7 (Crazy) Civilian Uses for Nuclear Bombs

Summary

April 10, 2009: In the 1950s and 1960s, the United States government sponsored Project Plowshare, which investigated possible civilian uses of nuclear weapons. Among the possible uses were:

• Creating a harbor.
• Digging a large canal.
• Spaceflight - the orion drive

Source

Bibliography

1. Original article

Game and Story Use

• All of these uses are appropriate for science fiction campaigns based on period B-movies. Raygun gothic, for example, pretty much runs on "atom power" and so treating atomic devices as simply a substitute for conventional explosives is par for the course. Atom Punk and Rocket Punk are the same basic genre with the stringency turned up and the optimism down.