Written By Will Grant
 

Phantom Limbs, Space Drowning, and Nuclear-Powered Astronomical Manhole Covers!

Scientists just discovered that phantom limb syndrome might not be caused by brain changes after all, an astronaut nearly drowned in his own helmet during a spacewalk, and a 1950s nuclear test accidentally launched a manhole cover so fast it might have been the first human-made object to leave Earth's atmosphere. Also, researchers proved that smearing yogurt on your windows can cool your house by 3.5 degrees, and a man with the world's largest penis broke his arm because he couldn't see his feet in the shower.

Today, we're exploring a world where medical assumptions get turned upside down, space exploration involves unexpected drowning hazards, and Cold War nuclear tests accidentally created the world's fastest projectile. These stories prove that whether we're talking about neuroscience, space travel, or home cooling solutions, science is always stranger and more dangerous than we expect.

Phantom Limbs: When Your Brain Isn't the Problem

For decades, scientists believed phantom limb syndrome - the sensation that amputated limbs are still there - was caused by the brain rewiring itself after losing a body part. Turns out, they might have been completely wrong. A groundbreaking study followed three patients through arm amputations, scanning their brains before and after surgery.

Five years later, their brain mapping showed zero changes. The phantom sensations weren't coming from brain plasticity at all - they're likely nerve-related. This discovery could revolutionise treatment for amputees who still feel phantom pain or that maddening itch they can't scratch. Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs come from discovering that everything we thought we knew was backwards.

The World's Most Unfortunate Shower Accident

Meet John Falcon, who holds the dubious honour of potentially having the world's largest penis - and the even more dubious honour of breaking his arm because of it. According to his story, he slipped in the shower because his anatomy blocked his view of his feet, leading to a spectacular fall and a broken arm.

It's simultaneously the most ridiculous and most believable injury explanation ever recorded. While most people worry about slipping on soap, this guy has to navigate around his own anatomical achievements. It's a reminder that fame comes with unexpected occupational hazards, even when that fame is... anatomical.

Nearly Drowning in the Vacuum of Space

Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano experienced every astronaut's nightmare during what should have been a routine spacewalk. Less than an hour into his six-hour mission, water started seeping into his helmet, eventually covering his mouth and nose while he floated in the vacuum of space.

Communication systems failed, leaving him essentially alone in the void with water sloshing around his head. He had to navigate back to safety using pure instinct and muscle memory, basically swimming through space while drowning in his own helmet. It's the kind of near-death experience that makes you appreciate gravity and the ability to take your helmet off when things go wrong.

Yogurt Windows: The Cooling Solution Nobody Asked For

Researchers at Loughborough University discovered that smearing yogurt on your windows can lower indoor temperatures by up to 3.5 degrees Celsius on sunny days. Yes, you read that correctly - dairy products are now a legitimate home cooling strategy.

It sounds absolutely ridiculous until you realise it actually works. The yogurt creates a natural cooling barrier that's both sustainable and inexpensive, assuming you don't mind explaining to your neighbours why your house looks like it's been attacked by a giant breakfast parfait. Sometimes the best solutions are the ones that make you question everything you thought you knew about home improvement.

The Nuclear Manhole Cover That Beat Sputnik to Space

In the 1950s, Operation Plumbbob nuclear tests accidentally created what might have been the first human-made object to leave Earth's atmosphere. A nuclear explosion launched a manhole cover so fast it potentially beat Sputnik to space by several years, though nobody was keeping track because they were too busy being terrified of atomic weapons.

This accidental space program achievement showcases the raw, chaotic power of mid-20th-century nuclear experiments. While modern space exploration involves careful calculations and safety protocols, the 1950s approach was apparently "let's nuke it and see!" Sometimes the most significant discoveries happen when curiosity meets complete disregard for consequences.

Before you go…

Write in with any comments/suggestions/hate to cheers@alittlebitofscience.com.au and don’t forget to join us on Twitch at 3:30pm Fridays (AEST) for the live stream; warts and beers and all! @alittlebitofscience

Rod & Will
Two Guys Who Found Scientific Evidence To Smear Yoghurt On The Windows

 

CHAPTERS:

0:00 - Fastest Human-Made Objects

1:45 - Fastest Cars, Planes, Bullets and Spacecraft

3:30 - Space Records: Apollo 10 & Parker Solar Probe

5:15 - Your hosts, Rod & Will: Academics with Beers

6:15 - Cool Study: Phantom Limb Syndrome Research

11:50 - Be Careful What You Wish For: World's Largest Penis Injury

22:20 - Space Drowning: Astronaut Nearly Dies in Helmet

31:25 - Yogurt Window Cooling

34:15 - That Was Dumb: Nuclear Manhole Cover Launch Story

45:10 - Cry For Help (aka CTA)

 

  • [00:00:00] ROD: So humans made a lot of objects, and some of them have gone really, really fast. Deliberate ones, things like, uh, car, the fastest car, still the fastest speed in a car. 1997. It was a, uh, it was called the Thrust SSC vehicle, which stands for Thrust Supersonic Car. Way cooler thrust. SSC, what are we gonna call it?

    Thrust land speed record, 1,227 kilometers an hour mark, 1.02. First supersonic ground cup. And so far, I think maybe the only plane. Fastest plane with a pilot. 1967. Peter Knight a uh, pilot. He reached the speed of Mark 6.7, so he actually went 4,500 miles per hour, which is a bunch of kilometers. So Mark 6.7, but the unmanned fastest unmanned craft X 43 a k, a HyperX Mark 9.6.

