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00:00:01
previously gathered evidence indicated00:00:04
that on the night of the accident the00:00:05
three-man crew was in the process of00:00:07
connecting the control blades00:00:09
to the drive mechanism when the00:00:11
excursion occurred00:00:12
the excursion in question was a steam00:00:15
explosion that occurred near00:00:16
idaho falls idaho on january 3rd 1961.00:00:20
the sl1 or stationary low power reactor00:00:23
number one an experimental nuclear power reactor00:00:25
developed by the united states army00:00:27
had destroyed itself in milliseconds00:00:30
investigators said it was human error00:00:32
the army said it was the messy result of00:00:34
a sordid love triangle00:00:37
conspiracy theorists said it was a00:00:38
murder-suicide00:00:40
there is still some controversy about00:00:42
what happened that night to this day00:00:44
but what is absolutely clear is that the00:00:46
reactors only three operators had died00:00:49
with no warning00:00:50
and no witnesses and it was someone's00:00:52
fault00:00:53
this is the true story of america's00:00:56
first nuclear meltdown00:01:04
the sl1 reactor and the buildings that00:01:06
housed it were located at the national00:01:08
reactor testing station00:01:09
approximately 40 miles west of idaho00:01:12
falls idaho00:01:13
part of the army nuclear power program00:01:15
sl1 was designed and prototyped on site00:01:17
from 1957 to 195800:01:20
and became operational that december its00:01:22
goal was to prove that00:01:24
miniaturized nuclear reactors were00:01:26
viable for army operations00:01:28
able to provide electrical and heating00:01:29
power to remote locations00:01:31
like the arctic but sl1 was just one00:01:34
reactor in the us military's ambitious00:01:36
plan to harness nuclear power00:01:38
in all its forms in the august 195800:01:41
a u.s navy reactor developed at the00:01:43
testing station became the beating heart00:01:45
of the world's first nuclear submarine00:01:47
the uss nautilus00:01:49
which used the relatively inexhaustible00:01:51
energy source to dive00:01:52
underneath the north pole putting all00:01:55
the world's militaries00:01:56
on high alert at the other end of the00:01:59
sprawling idaho station00:02:00
the u.s air force was rerouting hundreds00:02:02
of millions of dollars towards a00:02:04
nuclear-powered jet aircraft that could00:02:06
stay aloft00:02:07
more or less forever the tiny sl100:02:11
reactor by contrast00:02:12
the smallest in development was not00:02:14
nearly as flashy and didn't get the00:02:16
attention or the funding that the00:02:17
promise of a nuclear jet00:02:19
or nuclear submarine commanded what it00:02:21
did get00:02:22
on the night of january 3rd 1961 was the00:02:24
maintenance efforts of three young men00:02:27
army specialists richard mckinley and00:02:29
john burns00:02:30
and navy electrician first class richard00:02:32
legg00:02:34
none of them were above 30 years old00:02:36
john burns00:02:37
was just 22.00:02:40
trouble was already brewing years before00:02:43
the accident00:02:44
john burns and richard legge hated each00:02:46
other they had gotten into drunken fist00:02:48
fights at prostitute-filled parties00:02:50
and leg had problems with authority he00:02:53
had been caught sleeping in his car00:02:55
while on duty00:02:56
he kicked his feet up on instrument00:02:57
panels and he would set off alarms00:02:59
intentionally just to startle his00:03:01
crewmates a month before the explosion00:03:04
legs showed up to work trunk in the00:03:07
january of 196100:03:08
it was richard mckinley's third week on00:03:10
the job and he was still learning the00:03:12
ropes uncomfortable00:03:13
with all the readings and instruments00:03:16
these were the men00:03:17
tasked with restarting a cold nuclear00:03:19
reactor containing 14 kilograms of00:03:21
uranium-23500:03:23
on a frigid idaho evening00:03:26
shut down for christmas and new year's00:03:28
sl-1 was to be brought back to life by00:03:30
burns00:03:31
leg and mckinley on the third day of00:03:33
1961.00:03:34
the most important part of this process00:03:37
was lifting the central control rod00:03:39
manually just four inches to reconnect00:03:42
it to its drive mechanism00:03:44
