There are ideas that work in theory, but not in reality. There are ideas that sound dubious to begin with, but then work out in the end. This idea is neither of the latter. It’s bad/stupid/preposterous/absurd in every single possible way. Oscar Newman, a city planner and architect, had the notion to protect New York City from nuclear attack during the coldest of wars. Hey, that’s not so bad. Wait, what’s that? He wanted to do this by recreating the metropolis underground in a massive orb?
Oh god… why…
Yes, the idea is exactly as ridiculous as it sounds and here’s why. New York City is big, really big. I’m no mathologist but I’m pretty sure its population in 1969 – when the plan was proposed – was close to 37 million. That’s a lot of people to move and a lot of room they’re gonna need. And spheres make efficient use of space, so it might be sorta somewhat doable.. right? No. No way. At all. Ever.
On his science book blog John Ptak puts the size of the underground city at a volume of 1.2 cubic miles, meaning it would be one of the biggest man-made holes in the world, so just it’s basic construction would be an immense undertaking. Newman’s answer to this? Use the stuff we’re trying to protect the city from to make that hole. Yep, he wanted to nuke the ground under Manhattan, hoping it would magically create a large gap in the earth and not suffer the effects of radiation.
He has to be joking right? He had to acknowledge there was some faults to his plan, didn’t he? Don’t worry, he did.
“…the real problem in an underground city would be the lack of views and fresh air…”
You read that correctly. Oscar’s biggest concern was that the view wouldn’t be pretty and the air wouldn’t be fresh. Nevermind the eternal darkness, lack of running water, or the fact that no sane person would ever consider moving there. And he even had a plan to make up for the lack of views.
Notice how the city is only built halfway up the sphere? That’s because he planned for the giant dome ceiling to be a backdrop for projections, so the populace of New New New York (extra ‘new’ thanks to Matt Groening) could gaze up at their maddening creating and see images of the world they moved away from. Oh, and ads for Coca-Cola.
Sorry Charles Carron, you just lost your title of chief crazy engineer.
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Pictures and Information courtesy of: Ptak via io9.
As always, if YOU have an idea for a Historical Thursday, let me know at thereifixedit@gmail.com
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Ha, that’s great
Thanks again NSHA 
That’s New New York? Futurama lies!!!
Words fail me….
How about a movie then?
It’s what I thought of immediately.
Loved that book!
In fairness, it is quite possible to create nuclear weapons which sacrifice yield-to-weight ratio for greater cleanness. The cleanest atom bomb ever built was the Tsar Bomba – as it had a theoretical yield of 100 Mt, it was necessary to reduce the device yield for a real test to even be possible. This was done by replacing the uranium-238 tamper with lead, meaning that 97% of the energy resulted from fusion alone.
You are correct that radiation per kiloton can be reduced, however given the proposed location the fast moving neutrons would irradiate the surrounding rock. Thus still causing huge dangers.
Interesting idea.
Wikipedia says it gets warmer as you go deeper underground. and that the standard geothermal gradient is 22°C per km of depth (others suggest 20 to 30 degrees).
The bottom of that hole appears to be about 5 Empire State Buildings deep, which is 443m x 5 = 2.2 km. So we might expect an air temperature of 40 to 50 degrees C (104 to 122 F), not counting the heat that the people and machines will generate.
But perhaps the atomic-powered air conditioners will keep things pleasant.
It is indeed possible to use a nuke to make a big hole underground – that’s what underground nuclear testing effectively does.
Of course, there are a few drawbacks, namely;
The effect on surface structures (akin to an earthquake, and given the size of the desired cavern, you can bet it’d be a biggie)
Making sure you plant the nuke deep enough. If you don’t, you end up with a sink-hole almost a kilometer across, right under central Manhattan.
The radiation is less of an issue. The primary source would be neutron activation of atoms in the surrounding rock, which generally produce pretty short-lived isotopes (I’m generalising, obviously). Since the cavern would have to be lined with some pretty thick reinforcement anyways, there would be quite a bit of shielding around it (good thing too, since IIRC Manhattan is on Granite, which is slightly radioactive anyway).
As Hawkins says, the big issue is thermodynamics. Whilst you could probably exploit the thermal gradient for power generation, you’d still have a heck of a job maintaining a habitable environment, not to mention controlling the humidity (and of course, you’d have to have some pretty heavy-duty pumps to keep the ground-water out).