    So 11,000, nearly 12,000 kilometers an hour, they have to launch it from a plane. They drop it, it goes for about eight seconds, and then it has to stop 'cause it's just too damn fast and it's had enough. So yeah, nearly 12,000 kilometers an hour. That's pretty impressive bullets I. Men make bullets and men, I mean people make bullets, mostly men 'cause we're jerks.

    Fastest bullet from a handheld firearm rifle, the 0.220 swift, which moves at about four and a half thousand kilometers an hour pretty fucking fast. Let's get into space 'cause this is where the fun happens. Fastest manned space thing. The Apollo 10 mission, May, 1969. It got to the point when they were coming home as it got towards Earth on the final day.

    They were moving at roughly nearly 40,000 kilometers an hour. That's pretty quick, and that is a shit load faster than a bullet, which when you see stuff like that, you go, my God, unmanned though the absolute world record for a human object, top speed ever. The Parker Solar probe. So NASA launched this 2018.

    It's cruising around the sun, so it did this gravity assist slingshots around Venus to get into an eccentric corbit. It got within. About 10 solar radiuses from the sun, so quite close to the sun, and as it was on its closest approach, its speed relative to the sun was 430,000 miles per hour or 690,000 kilometers.

    Or for those of you who are obviously thinking in speed of light terms, zero. 0.064%, the speed of light that is the fastest, the fastest, um, our manmade object. But just before the Parker probe, a few decades before the fastest human made thing was an accident, or at least a very amusing side effect.

    [00:03:01] WILL: It is time for a little bit of science already. Yeah. I'm will grant an associate professor of science communication at the Australian National University. Wow. That sounds beautiful. I'm 

    [00:03:12] ROD: Rod Lamberts. Um, yeah, credentials. But I've been, uh, a science communication dude for about 30 years. And I also have the mind of a teenage boy, which will become quite apparent as this episode unfolds.

    [00:03:23] WILL: Ah, ah, well today as well as some, uh, boys toys we've got, uh. I've got for you, uh, a cool study. I've got a little, uh, be careful what you wish for. I've got, I've got, uh, there's a measure for that. 

    [00:03:39] ROD: I'm also gonna tell you about, you know, they said in space. Now I can hear you scream. My God, there are so many reasons in space you would not be able to be heard screaming.

    Oh, 

    [00:03:47] WILL: I'm gonna, I'm gonna end. I'm gotta, that was dumb.

    AKA. Most things we talk about, look, most things we talk about. Yes. Yes. Look, I think, uh, in our defense, a combination of that was a cool study. There's a measure for that and that was dumb. Uh, maybe just about everything that I like to look at, but, uh, Hey, do you wanna hear a cool study? Yes. You have all four of your limbs.

    I used to have five. Ah, you used to have five. So 

    [00:04:14] ROD: I actually am an amputee. You act, 

    [00:04:16] WILL: do, do you, do you miss that limb? 

    [00:04:19] ROD: No. It was an arm in the middle of my head. It was really annoying. 

    [00:04:23] WILL: Yeah. I have all four limbs and I'm fine. Yeah. Yes. Uh, folk out there who have lost a limb as a fascinating scientific, uh, thing that happens where they can still feel it.

    Yes. It's phantom limb syndrome. They can still feel it and they still try to do things with that limb. Mm-hmm. It's been documented for hundreds of years, and of course, hundreds of years ago people missed a lot more limbs. Uh, there were, yeah, they 

    [00:04:47] ROD: were clumsier back then. 

    [00:04:48] WILL: They were clumsier with their limbs.

    Yes. There are people now missing limbs. Absolutely. Uh, but for a long time we've known that people could still feel a missing limb. Are you gonna talk about some of the terrible bits? 'cause there's one, I won't say it yet. No, no, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not here to talk about terrible bits. I told you this 

    [00:05:03] ROD: was a cool study.

    How bizarre. Like I was imagining if your hand got cut off and then it's sitting over there and it's not you anymore. A, does it revolt you B imagine picking up your other hand and it's no longer you, but it's just this lump of meat. That's weird. 

    [00:05:16] WILL: Yeah, 

    [00:05:16] ROD: of course. The one that really bothered me with phantom limbs though was when they talk about how people can feel the itch.

    Yeah. And you cannot scratch that itch. That to me sounds like a small version of hell. 

    [00:05:27] WILL: No, a hundred percent. So look, um, here's, I can give you some numbers on phantom limb syndrome initially, like something like 80 to a hundred percent. And, and I get get, when you're getting up to a hundred percent of people who've had an amputation experience mm-hmm.

    Will experience phantom limb syndrome. So I, I dunno how you go 80 to a hundred because instantly someone said, not me. Then you go, I dunno that, but a lot of people who lose a limb in water and obviously and animals get it too. I was watching this great video of a cat, um, it's, it's like scratching in its, uh, litter box.

    And you can see it's definitely trying to scratch where its limb would be. Cats are stupid though. They are, they are. A lot of people can feel it and try to do things with that limb, but a small percentage then get bad sensations. Itching being the bottom of that, but, but a bunch do get pain from, uh, I would 

    [00:06:21] ROD: almost take from in over itching.

    [00:06:23] WILL: Itching 

    [00:06:24] ROD: is just one of those insidious things. 

    [00:06:27] WILL: Yeah, no. 

    [00:06:28] ROD: Anyway, 

    [00:06:29] WILL: uh, the pain can be made worse, uh, by stress, anxiety, and weather changes. So, you know, if you had a, if if it's cold, uh, you actually can, your, your phantom limb can feel worse. You're like, oh, I think it's gonna rain. The, the arm I don't have anymore is twining.