burns leg subordinate that night00:03:46
prepared to lift the more than 80 pound00:03:48
rod with his bare hands00:03:49
while legs stood with him at the top of00:03:51
the reactor00:03:52
mckinley paced nearby at 901 pm00:03:56
a reactor that was rated for 20000:03:58
kilowatts of power generation00:04:00
spiked to 100 000 times that amount00:04:04
20 gigawatts in just four milliseconds00:04:08
the men didn't know it but this00:04:09
minuscule moment00:04:11
much faster than the blink of an eye was00:04:13
the rest of their lives00:04:17
nuclear physics is hard but how nuclear00:04:20
physics creates vast amounts of00:04:21
electricity00:04:22
is easy nuclear material naturally emits00:04:24
particles as it decays which can impact00:04:27
other material and00:04:28
impart a tiny amount of energy as heat00:04:30
if you put a bunch of nuclear material00:04:32
close together on purpose00:04:33
as is the case in a nuclear reactor00:04:35
radioactive decay will heat up other00:04:37
radioactive material causing it to heat00:04:40
up and shoot out even more particles now we00:04:43
have a critical mass00:04:44
that will undergo a chain reaction all00:04:47
by itself00:04:48
what stops this runaway reaction is00:04:50
other materials that get in the way00:04:52
absorbing those particles by moving00:04:54
these so-called control rods00:04:57
up and down in a nuclear reactor you can00:04:59
precisely control how much heat is00:05:01
produced00:05:02
reactors then use this heat to turn00:05:04
water into steam00:05:05
and steam into electricity if anything00:05:08
were to go really wrong at a nuclear00:05:09
power plant00:05:10
control rods would probably be involved00:05:14
the sl1 nuclear reactor used water in00:05:16
two ways00:05:17
as something to turn into steam and as a00:05:19
fluid to slow down the neutrons00:05:21
the particles that start and continue00:05:23
nuclear chain reactions00:05:24
flying out from the fuel rods you see00:05:27
not every neutron has the right energy00:05:29
to continue a chain reaction00:05:31
faster neutrons are actually worse than00:05:34
slower neutrons inside of a reactor00:05:36
and so water a very dense fluid can act00:05:39
as a so-called00:05:40
moderator to help continue the heat00:05:42
production by slowing down particles00:05:45
what's more the water in a reactor like00:05:47
sl1 can act like a fail-safe00:05:49
if too much heat is generated water00:05:51
molecules move apart and expand into00:05:53
steam00:05:54
inside of the reactor now there are00:05:57
voids and less water to moderate too many fast00:06:00
neutrons are flying around00:06:01
and the number of fissions decrease00:06:03
drastically00:06:05
the reactor gets cooler and safer on the00:06:07
path towards shutdown00:06:10
in the interest of simplicity in00:06:11
reducing size sl100:06:13
only had five control rods as a00:06:16
comparison00:06:17
the chernobyl reactor number four had00:06:19
211.00:06:21
because of the small number of control00:06:23
rods and their orientation inside of sl100:06:26
the center control rod was immensely00:06:28
powerful00:06:29
moving it could drastically change the00:06:31
amount of radioactivity in the vessel00:06:33
shove the central rod number nine all00:06:35
the way to the bottom of the reactor and00:06:37
it would shut any reaction down00:06:39
and pull it all the way up and it could00:06:41
start up the reactor00:06:42
all by itself make no mistake building a00:06:45
prototype reactor like this was00:06:47
inherently00:06:48
less safe than other larger reactors00:06:51
most of these larger reactors followed a00:06:53
design protocol that held00:06:54
that no single control rod should be00:06:56
this powerful should be able to shut00:06:58
down or start up a reactor00:06:59
all by itself as it would take just one00:07:02
stuck rod00:07:03
to create a deadly situation00:07:06
as fate would have it the control rods00:07:08
inside of sl1 had a habit00:07:10
of getting stuck between february of00:07:12
1959 and december of 196000:07:15
the five control rods malfunctioned a00:07:17
total of 6300:07:18
separate times the central control rod00:07:21
had malfunctioned00:07:22
seven times in response the army told00:07:25
its operators to00:07:26
exercise the rods regularly move them up00:07:29
