxy for brutally cold
14:46leningrad minneapolis in minnesota here they want to find out how a biological weapon might get inside different
14:54types of buildings to cover up what they're doing and reassure the public they come up with the story that
14:59they're testing a smoke screen to protect the city from soviet missiles local authorities are eager to
15:05help so they sign on the army selects a range of testing locations factories office buildings but one
15:14site stands out clinton elementary school they mount sprayers on the roof and release clouds of zinc cadmium
15:25sulfide onto the surrounding building and the playground inside the school they put detectors to
15:33measure how much zinc cadmium sulfide is seeping in what the army learns from all of this is that even
15:40during the winter when everyone's largely sealed up in interior spaces the pathogen is still going to
15:48find its way into those spaces that means there is nowhere to hide from a biological attack of this sort
15:55by february 1953 the army decides to scale up the experiment how would a bioweapon spread across a
16:03bigger city like moscow they set their sights on saint louis missouri the chemical corps focuses their
16:12experiments on the pruitt aigo housing projects they put sprayers on the rooftops of all 33 towers and start
16:19pumping out zinc cadmium sulfide other sprayers are mounted inside vehicles and those squirt out
16:25toxic powder while they drive around over two years the chemical core sprays more than 2 000
16:30pounds of zinc cadmium sulfide over just 10 square miles of saint louis the results are disturbing in
16:38urban canyons between tall buildings wind turbulence disperses the particles vertically but in open spaces
16:45like parks they linger at ground level in an attack some places are going to be largely spared
16:53while others are going to be devastated next the army wants to understand the spread over multiple states
17:01so it launches its biggest experiment yet called operation lac large area coverage an aircraft is loaded
17:10with zinc cadmium sulfide and it sprays it during a flight from south dakota to minneapolis the results are
17:17alarming that's because they detect particles from that flight 1200 miles away it proves that even
17:26with a small quantity of a pathogen distributed in the air can reach a much broader geographical area
17:34over the next 10 years the u.s army chemical corps conducts 200 experiments with zinc cadmium sulfide
17:40in a geographical region stretching from the rocky mountains to the atlantic coast affecting 40 different
17:46states the chemical corps learns that a single tank of weaponized biological agent can spread disease to
17:53an area three times the size of new york city by the end of the 1960s the army has the
18:02information
18:03it needs the experiments are wrapped up and the details are buried under top secret classification
18:11the army keeps the experiments hidden for decades then in 1994 the truth is revealed
18:23when journalists publish their findings the public is outraged and rightly so these were experiments
18:29done on unwitting americans and the experiments could potentially have been deadly the army maintains
18:35that yeah cadmium may be a dangerous chemical but the amounts of exposure were so low they were non-toxic
18:44this entire operation suggests the mindset during that era of the cold war when you're talking about
18:51the survivability of the country in a biological chemical or nuclear attack there's very little that
18:57the u.s government was unwilling to do at the end of the 1940s the soviet union and china begin
19:05talks over
19:06potential alliance stalin wants a deeper understanding of chairman mao so he sends a scientist into mao's bathroom
19:18communist china's leader chairman mao zedong rolls into moscow aiming to forge an alliance with
19:24soviet premier joseph stalin stalin stalin sees mao as something less than him and he has no problem
19:29keeping him waiting in fact he keeps him waiting for days this insult is a deliberate ploy the issue is
19:36that stalin as is often the case with stalin doesn't trust mao and he's letting him wait for days on
19:42end
19:42because he wants to get into mao's head wants to figure out what makes the man tick while mao waits
19:48in
19:48moscow stalin turns to his secret police he orders the nkvd to conduct a bizarre experiment which will
19:56remain secret for over six decades he wants them to build a complete psychological profile of the chinese
20:03leader starting in a very unusual place it sounds insane but one of the ways that they plan to do
20:11this
20:11is by analyzing who he is getting a piece of him if you will they're going to analyze his poo
20:20for years the nkvd labs have been running a bizarre and top secret experimental program in
20:26scatological research that's the study of excrement to gain intelligence the theory is simple
20:34soviet scientists believe a person's ways can provide insights into their psyche
20:39stalin's team is under the impression that high levels of the amino acid tryptophan in the poo