    So the key scientific question, of course, in phantom limey is, is what's going on? Is it a superpower? What's causing it? Oh, and what might we do about it? Uh, put the limb back on. Put the limb back on winter Soldier. This not often an an option. No, but I guess if you did winter soldier it, you could. That might be a good solution.

    Does the winter soldier still have Phantom? He still has fan 

    [00:07:07] ROD: for sure. Bucky has Phantom. 

    [00:07:09] WILL: No, I bet he doesn't. I bet he doesn't because in in mind control. No, no. In something. I'm gonna explain in a second. It might be that having a, a fully like, uh, an equivalent level limb attached to you might get rid of it.

    Okay. Okay. There's been a couple of theories about what, what is causing phantom limb syndrome aside from the losing of the limb. That's obviously the, the main cause pretty strong hypothesis. That's the main cause We're confident though though there is some suggestion that, um, children, babies born, uh, missing limbs can experience phantom limb syndrome as well.

    So they're wired to have it, but don't have it wired to have it, don't never had it. And so they can experience phantom limb syndrome. 

    [00:07:51] ROD: Mm-hmm. So, 

    [00:07:51] WILL: so that rules out one of the theories I'm just going to gonna tell you, but, but one theory and I, I did like the, the name of this theory and I was like, oh, that's great.

    Yeah. One theory is that there's repressed memories, uh, in the, like it's a repressed memories sort of, uh, theory of the limb. What, you know, what, who's repressing it. I was reading this and going, I woke up and suddenly thought I used to have two arms. I've repressed memories of my limb, so. Yeah, there was this weird explanation where it's like patients reporting painful clenching spasms, and then if they had something that hurt their hand in the past and then they've repressed the memories of that and they're in their brain, the limbs gone uhhuh, and then they get, so that's not my favorite theory, but I like the idea.

    I, I, I, I'm gonna need to see some more data. It's, it's, it's not true. It's not true. Good. But probably the, probably the dominant theory for a long time mm-hmm. Is that, um, when a part of your body is amputated mm-hmm. Then the bit of your brain that maps to that, that part of your body, like so your right hand, left hand, whatever.

    [00:08:55] ROD: Yeah. 

    [00:08:55] WILL: Uh, there's a bit in your brain that does associate with it. 

    [00:08:58] ROD: Yep. 

    [00:08:58] WILL: And then the brain reorganizes itself. Like a, a neuroplasticity sort of thing. Mm-hmm. It reorganized, but it does the job imperfectly stupid. Right. And so neighboring parts take over and then things go a little bit fuzzy and so it can't get a, a complete, proper, proper mapping.

    So, so mostly aware, but not quite, yeah. That it's 

    [00:09:18] ROD: not there anymore. 

    [00:09:18] WILL: Now the, the leading proponents of this theory, like it's a, it's a, a brain change sort of thing as well, Tom Cruise? Um, no. Well, oh, uh, well, a guy named vs. Ramachandra, um, he was the first person to develop. Uh, phantom limb amputations. So not only the amputations.

    Oh, cunning, but then you cut off the phantom limb. So like having an exorcism when it's Yeah, roughly. Roughly, yeah. Right. So, so the more technical name is not exorcism, but mirror box therapy, where you imagine you, you visualize the limb as much as you can, and then, uh, then when you've got it done, you might do an application, 

    [00:09:55] ROD: you know, you know, years ago we did a story on mirror box, but.

    It focused very much on the horror of the itch. Yeah, I know. Go back and look. 

    [00:10:03] WILL: Yeah, yeah. That one will not make you smile, but there's a new study and I just wanted to applaud this study because it's just cool and it just, it just is a great way of, can you applaud if you've only got one hand? Does it feel like you're clapping?

    'cause you fan? Yeah. You can phantom clap. You can phantom like it's the sound of one hand Clapping sound of one hand Clapping is the phantom clap. Yeah. Okay. It's, uh, so studies just been published in Nature Neuroscience. And, uh, came out of, um, the UK where a bunch of people, not, not very many people, three adult patients who were preparing to undergo, undergo lifesaving arm back amputations for medical reasons.

    So they know they're gonna have to get their arm cut off for a medical reason. There might be a cancer. Yeah. Or a, or a severe problem with the blood supply. And the doctors have said, look, the only solution here is losing the arm. Weird, weird place to be, but. Great opportunity when you're a researcher.

    Yeah. As well. Like, like, like it's like you're gonna have some phantom limb in a second. Do you 

    [00:11:01] ROD: know, do you know why I feel better about losing this arm doc? 'cause it's gonna make your research work. 

    [00:11:05] WILL: Yeah. You're gonna get some papers out of this. Science wins. You are gonna get some citations. Fantastic. So what the researchers did is they're like, okay, we know you're gonna lose your left arm and your right arm, or whatever it is.

    Mm-hmm. Uh, let's chuck you an m an MRI first and get, 

    [00:11:19] ROD: let's, let's postpone this. Let's put it off for as long as we can. Well 

    [00:11:21] WILL: only long enough to get you in the MRI and scan you. 

    [00:11:25] ROD: Okay. 

    [00:11:25] WILL: Um, and what they did is they'd scan them and get them to do a few different, like muscle movement sort of thing. In, in that area of the hand.