and down to prevent them from sticking00:07:30
in the future00:07:31
but the rods weren't the only problem00:07:33
all the way up until 196100:07:35
corrosion inside sl1 was building up00:07:38
bearings were00:07:39
wearing down rods were getting00:07:40
misaligned00:07:42
15 days before the accident two of the00:07:44
rods inside of sl1 had to be hit with00:07:46
pipe wrenches in order to work them00:07:48
loose00:07:50
on the night of january 3rd john burns00:07:52
was leaning over a demonstrably00:07:54
unreliable control rod number 900:07:56
preparing to lift it just a few inches00:07:58
as a part of routine maintenance00:08:00
richard legge was watching over his00:08:02
shoulder richard mckinley was standing00:08:04
just a few feet away00:08:06
at least this was where their corpses00:08:09
suggested they were00:08:14
the difference between a nuclear reactor00:08:16
and a nuclear bomb can be as simple as a00:08:18
speed of neutrons00:08:19
when a large nucleus gets cleaved in two00:08:21
during a fission event00:08:22
there are two kinds of neutrons that fly00:08:24
out the first are so called00:08:26
prompt neutrons which are the particles00:08:28
that are launched outwards in less than00:08:30
10000:08:31
trillionth of a second the second kind00:08:33
of neutrons00:08:34
are the delayed neutrons which are00:08:36
produced by fission products00:08:37
a few fractions of a second later00:08:40
nuclear reactors take advantage of00:08:41
delayed neutrons in order to control the00:08:43
energy released00:08:45
nuclear weapons on the other hand want00:08:47
to produce as many00:08:48
prompt neutrons as possible creating an00:08:50
avalanche of additional fissions that00:08:52
release energy00:08:53
as quickly as possible when a reaction00:08:56
like this kicks off00:08:57
it's unsurprisingly called going prompt00:08:59
critical00:09:00
and it's a condition that would be an00:09:02
absolute disaster00:09:03
inside of a sealed reactor water and00:09:06
nuclear material would instantly00:09:08
vaporize circumventing the natural00:09:10
fail-safe of a water-moderated vessel00:09:12
and create a situation closer to a00:09:13
nuclear bomb00:09:15
than to a source of electricity at 7 pm00:09:18
john burns got a phone call it was his00:09:20
wife arlene00:09:22
calling the sl1 facility to ask john for00:09:24
a divorce00:09:26
according to todd tucker in his book on00:09:27
the subject atomic america00:09:29
john and arlene's last conversation00:09:31
ended with a discussion of how to split00:09:33
his paycheck00:09:34
jon would hang up the phone exhausted00:09:37
having slept on a friend's couch00:09:38
the last two nights and because of his00:09:41
frequent head butting with the powers00:09:42
that be at the national reactor testing00:09:44
station he was now personally and professionally00:09:47
stuck00:09:48
with the unglamorous unloved sl1 reactor00:09:52
this was all going on simultaneously in00:09:54
the mind of a man who at 9pm that night00:09:57
finally reached the point in his long00:09:59
list of duties that involved moving the00:10:00
central control rod00:10:02
of sl1 with his supervisor leg00:10:05
literally breathing down his neck and a00:10:07
soon to be over marriage surely clouding00:10:09
his mind00:10:10
burns hunched over the almost 100-pound00:10:12
rod a rod that often got stuck00:10:14
a rod that could start the reactor all00:10:16
by itself if handled improperly00:10:18
and prepared to move it just four inches00:10:21
upward and no further00:10:23
operators of sl1 knew what would happen00:10:26
if you lost focus00:10:27
and pulled the central control rod up00:10:29
too far00:10:30
according to susan m stacy in proving00:10:32
the principle00:10:33
when asked whether or not the operators00:10:35
knew the reactor would go00:10:37
prompt critical if the central control00:10:38
rod were fully removed00:10:40
one responded quote of course we often00:10:44
talked about what we would do if we were00:10:45
at a radar station and the russians came00:10:47
we'd yank it out end quote00:10:51
in other words improperly removing the00:10:53
central control rod00:10:55
would immediately kill everyone in the00:10:57
building00:10:58
just 60 seconds later at 901 pm00:11:01
this is exactly what happened as the00:11:04
report completed years later would00:11:05