Yep. Compared to that, the small caverns that they wanted to create during the project Plowshare look pretty small…
Goodnight, Zion…
watch the Japanese anime, Neon Genesis: Evangelion, 1995 & 1997 releases.
but instead of NY it’s set in Tokyo.
a truly mind-blowing experience…
Tokyo 3 actually, the city being built on top of the geofront after the primary excavation had been completed.
And if you have to ask what happened to Tokyo and Tokyo 2 then you haven’t watched enough Gojira (Godzilla) movies.
Perhaps not, but I’ve certainly seen enough Godzilla to know where this is going…
Tokyo (1) and Tokyo 2 were still there in the anime. One of those cities were in the path of the Jet Alone when it ran amock.
It’s like nuclear fallout shelter on steroids. And crack. And some more crack. With a side of meth.
The author is most certainly not a ‘mathologist’, the population of New York City in 1969 was less than 8 million, about the same as today actually.
The notion to create a hollow sphere via explosion is also quite ludicrous, radiation is not the main concern, the main concern is that an underground explosion will at most crack the underground material, it will certainly not displace it entirely or make it disappear.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Explosions_for_the_National_Economy
Judging be the ONE SIGN below ground I’d have to say no steroids, no crack, just Coca-Cola…
As long as I have Captain Morgan for the Coca-Cola….we’ll be ok.
I like it…what are we waiting for?
Anybody seen ‘A Boy and His Dog’ made in 1975?
“A post-apocalyptic tale based on a novella by Harlan Ellison. A boy communicates telepathically with his dog as they scavenge for food and sex, and they stumble into an underground society where the old society is preserved. The daughter of one of the leaders of the community seduces and lures him below, where the citizens have become unable to reproduce because of being underground so long” [they have also gone quite insane... and there is no coca-cola]
Thanks; download it as we speak.
s/download/downloading
I didn’t think of “download” as an error. I just thought you were demanding!
Wow, I just watched that whole movie on YouTube. I did not have high expectations, being a 1975 apocalyptic sci-fi type thing, yet….it was quite entertaining….and weird as sh*t in the second half. However, thank you for broadening my horizons a little farther.
Looks like the Hive to me.
“It is every citizen’s final duty to go into the tanks and become one with all the people”.
Looks like Vault 101 to me.
Dis1guy…my thoughts exactly. I almost started crying in my coffee when reading all these posts essentially disproving the possibility that I will have a telepathic dog.
Population of 37 million??? C’mon new york city only has 8 million habitants on this days, where do you get that information?
DO IT
NUKE THE ROCKS, WHATVE THEY EVER DONE FOR YOU
MAKE THE CITY. BUILD IT. BUILD THE VAULT. DO IT.
THEN NUKE THE VAULT. DO IT.
XD
lol @ 37 million
For me, it calls to mind the movie “The Truman Show”. A city, hermetically sealed from the outside, with an artificial sky. All it needs is Ed Harris controlling things from his office behind the moon.
Aperture Science Emergency Human Survival Spheres, Yep they are an offshoot of the Aperture Science Testing Spheres. Built to protect mankind from Black Mesa, you can get one today!
Cave Johnson, were done here.
+1 intrawebz to you sir.
The Vaults in Fallout are as well mostly social experiments. This doesn’t seem to be that far away.
“Brave new world” from HG Wells, War of the Worlds proposed by the infantryman.
Brave New World was written by Aldous Huxley.
Aucun d’entre vous n’a jamais lu Isaac Asimov? L’idée est excellente et sera même utilisé dans très longtemps! Non mais! Et l’air climatisé? Les robots cultiverons les champs pendant que nous travaillerons a l’intérieur d’énorme Cité en acier et en béton sans jamais voir la lumière du jour! Nous la craindrons même!!!
Bande d’inculte!
(sans rancune!!! hehehe)
lol French.
Lol. Surrending monkeys
Someone tell Mr Frederson there’s a bit of water seeping into the Worker’s City
GEOFROUNT!!! GET ME MA EVA!!!!
It’s the City of Ember!!!!
why is there a hole about a mile up in the sphere? wouldn’t that just make people fall from the sky?