    Do they phrase this as, enjoy it while you've got it. Enjoy it while you get an MRI and scan. Clench your fist. Not gonna be able to do that soon. Fantastic. Well, I enjoy it. While you've got it, look at what, what is, what is your enjoy? You're like open things with two hands, I guess is the move. Move your hand.

    Yeah. Move your hand. Have a hand.

    Uh, but they looked at the area of the brain. Yeah. Um, where. Uh, the, the hand would activate. Mm-hmm. You know, so clench your hand or, or you know, get a feeling in your hand or something like that. Curl your, curl your toes, tap your fingers. Something like that. Yeah, 

    [00:12:04] ROD: yeah. 

    [00:12:05] WILL: Yeah. And they can look with the MR mri exactly where the brain activates.

    Oh, you mean FMRI guess. 'cause they are functional, they know the scans. Yeah. There's, there's the red bit in the brain where they're, you know, clicking your fingers Yeah. Is located and Yeah. That's a big part of the brain. And then, uh, off goes the hand. Mm-hmm. And they put 'em back in the MR mri, scanned them over a period, uh, uh, the like, like a few times over the three months, six months.

    Uh, one and a half years, five months, five years out to, to see. Yeah, because once there's enough, we want you to really relive this periodically. You've really gotta, oh, you remember how you don't have a hand? Oh, you've forgotten. C can you please try and imagine clicking your fingers again? Can you please remember how we did that three months ago and you cried like a baby?

    Welcome back, but remember it's the soy, this, this, this, this is Happy Science. Look at this paper. I'm 

    [00:12:52] ROD: sure I put your name in it. I'll put your name in the acknowledgements in this paper. 

    [00:12:55] WILL: No, no. To protect their privacy, I, I assume that their, their names are not in it, so. Oh, that's even worse. Thank you.

    Anonymous. I think, I think there might be some cartoon drawings of the people. Oh, it's pretty much the same thing. Yeah. So it's money in the bank. Yeah. I don't, I, yeah. Okay. Okay. So they put them periodically through, put 'em back in. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And here's the thing, there's no changes in the brain at all.

    Like at all, at all over the five year period, I, if they're clicking their fingers, it is in exactly the same spot in the brain and the same through 

    [00:13:22] ROD: Goose doing really 

    [00:13:24] WILL: like the same little, like they've got these, these scans and it's for these three different patients. It's like locked down, like that's, that's the area for right hand or whatever it is, right hand clicking.

    That's the area for right hand clicking. Exactly. I dunno about the clicking bit, but anyway, pretty sure it's just locked down there and so this just kills the theory. About brain plasticity being, I was gonna say, being the cause of, 

    [00:13:44] ROD: I was gonna say bio plasticity. 

    [00:13:45] WILL: Yeah, totally. There's no brain changes. So basically it's saying locked in our brain and not, it's not always in the same place for all of us.

    No. But is an association with our right hand is locked in that bit of our brain and you chop it off and it's still feeling it. So what this says about phantom limb syndrome, ah, is that it's, it's not about changes in the brain. It's, it's something to do with the, the end of the nerves there and maybe how the nerves are, uh, severed or something like that.

    So, but it might actually lead to therapies that might stop, well not stop people who have phantom limb, but maybe there are new techniques in surgery. When you chop off, you might be able to do things with the nerves. Uh, that might address this problem. I know what to do. Quarter eyes. Uh, yeah, I think so.

    When in doubt, quarter eyes. I, I, if that didn't 

    [00:14:29] ROD: work, 

    [00:14:30] WILL: requa eyes, I, I think all the way up keep burning until it stops all the way up to the brain and then that until it stops. Yes, that will obviously prevent it, but, uh, but there you go. I thought that was just a, a nice thing to go, here's an opportunity.

    And with 

    [00:14:44] ROD: that, or for that, I say, well done. But for all the rest of it, I'm like, oh, oh. So under the guise of careful what, what you wish for. Let's start with this. One of these, William is a real headline. You get to choose or guess man left with a broken arm because of the size of his penis.

    Hang 

    [00:15:06] WILL: on. What 

    [00:15:06] ROD: am 

    [00:15:06] WILL: I 

    [00:15:06] ROD: choosing for? What am am I choosing? A real headline. There are three headlines. New Yorker, who ate lethal dose of plutonium still alive 10 years later. Mm. Mayor wakes up in hospital, told his dog, drove him there. So one of those is a real headline. One of those is a real headline and recent, do you wanna hear him again?

    Yeah, give it to me again, man. Left with a broken arm because of the size of his penis. We've all been there. New Yorker, who ate lethal dose of plutonium still alive 10 years later. Oh. Mayor wakes up in hospital, told his dog drove him there. 

    [00:15:36] WILL: Well, you know, I've, I've just gotta go whilst, whilst I like the idea of, of, um, some giant dong that breaks arms.

    And I do like, I do like the idea of, for some reason they call it the club eating the plutonium. Yeah. I, I am a sucker. For a heartwarming story, and I love the idea of being driven to hospital, but I, I would love to be driven to hospital by my dog. I don't think my dog, I've met your dog. I don't think that's a good idea.

    She's lovely. She's not genius. No, she's not. But uh, but she has been smart once or twice in her life. That's true. And so that's. I, I, I like the idea that she's preserving her dumb just by napping on the couch and whatever. And one day, day from emergency, she'll be like, I'll use all my brain cells at once to ride into the hospital.

    It's no more intelligence left. 

    [00:16:23] ROD: You're correct. It is man left with a broken arm because of the size of his penis. Oh my God. Why do you do this to me? I'm not doing it to you. I'm doing it for you. No, you're doing it to the listeners too for you. So John Falcon is born in 1970, American actor television presenter.