conclude00:11:06
burns withdrew the central control rod00:11:08
many inches too far00:11:09
and just four milliseconds later a power00:11:11
surge of00:11:12
10 million percent above normal00:11:14
operation00:11:15
explosively vaporized the core of sl100:11:19
cooling water was blasted upwards by00:11:20
this vaporized fuel and struck the top00:11:22
of the vessel with an extreme amount of00:11:24
momentum00:11:25
enough to lift the entire 26 thousand00:11:28
pound apparatus over nine feet into the air00:11:32
the plugs at the top of the reactor were00:11:34
forced open by the over00:11:36
500 pounds per square inch of pressure00:11:38
and the control rods were fired00:11:40
like missiles at the ceiling00:11:43
the entire reactor room was instantly00:11:46
filled with burning steam00:11:47
contaminated water and fragments of the00:11:50
radioactive core00:11:51
sl1 had just gone prompt critical00:11:55
later experiments would show that the00:11:56
explosion that night was the equivalent00:11:58
of 32 kilograms00:12:00
of tnt and all that energy was released00:12:03
directly into the bodies of leg mckinley00:12:06
and burns there was no one else in the00:12:09
building00:12:11
[Music]00:12:14
long long00:12:17
short this was the sequence of alarm00:12:20
bells that told the firefighters eight00:12:21
miles away00:12:22
that something at the sl1 site was wrong00:12:25
heat sensors had been tripped above the00:12:26
reactor00:12:27
but the six person team on the way00:12:29
wasn't particularly worried00:12:31
they had already responded to not one00:12:33
but two false alarms at the site00:12:35
earlier that same day so when they got00:12:37
to the building's unguarded gate00:12:39
at 9 10 pm they were expecting another00:12:42
non-incident what they were not00:12:44
expecting was that the radiation00:12:46
detectors00:12:47
were blaring seven minutes later at 9 1700:12:50
p.m00:12:51
a health physicist and a fireman donned00:12:53
masks and air tanks00:12:55
and approached the reactor building00:12:56
stairs halfway up00:12:58
the radiation detectors started ticking00:13:00
and ticking fast00:13:02
they were treated down the stairs for00:13:03
another detector theirs must have been00:13:05
broken they00:13:06
thought there was no way radiation00:13:07
levels inside were that high00:13:10
they returned and found the same00:13:12
worrying readings but this time they00:13:13
took a look into the reactor room00:13:15
the operators were nowhere to be found00:13:18
with enough radiation around them to be00:13:20
dangerously dosing them in minutes00:13:22
the men again retreated emergency crews00:13:26
didn't enter the building for over an00:13:28
hour the radiation levels were high enough00:13:30
that a plan had to be formulated first00:13:32
so at 10 45 pm it was decided that only00:13:35
one entry into the building was allowed per00:13:37
person and that that00:13:38
entry was limited to just 60 seconds00:13:42
when the first team of five men entered00:13:43
the building they found two heavily00:13:45
mutilated men00:13:47
burns was dead mckinley was moaning00:13:50
nearby00:13:52
both were soaking wet with irradiated00:13:53
water both were removed by stretcher and00:13:56
by the same ambulance00:13:58
15 minutes later however mckinley was00:14:01
dead00:14:02
two of sl-1's three operators were00:14:04
accounted for00:14:05
the third was discovered last because he00:14:08
was barely recognizable00:14:11
shaken men reported back at 11 38 pm00:14:14
after the latest pass through the00:14:15
destroyed site00:14:16
they had seen something stuck to the00:14:19
ceiling a lifeless clump they initially thought00:14:22
was a bundle of rags00:14:24
it was the body of richard legg rod00:14:27
number seven had been launched from the00:14:29
reactor vessel00:14:30
like a rocket and impaled him through00:14:32
his groin and shoulder00:14:34
to the top of the building while the00:14:37
body of john burns and richard mckinley00:14:39
were easily removed00:14:40
the body of richard legge posed a00:14:42
problem it was pinned by control rod00:14:44
7 directly above the now obliterated00:14:47
reactor core00:14:48
emergency crews were worried that leg's00:14:50
body might fall back00:14:51
into the reactor core during retrieval00:14:53