20:45indicate a calm and approachable personality the deficiency in potassium could be an indication
20:51of a nervous and unpredictable person to run their tests the nkvd needs one key thing a sample from the
21:00chairman himself mal gets invited to the kremlin to have talks with stalin but the nkvd makes sure
21:07that those talks get delayed day after day after day while mal is waiting the kremlin staff serve up
21:14a series of elaborate banquets for him and his team huge feasts piled high with delicacies but this
21:23lavish hospitality is a trap really they're just looking to ensure that the man has to have a bowel
21:29movement there in the kremlin and they have a specially rigged toilet that they want him to use nkvd agents
21:36install special collection toilets these don't connect to the sewers instead they funnel the waste into
21:44special containers it's a dirty trick eventually the nkvd succeeds in collecting some of mao's products
21:57once collected the samples are rushed to a classified lab where a team of dedicated
22:02scientists meticulously analyze them
22:06they test for tryptophan potassium and other chemicals things that they ultimately think are
22:13going to be indicative of mao's moods the excrement experiment is reportedly a success the nkvd team
22:21sends a detailed scatological psychological portrait of mao directly to stalin the report about mao sent to
22:30stalin has never been found so the details inside it are lost to history what we do know is that
22:38after
22:38reviewing the scatological profile stalin is said to be scathing about mao's communist credentials
22:45this man is a radish he declares he's only red on the outside but his insides are white this makes
22:53stalin very wary of engaging in any significant partnerships the chinese leader leaves ma
23:00cuscal with a watered-down treaty and none of the financial support he's been hoping for
23:05stalin's scatological lab doesn't last much longer after he died in 1953 his successors didn't have the
23:11same predilections about analyzing the biochemistry of humans the experiment remains classified for the
23:19next six decades then in 2016 former russian agent igor adamanenko reveals stalin's obsessions
23:29he reports that he's found the details of this poop research and the declassified files within soviet
23:35archives revelation makes headlines worldwide as one of the cold war's most bizarre experiments is finally
23:45brought to life
23:51as world war ii comes to an end millions across europe are on the brink of famine
23:57to maintain order the u.s must figure out how to help them
24:02so far from the front lines the war department begins an extraordinary experiment
24:07but intentionally starving healthy american volunteers
24:15by 1944 allied forces are ashore in normandy they're driving the enemy and they will soon be
24:22in germany itself allied leaders are about to face a new challenge millions of civilians across the war
24:29zone are on the edge of starvation and it's going to be the job of the victors to feed them
24:34back to health
24:35To be prepared, they need to understand how people's metabolism changes as they experience malnutrition,
24:41and that has never been studied properly.
24:43Enter Dr. Ansel Keys, a physiologist at the University of Minnesota
24:49and special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of War.
24:54To solve the famine problem, Keys proposes a dangerous and controversial experiment.
25:00He wants to do a controlled study under lab conditions of human starvation and recovery from starvation.
25:08The War Department likes the plan and gives Keys its backing.
25:12Now he needs volunteers who are willing to starve for their country.
25:17To get useful results, Keys wants to use healthy young men for the experiment,
25:22but most of those are off fighting in the war.
25:25But not all of them.
25:26Keys identifies an untapped pool of healthy young men who are still in the U.S., conscientious objectors.
25:35Keys recruits using a brochure signed off on by the War Department.
25:39On the cover is a picture of starving children, with the text reading,
25:43Will you starve that they be better fed?
25:45It's an emotional appeal, but it works.
25:47More than 200 men volunteer.
25:50Keys picks 36 of the healthiest and most psychologically stable candidates to be his guinea pigs.
25:57He sets up a facility literally underneath the bleachers at the University of Minnesota,
26:01so that the men are away from prying eyes.
26:05In February 1945, the starvation phase of the experiment begins.
26:11To start, he slashes the men's daily calorie intakes in half.
26:17Keys wants to impose a reduced calorie intake, but also make the subjects burn more energy by exercising.
26:23So he puts them through the Harvard Fitness Test, which is a series of exercises that are designed to push
26:28people to the limits of their endurance.
26:30The effects of starvation are swift and shocking.
26:34The subjects drop around 20% of their body weight in the first 12 weeks.