    He came to international attention in 99 because he claimed he had the largest penis in the world. Oh, okay. He said it was, uh, 13 and a half inches went erect. Okay. Didn't sound that big to me, but whatever. Um, but he was not, he never authorized or permitted any independent verification of this. So you kind of go really champ.

    Well, I, I would've thought you'd be happy to try and verify and you'd go like, if it was true, yeah. You would check this out. So then we go to Roberto excavated cab Mexican bloke. He claims his dick is 19 inches long. Okay. 

    [00:17:14] WILL: Okay. Sure. Four miles, exactly why it's nine kilometers. I can get halfway 

    [00:17:23] ROD: to Sydney, but not all the way.

    But what's it like a wreck? I've no idea. Don't have enough blood to find out. It's been a hell of a trial though. Now this guy, Roberto, 

    [00:17:32] WILL: guys are idiots. Fucking idiots. Oh, we really 

    [00:17:34] ROD: are. So Roberto, depending on what you believe, uh, there are pictures of him, like with a long sort of sock, a drawing, a 

    [00:17:42] WILL: sock. A sock.

    [00:17:43] ROD: So is a proud Mexican man standing there with what looks like a sock covered thing where a ding-dong would be look going a long way down his leg. Okay, but this gets better. The, the, it turns out that it was probably mostly foreskin. Oh, okay. And, um, the, the previous guy, Jonah said, oh, he, he cheated 'cause he was stretching his forcing skin a lot because that all counts as penis length.

    And Roberto was told Jesus Christ, don't worry, you could have a normal sex life if you just had a circumcision. Mm-hmm. Because you have basically codified know four and a half kilos of extra flesh. Oh my God. What, what, what? But he chose to keep the baggy 'cause he liked the record. So it's not real. It's, it's this, this one's touchy, but these are wannabes, right?

    The real guy. The real guy that verified English man, Matt Barr. Matt Barr, independently and medically measured verified penis. 14 and a half inches 

    [00:18:39] WILL: of the people that 

    [00:18:40] ROD: measured, yeah. Okay. Of the people that measured. Okay. We've all, we've all do it, don't we? Don't we? Is it just you? Me. Oops. There's also a cast of his ding-dong in a museum in Iceland.

    So that's pretty much proof positive that, you know, he's massively endowed. Okay. But apparently having this gift is not all beer and Skittles. There are downsides. Are there? There are downside. Okay. I know. So for example, he says he gets lightheaded when he has erections. That is nine liters of blood is all we have in our body.

    And he needs eight just to get that up there. I'm guesstimating. He has trouble finding, uh, pants that fit. No doubt. Mm. Look, 

    [00:19:13] WILL: uh, no. Yes. Fuck off. No, no. You fuck off. Like I, I, I think pants come in a variety of sizes. They do. And also, you know, you can, as you have proven, you can make your own pants or you can go to a tailor or you can get tracksuit pants.

    I, I do not like, okay, if he wants super tight pants, like it might be challenging. Mm. Lululemon do it. But other than that, they've got the big swinger section, trouble finding 

    [00:19:37] ROD: pants that fit come on. Come on. He didn't say it was impossible because? Because Here we go. This is a quote. I had an incident not too long ago where I was wearing what I thought were relatively baggy.

    Shorts, okay? Shorts might be a challenge. They ended up showing far too much once they got wet. Another time he was at a vacation resort wearing dark board shorts with compression shorts underneath, and he thought he covered up everything. I went for a swim. It clung to the outline too much. So one of the hotel managers asked me to leave.

    So he said that's good because it made him think more carefully about the kinds of resorts he would choose or go on holiday. Okay. But the real issue that was reported in the classy broadsheet, and by broadsheet, I mean absolute tabloid, and many of them that talked about man, left with broken arm 'cause of sight.

    You're putting us in the tabloid, uh, department right now. Very much so. The headlines were all basically versions of that. Mm-hmm. And Matt says, uh, look, it was a very embarrassing accident. One of the issues with being so large, especially in hot water showers, I dunno why that matters, is that it's not exactly easy to see my feet.

    Oh, Jesus. This sounds like a humble brag to me. Oh, you know what it's like when your dick's so large, you can't see your feet in a shower to wash your 

    [00:20:48] WILL: feet. 

    [00:20:49] ROD: No, just can't see them. Especially he says, when I move too fast, it can definitely mess with my balance as well. As I was rushing to get ready for work, I didn't see the excess shower gel in the tub.

    The excess shower gel in the, because my penis was the only thing in my eye line. Oh, stop it. This is ridiculous. I slipped on it, causing me to fall outta the tub completely headfirst and crack my shoulder on the hard floor. I got two fractures as a result. 

    [00:21:13] WILL: I hope he sees his dick, like, like taking dick to court 

    [00:21:17] ROD: with trials.

    It's trial separation. We're gonna live apart. Luckily, I have a two bedroom house, 

    [00:21:24] WILL: but surely he's used to it by whatever period this is. He's like 45 or something. I, I would feel, unless this was suddenly thrust upon one, oh my God, what happened? Like, like, you know, an idiot gets a genie and goes, this is what I want.

    I really used it. I want 19 inches. Fair enough. I've made a mistake. Fair enough. I think that might be, you know, some sort of comedy porn thing. Like, it's like I'm a comedy. There's no question It would've been, yeah, no question. But I really, I really feel like you grow up with it. You'd be used to the, the issues?