and if it was covered in enough00:14:55
radioactive material00:14:56
or if control rod 7 still had enough00:14:58
fuel in it it might cause the reactor to00:15:00
go critical00:15:01
a second time so while the bodies of00:15:04
burns and mckinley were taken by00:15:05
ambulance to the nearby chemical00:15:07
processing plant a makeshift hot room00:15:09
for the corpses on the night of january00:15:11
3rd it would be00:15:12
almost a week before leg's body would00:15:15
join theirs00:15:16
on january 9th a team of 10 men used00:15:19
sharp hooks00:15:20
on long poles to pull leg's body free00:15:23
from the control rod piercing it00:15:25
it dropped onto this stretcher attached00:15:27
to a crane leaning in from outside the00:15:29
building00:15:30
the explosion of sl1 remains the only00:15:33
fatal reactor accident00:15:35
in united states history00:15:40
at the time of the accident there was00:15:41
maybe only a single man00:15:43
on earth who had performed an autopsy on00:15:45
a radioactive corpse00:15:47
that man was dr clarence lushbaugh00:15:50
almost exactly two years before sl100:15:52
exploded00:15:53
dr lashbaugh had put a man named cecil00:15:55
kelly's brain in a mayonnaise jar00:15:57
and sent eight pounds of his tissues00:15:58
around the country after kelly died in a00:16:00
criticality accident00:16:02
at los alamos national laboratory but00:16:04
that's a longer story00:16:06
for another time dr lushbaugh boarded a00:16:09
military dc-3 in los alamos00:16:11
at 2 30 p.m on january 8 196100:16:14
and arrived in idaho four hours later00:16:17
reportedly00:16:18
officials in idaho were grateful for his00:16:20
availability00:16:22
when lushbo and his team arrived they00:16:23
found three bodies waiting for them00:16:25
inside of the decontamination room of00:16:27
the idaho chemical processing plant00:16:28
an improvised hot room after sl100:16:31
exploded00:16:32
the remains of burns and mckinley were00:16:34
in stainless steel tanks filled with00:16:35
alcohol00:16:36
and ice for preservation and leg was00:16:38
still in the lead cask he was placed00:16:40
inside after descending from the ceiling his00:16:42
body was far too radioactive to be in00:16:44
the open air00:16:46
to process these bodies dr lashbaugh's00:16:48
team would have to get creative00:16:50
each body was heavily mutilated and so00:16:52
radioactive00:16:53
that it wouldn't be safe to be in the00:16:55
same room with them00:16:56
according to the actual transcript of00:16:58
lush boss original autopsy report00:17:00
quote since bodies emanating such high00:17:03
levels of radioactivity had never been00:17:05
encountered previously00:17:06
modifications of the usual autopsy00:17:08
procedures and techniques00:17:10
had to be improvised upon the basis of00:17:12
radiologic safety procedures and common00:17:14
sense00:17:15
the personnel who made these00:17:16
examinations comprised a well-trained00:17:18
team of five health physicists00:17:20
one radio biologist one pathologist and00:17:23
two physicians00:17:24
end quote an improvised autopsy table00:17:27
was created from saw horses00:17:28
and a stainless steel tray knives hooks00:17:32
and hacksaws were attached onto lengths00:17:34
of galvanized steel pipes00:17:35
by a nearby welding shop the team00:17:38
wouldn't be able to get anywhere near00:17:40
the bodies with parts of them as00:17:41
radioactive as they were00:17:43
so lush buck cut them off quote00:17:46
leg's head which appeared to be the00:17:48
major source of the prohibitive00:17:49
radiation level00:17:50
had been damaged by the blast beyond00:17:52
recognition there could be seen some00:17:54
obvious cervical fractures which00:17:56
appeared to make feasible00:17:58
the separation of the head from the body00:18:00
this operation was then carried out with00:18:02
a specially prepared knife00:18:04
long handled hook and wire snare00:18:06
controlled through a 10-foot pipe handle00:18:09
the remains of the head were placed in a00:18:10
lead cave 20 feet from the cask00:18:13
end quote again according to the 196800:18:17
book atomic america by todd tucker00:18:19
large chunks of burns leg and mckinley00:18:21
were quote00:18:22
sliced sawed and hacked off by loshbaw00:18:26
and then placed in a drum and buried in00:18:28
the idaho desert00:18:29