26:41Their ribs are sticking out.
26:43They've got no energy.
26:44They're just wilting.
26:46One subject gets himself trapped in a department store's revolving door.
26:51He's just too weak to push himself through.
26:54And it's not just physical.
26:56As the weeks go by, the starving subjects are getting irritable, they're getting depressed,
26:59and, not surprisingly, they become totally obsessed with food.
27:04Two men get into a physical brawl in a canteen line over a scrap of pasta.
27:10That's how complete this obsession with food becomes for them.
27:15They're fighting even over a couple of scraps.
27:18One individual starts having visions of cannibalism.
27:22He's fantasizing about food, and he reaches the limits of his mental endurance.
27:27Let's look at that generous helping of rich, juicy barbecue.
27:31He actually sneaks out of the study, goes into town, and engages in a massive caloric binge
27:37in the form of milkshakes and ice cream sundaes.
27:40After six months, the starvation phase finally ends.
27:45Next comes the refeeding.
27:48Keyes believes that by gradually increasing the subject's calorie intake,
27:52he can safely feed them back to health without triggering any negative reaction.
27:56He splits the subjects into four groups, and the different groups get different amounts of extra food.
28:02Some groups are also given extra protein and vitamins,
28:06while others just get the base amount of carbohydrates.
28:10Now a new and dangerous problem arises.
28:13Their body weight continues to plummet, even though they're re-nourishing these test subjects.
28:20Keyes discovers that the men are shedding retained edema fluid.
28:24That's been masking just how much weight they've lost.
28:26This is a potential disaster for the study.
28:29To get the experiment back on track, Keyes decides to supersize his portions.
28:36He just doubles the calories for the groups.
28:38And to the relief of the scientific team, it works.
28:42The men finally begin to recover.
28:44Keyes realized that in re-feeding a starving population, vitamins and protein were really a luxury.
28:49It was the calories that mattered.
28:51They needed at least 4,000 calories a day.
28:55Keyes passes that information on to the War Department,
28:57who immediately put it to practical use in post-World War II Europe.
29:02Keyes wraps up the experiment in October 1945.
29:06But his complete findings remain hidden.
29:08It's not until five years later that he finally reveals the data in his masterwork,
29:14The Biology of Human Starvation.
29:18The results of the starvation experiment are used worldwide in famine relief.
29:26In 1979, Soviet scientists are secretly experimenting with deadly bacteria.
29:32And when a lab technician makes a simple mistake, an entire city will pay the price.
29:41The U.S. and the Soviets have signed a treaty banning biological weapons research.
29:45The Soviets are looking to get an edge and have no problem cheating.
29:49They're continuing research to create even more dangerous weaponized diseases.
29:55In the city of Sverdlovsk, laboratories at Compound 19 are running three shifts a day,
30:01working to develop a killer weapon using anthrax.
30:06Anthrax is a deadly disease caused by the bacteria Bacillus anthracis.
30:11If inhaled, its fatality rate is up to 90%.
30:16Even a fraction of a milligram can kill.
30:19It's perfect for a weapon because the spores are tough enough to be delivered by a bomb
30:24and small enough to disperse after the explosion as an invisible, lethal mist.
30:31Compound 19's goals are absolutely terrifying.
30:35Inside airtight chambers, scientists are testing new anthrax strains in aerosol form
30:40on monkeys hoping to create a deadly superweapon.
30:44They're attempting to create a new strain that does not respond to antibiotics.
30:51This work is incredibly dangerous, not just for the workers,
30:55but also for the citizens in the surrounding city.
30:58Compound 19 uses a complex system of filters to purify the contaminated air
31:03before it gets vented into the atmosphere outside.
31:07The lab's safety system seems foolproof,
31:09but its chain of protection is only as strong as the weakest link.
31:14On Friday, March 30th, that link snaps.
31:19A technician is finishing up the afternoon shift on an anthrax production line,
31:24and he shuts down as normal before the next shift comes on duty.
31:28He notices that there's a filter that's clogged.
31:31He takes it out, and he leaves a note letting the next shift know that,
31:35hey, I've taken it out.
31:36This needs attention.
31:38Now, this is where the safety protocols break down.