    [00:21:53] ROD: No, no, no. He says, he says, I've had close calls or minor falls before, but anything, nothing so severe. So I bought a bath mat. You bought a bath map. Jesus Christ is your big dick. Too big. I get a bath map. I bought a bath. Problem solved. Fuck. Why do you not have a bath map before you? I hadn't fallen before.

    Not like that. So even though my penis might be in the way of my view, I'm less likely to lose my footing. Oh my God. This is one of the many minor things no one thinks about when it comes to having an abnormal body. Let's. Put out your penis. No, that's fine. While I'm naturally clumsy, it doesn't help that I have a different anatomy to most, especially such a large one.

    So as far as I'm concerned, this is actually a story about a clumsy dude who fell over in the shower and the tabloids went. Did you know he had a humongous dong as well? Look, 

    [00:22:45] WILL: it adds to the story. It adds Well, it 

    [00:22:47] ROD: makes it a story. Yes, but they're not related. I mean, come on. I couldn't see my feet 'cause of my dick for stars.

    You've got two feet. I, and if your legs are slightly, also for double starters, you, your dick doesn't sit on both sides of the body. He has, you can believe a large one, not two. 

    [00:23:00] WILL: Why are you telling me this? 

    [00:23:02] ROD: Yes, because there's a little bit of science in there. No, I don't. Oh my God. You're welcome. So in Space Alien, the movie back in the seventies said, in space no one can hear you scream.

    Oh, and I remember watching this and going, and you're like, it's true. It is true. And I'm more scared. I'm more scared. So July 16th, 2013. Yes, that's, that's where we are setting the scene. Okay. It's still the Obama administration. Exactly. It was back in the time when dogs weren't all doodles 

    [00:23:34] WILL: probably. No, I think doodles 

    [00:23:34] ROD: are on the rise though.

    They're on the rise, but not like this. So Jaunty 36-year-old Italian astronaut Luca. Part of ment though. Was he jaunty? I dunno. Okay. But Luca Ano, he's a major in the Italian Air Force. That sounds pretty jaunty. Anyway, he's not even an hour into a six hour space walk outside the International Space Station.

    [00:23:52] WILL: Six hours. I just gotta supposed to be six hours. What, what would be your preference in terms of amount of time for a space walk? 

    [00:23:59] ROD: I don't know. I'd have to get out there and kind of go, do I love it or am I freaking out that I'm not falling? No, totally. 

    [00:24:03] WILL: I get it. I'm super keen to do a space walk. It'll be awesome.

    Yeah. Yeah. I just feel like six hours. You, you, it's a lot too much of a good thing like that is two endgame. You can watch all of endgame twice while you're on your spacewalk. And I'm like that. That's more than I need. 

    [00:24:16] ROD: I'm simple than that. I'm like, I can't scratch my face for six hours. 

    [00:24:19] WILL: Well, I like that.

    [00:24:21] ROD: Do you That's, that's do. Are you to scratch yourself then? What are you talking about? No, no. 

    [00:24:24] WILL: This is what Yoda said. Channel it. Ugh. So good. That's how you become a Jedi 

    [00:24:28] ROD: for six hours. 

    [00:24:29] WILL: I think that's how you become a Jedi. 

    [00:24:30] ROD: It probably is. So he's less than an hour in, it's supposed to be six hours. He's out there with a US Astro fellow called Chris Cassy.

    So Par Ana, he radios flight controls in Houston. He says, uh, my head is really wet and I have a feeling it's increasing. My head is really wet. Yeah, the, the head is increasing or the wetness is increasing. Probably the wetness. I don't think the head, 'cause the helmet's are finite size. 

    [00:24:50] WILL: Yeah. 

    [00:24:51] ROD: Look, can you imagine that?

    My head's wet, but also it's getting bigger. I'm disturbed. You're bury the lead here. Does this normally happen? Like my head is giant. Inflating like a balloon. So yes, my head is really wet and I feel it's increasing the wetness for certain listeners. So he thinks maybe his drinking water bag is leaking.

    Okay, fine. Through, through his head. Onto, onto, and, and of course, 

    [00:25:15] WILL: gravity ain't what? Gravity is in the, in, in our, in our world. 

    [00:25:19] ROD: In the world with gravity. No. Um, so he drains his, uh, drinking water bag, which I assume is, he drank it. Okay. But weightless blobs of water keep gathering in his helmet. 

    [00:25:30] WILL: Uh, I know what these are.

    [00:25:32] ROD: So Montano says, uh, where's it coming from? Then he goes, it's too much now it's in my eyes. Ooh, it's dripping into his eyes, or is it like volumes of moving around? There's water sloshing freely sloshing around in his helmet. So mission controls say seriously. Spacewalk is off. Get back inside. Yeah, fair enough.

    So it sounds fine, but it was only his second space walk and he wasn't quite sure which direction to go to get to the hatch. Oh. And also as he puts it, the water started sloshing around in his helmet. I, 

    [00:26:01] WILL: I feel like, don't you pull on the rope? Like, like that connects you to the space station? Well, he does.

    He does. But it takes a moment. '

    [00:26:06] ROD: cause he's, he's, he's, he's sort of a bit, well, that's why I should be an astronaut and he should be, yeah. Not other, an Italian major Air Force guy. So he says, uh, later on, after the event is over, he says, worse than that, not only was it sloshing around in my helmet, the water is covering my nose.

    A really awful sensation. That I make worse by my vain attempts to move the water by shaking my head. Now it's in zero G, so I don't quite know what results that would give you. 