as radioactive waste end quote00:18:32
rushed by radiation each autopsy only00:18:35
took lush spa between00:18:36
15 and 20 minutes00:18:41
dr lashbaugh determined the cause of00:18:42
death for each man richard mckinley bled00:18:45
out after his hand and the right side of his00:18:47
face was blown off during the explosion00:18:49
john burns quote died the instant he00:18:52
struck a flat surface that fractured his00:18:54
chest and drove a rib through his heart and00:18:57
richard's leg quote00:18:58
died instantaneously from the00:19:00
destruction of his viscera by rapidly00:19:02
expanding gases that penetrated his00:19:04
abdominal cavity along with a heavy00:19:06
missile00:19:07
in examining the bodies lush ball was00:19:09
able to place the men00:19:10
the instant before sl1 went prompt00:19:12
critical00:19:13
this answered the question of how but00:19:16
not the question of why00:19:18
why did john burns remove the rod like00:19:20
he did that night00:19:21
was it an accident a suicide00:19:24
or something else00:19:27
[Music]00:19:28
thankfully most of the radiation00:19:30
released by the sl1 explosion was00:19:32
contained inside the building00:19:34
this allowed the general electric00:19:35
corporation to remove the reactor vessel00:19:38
and clean the contaminated buildings00:19:39
from 1961 to 1962.00:19:42
on may 21 1961 ge constructed a burial00:19:46
ground00:19:47
sixteen hundred feet northeast of the00:19:48
original site of the reactor00:19:50
and sealed 99 000 cubic feet of00:19:53
contaminated material00:19:54
underground the bodies of mckinley00:19:58
burns and leg were not returned to their00:20:00
families00:20:01
they were instead placed in lead line00:20:03
caskets inside of metal vaults00:20:06
and covered with concrete richard00:20:09
mckinley john burns and richard legg had died00:20:12
during america's first nuclear meltdown00:20:14
on a frigid night in rural idaho there00:20:17
were no witnesses00:20:18
based on the circumstantial evidence it00:20:20
was either an accident suicide00:20:22
or murder it's not surprising that the00:20:25
story of an00:20:26
unstable john burns just off the phone00:20:28
with his now ex-wife who is00:20:30
possibly having an affair with richard00:20:32
leg committing a murder-suicide with a00:20:34
prototype nuclear reactor00:20:35
is the story that gets retold the most00:20:38
often00:20:39
and you'd be hard-pressed to find any00:20:41
retelling of the story of sl100:20:43
that didn't include these details00:20:46
however00:20:47
according to the final report which took00:20:49
almost two years to complete and involve00:20:51
literally hundreds of scientists experts00:20:53
and engineers00:20:54
from a dozen different research and00:20:56
government entities no evidence of a00:20:58
love triangle or murder-suicide was ever00:21:00
found the best explanation00:21:03
as mock-ups and experiments testing00:21:04
every aspect of that knight demonstrated00:21:07
was that the central control rod number00:21:08
nine was likely stuck00:21:10
as it had been stuck many times before00:21:12
and burns pulled the rod up too far00:21:14
while attempting to free it this wasn't00:21:17
anywhere near as exciting as a jilted00:21:19
lover bent on nuclear revenge but it was00:21:21
no less damning for the military00:21:24
the sl1 reactor was in a terrible state00:21:27
before it exploded00:21:28
it was literally falling apart and00:21:30
looked after by young men00:21:31
whose total experience could be measured00:21:34
in months00:21:35
as todd tucker asks in atomic america00:21:38
quote why would a reactor be designed00:21:40
so perilously close to criticality why00:21:43
would procedures actually dictate the00:21:45
manual lifting of that rod00:21:47
why was burns allowed to perform00:21:49
dangerous maintenance00:21:51
with so little supervision00:21:54
direct cause of the accident clearly00:21:58
appears to have been manual withdrawal00:22:01
of the central control rod blade00:22:04
by one or more of the crew members00:22:07
considerably beyond the limits specified00:22:09
in maintenance procedure00:22:12
however there was insufficient evidence00:22:15
to establish the actual reason00:22:18
for such abnormal withdrawal00:22:21
the army's hope for a miniaturized00:22:23