31:41The officer in charge fails to make a note in his logbook,
31:44and the technician's note gets lost.
31:47The next shift comes on, and the anthrax production line gets going again.
31:52The machinery is switched back on.
31:55What the scientists don't realize is that the critical filter is still missing.
32:02When the plant is restarted without the filter in place,
32:05it begins to pump out anthrax aerosol into the cold night air.
32:11The steady wind carries this invisible cloud of deadly spores
32:15right over the sleeping city of Sverdlovsk.
32:19It seeps into buildings, getting inhaled by unknowing citizens.
32:24No one realizes for hours that this is happening.
32:29When a technician at compound 19 finally spots the error,
32:33they shut down the line and replace the filter.
32:36But it's too late.
32:38It doesn't take long for the anthrax to take effect.
32:42The first victims have no idea what's hit them.
32:4632-year-old Ryza Shmurnova is working at a nearby ceramics factory
32:50when a co-worker notices her hands are turning blue.
32:54She's rushed to the hospital.
32:56She's feverish, struggling to breathe, and slips into a coma.
33:00Over the next few days, more people fall sick
33:03with mysterious flu-like symptoms
33:05that progress to respiratory failure
33:07and then to a horrible, choking death.
33:11Soon, the hospitals of Sverdlovsk are overwhelmed with victims.
33:17At least 64 people die.
33:20Local doctors are baffled.
33:23The symptoms are indicative of inhalation anthrax.
33:26But that almost never happens in nature.
33:29When that starts to really sink in,
33:32terror seizes the city.
33:36Kremlin officials realize that compound 19 secrets
33:40are about to be exposed.
33:43So they dispatch agents to contain the fallout.
33:47The KGB comes in and enforces a citywide cover-up.
33:52They confiscate patient files.
33:54They take autopsy reports.
33:57They even bring in trucks that spray down the town
34:00with chlorine bleach that turns the trees yellow.
34:04News of that many deaths is bound to leak out
34:07within the Soviet Union and to the West.
34:09So the Soviet authorities create a cover story.
34:12They say the deaths are caused by gastrointestinal anthrax,
34:16which is easily explainable by citizens eating contaminated meat
34:20that they bought on the black market.
34:23Moscow keeps the deadly lab leak hidden for more than a decade.
34:28Then, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapses.
34:33A new Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, comes to power
34:37and soon reveals the truth about this Ferdlosk incident.
34:43Yeltsin spills the beans.
34:45He's trying to be a good partner and demonstrate to the West
34:48that he's trustworthy, and he lets it be known that,
34:52no, it had nothing to do with black market meat.
34:54Harvard bioweapons expert Matthew Meselson
34:56gets permission to investigate further.
34:59He travels to Sverdlovsk, he tracks down survivors,
35:03and he talks to the families of the dead.
35:05He confirms exactly what Yeltsin's admitted to.
35:09This was caused by military development.
35:14In 1994, Meselson finally publishes his research paper,
35:18and it conclusively reveals that the Sverdlovsk incident
35:22was caused by weapons research at compound 19.
35:27That accident caused the deadliest recorded anthrax outbreak
35:32in human history.
35:36After the U.S. drops two nuclear bombs on Japan,
35:40World War II is over.
35:41But the plutonium core of a third bomb is ready
35:44and waiting at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
35:48Scientists put it to use there,
35:50in experiments that are so dangerous,
35:53they name it the Demon Core.
35:59The war is won,
36:01and America's atomic whiz kids
36:03are now working to master
36:05the apocalyptic power they've unleashed.
36:08Louis Slotin is a 35-year-old physics prodigy
36:11working at Los Alamos Lab.
36:13He has a pretty impressive resume.
36:15He's a veteran of the Manhattan Project,
36:18and he's also known as a bit of a cowboy,
36:20both in his style of dress
36:22as well as his fearless approach to science.
36:26He's doing experiments to understand
36:28how to make the plutonium bomb more efficient.
36:32He is a physicist who is absolutely brilliant,
36:35but he certainly is someone who's willing to bend the rules
36:37if it helps to enhance his persona as a risk-taker.