    [00:26:34] WILL: It would, uh, like if it's on your head, you shake your head and it spreads to the helmet and, and you get little balls of water.

    Yeah, they, they, they flick off. 

    [00:26:40] ROD: Yeah. Um, by now he says the upper part of the helmet is full of water and I can't even be sure full. The upper part, I can't even be sure. The next time I breathe, I'll fill my lungs with air rather than liquid. Which is nerveracking. Is this, 

    [00:26:54] WILL: is this totally. He's imagining it all.

    Like this is like the, you know, why, why would I tell you that now? Why would I leap straight to 

    [00:27:01] ROD: that kind of reveal if it were indeed the reveal? Look, look, look. Yes. This is, this is actually a cautionary tale about taking mushrooms in, in, in this space station. Just as an aside to describe the situation, the uh, NASA flight director said, if you wanna reenact this experience, basically go stick your head in a fishbowl and try and walk around.

    I assume he means a fishbowl with water in it, so pardon ano. He tries to contact his spacewalk partner, Cassidy, and Mission Control as well. At this point, now, no one could hear him. So he says, I'm alone. I frantically think of a plan. It's vital that I get inside as quickly as possible. I think. I 

    [00:27:32] WILL: think the plan should be panicked really hard.

    You shit yourself. Like just, just really go to town on panic. Yeah. Like in a way. In a way you've never got to do before and push yourself. So you 

    [00:27:41] ROD: spin infinitely, spin 

    [00:27:42] WILL: infinitely shit yourself. Cry, vomit, get it all out it. 

    [00:27:46] ROD: Yep. Do everything. So he realizes that Cassidy. Who was already heading back to the elec via a different route, could probably come and get him.

    Then he remembers the safety cable you were talking about. 

    [00:27:55] WILL: Ah, good old safety cable. So he 

    [00:27:57] ROD: hits the old recoil mechanism. It pulls him back towards the hatch. 

    [00:28:00] WILL: Oh, there's even a mechanism. I think you should 

    [00:28:01] ROD: use your 

    [00:28:02] WILL: hands. 

    [00:28:03] ROD: Yeah, but you know you're worried you're gonna drown. He pushes the button or whatever.

    He recoils back in on the way back, he. What will I do if the water reaches my mouth? Yeah, of course. Will I do before he gets back there and he goes, okay, I've got an idea. The only idea he had was I'll open the safety valve on my helmet and let some water out. 

    [00:28:18] WILL: Oh, 

    [00:28:18] ROD: oh, 

    [00:28:19] WILL: oh, oh. Uh, I've heard about, I've heard about opening things to space.

    I have heard about that. Uh, there were rumors. 

    [00:28:27] ROD: He says, quote, but making a hole in my spade suit really would be a last resort. Mm. So, you know, he is trained. He knows what's going on. He, he's aware of that. So he says it seemed like an eternity until he finally peered through the curtain of water before his eyes.

    And spotted the hatch already. I'm, I'm horrified. Like this is like the sci-fi version for me of being buried alive. 

    [00:28:50] WILL: Look, I, I say drowning. I don't want this, but you can hold your breath for quite a while. And as I learned recently, it's, yeah, but you weren't panicking. You knew it was coming in your upside down helicopter tape.

    No, no, no. I, I, I, I have done both the Hold your breath not panicking and the hold your breath panicking and which one 

    [00:29:05] ROD: was better. 

    [00:29:06] WILL: Uh, not telling, uh, it's a secret. It's classified 

    [00:29:08] ROD: tune in next 

    [00:29:09] WILL: week, classified just real, like panicking. So what I'm gonna do is, is make you panic and then you gotta hold your breath.

    [00:29:15] ROD: See? And now when you're calm, so he gets back inside to the airlock, they begin re pressurizing the airlock, and he says, the water is now inside my ears. I'm completely cut off. 

    [00:29:26] WILL: I thought mouth was next. 

    [00:29:27] ROD: Yeah. Well, I don't know. No gravity. I think it moves weirdly. You know, water, water's weird. Yeah. In no gravity.

    So he tried to stay as still as he could to keep the water from moving around inside his helmet, which is fair. But he says he knew that because of the re pressurization, if he really had to, he could o open his helmet. If the water overwhelmed him, he'd probably lose consciousness, but it would be better than drowning inside the helmet.

    I'm like, I, I agree. It, it, it think, yeah. I agree. Rapid depressurization or definitely drowning, uh, a engineers, I reckon there's probably one to one and a half liters of water inside his helmet at this point. 

    [00:30:04] WILL: Wow. 

    [00:30:04] ROD: Which is not none. 

    [00:30:06] WILL: Yeah. It's less than a two liter milk bottle, but more than a one liter milk bottle.

    It 

    [00:30:10] ROD: really is. This is why, this is why I talked to you about this stuff, 'cause I couldn't visualize that until then. Now it makes sense. A lead spacewalk officer says, in zero gravity water pulls in a great big glob, so it doesn't necessarily go down into the suit, but there's not a lot of abortive absorptive material in the helmet, so it's tricky.

    Marsha Smith, she's a space policy expert with a bunch of places. She says, look, it's always dangerous when you're outside the Space station. Yes, yes. You need some amount of time to get back to the airlock. Yes, yes. Then inside the airlock waiting for it to repressurize, we're like, yes, I don't think you need to be an expert.

    You just have to have seen any movies. So what we were concerned about was he could actually drown inside the helmet. They clearly expressed concern. This could have been a very dire emergency. You're like, yes. So he could have drowned what actually happened. So this woman continues Marsha Smith. What surprises me the most was how surprised they were at this failure and they still don't understand now.