nuclear reactor had died with the men00:22:25
tasked with operating it00:22:27
rather than revolutionize power00:22:28
generation in remote areas00:22:30
the meltdown of sl1 solidified a safety00:22:33
criterion00:22:34
for all future nuclear reactors built in00:22:36
the united states00:22:37
no reactor after sl1 would be00:22:40
constructed in a geometry that would00:22:41
allow for just one stuck rod00:22:43
to force it into criticality00:22:47
two decades later the world would00:22:49
experience the worst nuclear disaster00:22:51
in history chernobyl reactor number four00:22:54
would melt down00:22:55
and end up contaminating an area that00:22:57
was the size of countries00:22:59
this meltdown was far worse than00:23:01
anything that ever happened in idaho but00:23:03
interestingly it was also the result of00:23:06
improperly withdrawn control rods00:23:08
also during the maintenance of a00:23:10
shutdown reactor and also overseen00:23:12
by a small unsupervised crew in the00:23:15
middle of the night00:23:17
when we don't learn from history it00:23:20
tends to repeat itself until next time00:23:29
thank you so much to the very nerdy00:23:30
staff at the facility for their direct00:23:32
and substantial support in the creation00:23:34
of this here video today especially i00:23:36
want to recognize research assistant joe00:23:38
james and visiting scholar michael sontek if00:23:40
you want to join the facility if you00:23:41
want to join me00:23:42
and the over 1500 staff members that are00:23:45
draping on silky white lab coats getting00:23:47
episodes early getting members only live00:23:49
streams with me00:23:50
not like that you can go to patreon.com00:23:53
kyle hill and sign up for the facility00:23:55
today and hey if you support us just00:23:56
enough00:23:57
get your name on ra here each and every00:23:59
week and as you can see there's00:24:00
literally over a thousand of you so i00:24:02
have no idea how i'm going to pass it00:24:04
yeah quite a transition huh00:24:06
going from that narration to looking at00:24:08
me anyway it's00:24:09
it's quite telling to me that the story00:24:12
about the sordid love triangle and the00:24:13
murder-suicide is the one that's retold00:24:15
most often00:24:16
when you hear about sl1 i think it00:24:18
speaks to our desire to have00:24:20
some reckless human element as part of00:24:23
the story but00:24:25
it turns out there's no evidence for00:24:26
that and really just came down to00:24:28
poor supervision poor maintenance poor00:24:30
engineering00:24:31
and it's not quite as sexy but it still00:24:34
teaches us something and00:24:35
no matter what our brains want from us00:24:38
we have to go00:24:39
where the facts tell us to go00:24:43
think about that00:24:49
thanks for watchingDescription:
The grisly details of America's deadly first nuclear disaster, SL-1. SHOW NOTES: https://archive.org/details/atomicamericahow00todd/page/n137/mode/2up?q=%22died+with%22 http://www.alternatewars.com/WW3/WW3_Documents/US_DOE/LAMS-2550/LAMS-2550_SL-1_Autopsy.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sl-1-ineel81-3966.jpg https://orau.org/health-physics-museum/index.html MUSIC: Composed for [THE FACILITY] Meydän “Elän” Meydän “Freezing but warm” Meydän “Elk” Meydän “Away” Meydän “Deadly Isotopes” Meydän 💪 JOIN [THE FACILITY] for members-only live streams, behind-the-scenes posts, and the official Discord: https://www.patreon.com/cw/kylehill 👕 NEW MERCH DROP OUT NOW! https://shop.kylehill.net/ 🎥 SUB TO THE GAMING CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfTNPE8mXGBZPC1nfVtOJTw ✅ MANDATORY LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, AND TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS 📲 FOLLOW ME ON SOCIETY-RUINING SOCIAL MEDIA: 🐦 https://twitter.com/Sci_Phile 📷 https://www.facebook.com/unsupportedbrowser 😎: Kyle ✂: Charles Shattuck 🤖: @Claire Max 🎹: bensound.com 🎨: Mr. Mass https://www.youtube.com/c/MysteryGiftMovie 🎵: freesound.org 🎼: Mëydan “Changes” (https://meydan.bandcamp.com/) by Meydän is licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org) “Elk” by Meydän is licensed under CC BY 4.0 “Freezing but warm” by Meydän is licensed under CC BY 4.0 “Further” by Meydän is licensed under CC BY 3.0
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