36:42In May 1946,
36:44just weeks before he's set to leave Los Alamos
36:47for a teaching job,
36:48Slotin heads into the lab to show his replacement
36:51how to do his signature experiment,
36:53working directly on the leftover plutonium bomb core.
36:58The core is a softball-sized sphere
37:01of weaponized plutonium alloy.
37:04It's so radioactive that it's warm to the touch.
37:08It's so dangerous that it's given the nickname
37:10the demon core.
37:12The demon core is constantly emitting
37:14subatomic particles called neutrons.
37:16If those neutrons can escape freely,
37:18the core remains stable.
37:19But if those neutrons are somehow trapped in the core
37:22and build up,
37:23it'll become unstable and effectively become a bomb.
37:27His mentor, the nuclear pioneer Enrico Fermi,
37:31warns him about the experiment.
37:32If you keep doing it, you'll be dead within the year.
37:35But he keeps on doing it.
37:37The audience is transfixed
37:38as Slotin gets to work on the demon core.
37:41To get his data,
37:42Slotin must intentionally edge the demon core
37:45toward an explosion
37:47while trying to stop just short of triggering one.
37:51He lowers a neutron-reflecting beryllium shell
37:54over the demon core
37:56and measures how many neutrons
37:58start building up inside it.
38:00This is incredibly useful for the scientists,
38:03but also incredibly dangerous.
38:05The closer the shell gets to the core,
38:08the closer the core comes to a supercritical state.
38:11If the beryllium shell closes completely
38:14over the demon core,
38:15the energy inside will build up to
38:18supercriticality in a catastrophic instant.
38:20And that means either a burst of radiation
38:23or an all-out explosion.
38:26Los Alamos has rules for everything.
38:28You need to, right?
38:30You're dealing with some of the most dangerous substances on Earth.
38:32And the regulations Los Alamos puts in place
38:35is to use wooden spacers
38:38to keep the two hemispheres of these shells apart.
38:41Slotin, however, as the cowboy,
38:43decides to do it his own way.
38:45Instead of wooden spacers,
38:47he uses a flathead screwdriver
38:48to wedge open these two shells
38:51just enough to keep it from going critical.
38:55It's a reckless method, but it works.
38:57In his left hand, he holds the shell of the core.
39:00In the right hand, a screwdriver
39:01with a flat tip just between the two halves of the hemisphere.
39:06After tempting fate,
39:08Slotin's luck finally runs out.
39:11The screwdriver slips,
39:12and the gap snaps shut.
39:15There's a silent, blinding flash of blue light.
39:21And then a wave of heat sweeps across the river.
39:26Radiation is expanded in every direction.
39:29Slotin knows it's too late for him to run.
39:31He immediately lunges forward
39:32and rips the beryllium shell off with his bare hands.
39:36This quick decision breaks the chain reaction
39:38and puts the demon core back to sleep.
39:40He saves the lives of the other men in the room,
39:42but it's too late for him.
39:44Being so close to the demon core,
39:46Slotin's absorbed a massive dose of radiation.
39:51Slotin's left hand feels like it's on fire.
39:54A sour, metallic taste fills his mouth.
39:57As he leaves the room, he begins to vomit uncontrollably.
40:03On the way to the hospital,
40:05On the way to the hospital,
40:05Slotin turns to one of the observers and he apologizes.
40:08I'm sorry I got you into this,
40:10but I have less than a 50% chance of living.
40:13And even that was optimistic.
40:17Over the next nine days,
40:21Slotin's body slowly disintegrates.
40:23He has what's known as three-dimensional burns,
40:26which is essentially a sunburn inside of his body.
40:30He also has gangrene and massive organ failure.
40:33On May 30th, he dies in agony,
40:37a victim of the demon core.
40:43Although Slotin's death makes the papers,
40:45for decades, the full details of his fatal demon core experiment
40:50are buried under top-secret classification,
40:53hidden for over a quarter of a century.
40:57Finally, in 1989,
41:00The New York Times publishes the full story
41:03and reveal the true horror of the demon core experiments
41:07to an unsuspecting public.
41:11From toxic tests in black-site labs
41:14to bold ideas that push back the boundaries of human knowledge,
41:18governments have long conducted extraordinary experiments in secret.
41:23Though it may take years,
41:24the covert science eventually finds its way into the light.
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