    So the people admission control and in the, in the Space station, they're like. How the fuck did this happen and what's going on? So there were early analyses and they say, look, it didn't come from the drink bag. Mm-hmm. 'cause he drank it all. Um, the engineers then started to focus on his liquid cooled underwear.

    We've, we've all tried those and they do leak. It's true. Uh, indeed, indeed. So, Nassar, after a month, they traced the problem to his spacesuit backpack, which is full of, you know, life support gear. But the precise cause was still unclear, and it was possibly at the time, the closest call an American LED spacewalk had ever had.

    So the following year, like nine months later. NASA do report and they say, here's what we found out. The officials admit they don't know precisely why it happened. So 

    [00:31:52] WILL: can I just, he got back to the space station? Yep. He got back and he lived all fired, opened his helmet. But, but, but when they opened his helmet, there was some water in it.

    There was, there was water in it. Okay. Oh, yeah. Okay. I, I needed that confirmation. He was not halluc the door. I, I wanted, I want a big, that there was a, it was real. 

    [00:32:07] ROD: So they say they knew the contamination came from a blocked fan pump, but they don't know. What caused the blockage? The weird thing was then the flight directors say, well, we were surprised by the accident, but the same fricking spacesuit had leaked a couple of weeks earlier.

    Hey, hey, hey. So it seems to have been a failure in comms up the chain of command within NASA that didn't say, oh, by the way, you know this thing can, yeah. You know, cause a hint of drowning. I'll put 

    [00:32:35] WILL: that guy in the dodgy one. Like, like it's a hazing thing. That's what it is. Put the new guy in the, the shitty space 

    [00:32:41] ROD: suit.

    Look at the Italian crying like a baby. Just 'cause he knew he drawn, put. Floods while you're out there in space. Whatcha gonna do Luca major? Is it? Yeah. It's just ridiculous. This guy could have drowned in space and it could have been avoided, but of all the things that could go wrong, every millisecond on every space adventure, it's amazing.

    They're not dead all the time. 

    [00:33:01] WILL: A hundred percent. It's amazing. Hey, rod D, does your house get hot in summer? Yes. Uh, to the point where you would, you'd want some 

    [00:33:11] ROD: solutions. Prefer it? Didn't. Prefer it didn't. Well, because I live in a, a, a house that is quite endemic to this area. Which goes seasons. Huh? What?

    Huh? Insulation. Can't even spell it. No. 

    [00:33:22] WILL: Well, um, I got a solution for you. Cool. It comes from our plucky English, but, uh, European friends Mm. Have been looking at ways that you can go, how can I, how can I cool my house? Uh, via different sorts of methods. Um, insect wings. It's not quite insect wings, but this comes from, uh, uh, Ben Roberts, who is a senior lecturer in healthy buildings.

    Not the dude who's up on war crime charges. No, no. Not that. Ben Roberts. Different people. Uh, that, that's Ben Robert Smith. Ah, Robert Smith. You're right, you're right, you're right. Yeah. A senior lecturer in healthy buildings at LoRa University. So he lectures to buildings, uh, how you can be healthy.

    Lecturers at lecturers in Yes. He's come up with an idea that, uh, one thing you can do. Mm-hmm. And he's gone and tested it, is you can get yogurt and you smear it all over the windows of your Yeah. But I tried that. Your house and you get a 

    [00:34:13] ROD: very attractive moss 

    [00:34:14] WILL: and No, no. He said the results of a month long experiment.

    Um, mm-hmm. It smells smell bad. First of all, the smell goes away in 30 seconds. Does it? You, you would be surprised. Does it? You would be surprised. He says, but, but 

    [00:34:27] ROD: can I clarify what he means is, so the smell lasts for months and then suddenly within 30 seconds it's gone. 

    [00:34:34] WILL: When you clean it, no. Or you get used to it in 30 seconds?

    I don't know. 

    [00:34:38] ROD: Suddenly, I don't care anymore. I 

    [00:34:40] WILL: dunno. No. Maybe once it's dry. Once it's Dr. Once, once the yogurt has dried, once the smeared yogurt has dried mm-hmm. Then it's fine. Okay. The experiment. So they got two houses. Mm-hmm. So in obviously Yeah. Next door. So you can have a control. You know, how hot is this house?

    How hot is that house? Yeah. Uh, the indoor temperature of the house with the yogurt smeared all over the windows was on average 0.6 degrees Celsius cooler. Point six, but, but, but up to a maximum of 3.5 degrees cooler when it was hot and sunny. 

    [00:35:09] ROD: So smeared over the windows. Yeah, over the windows. 

    [00:35:11] WILL: You don't have to do the whole house.

    Just 

    [00:35:13] ROD: the window. Just the window. Just, just the bits you wanna see through. 

    [00:35:16] WILL: Just 

    [00:35:16] ROD: the bits you wanna see through. It's like, have you considered spraying your windows with insulation? I have. But it kind of defeats the purpose of having a window, whether it's yogurt or not, is feeling irrelevant to me right now.

    [00:35:30] WILL: Yeah, but it's cheap. Uh, and I, 

    [00:35:31] ROD: that's a shit load of yoga. Have you 

    [00:35:33] WILL: seen 

    [00:35:33] ROD: the windows in 

    [00:35:33] WILL: my house? There's a lot of glass. That's true. Well, they said they used a supermarket brand of Greek yogurt. You would? So you don't have to get, it's gotta be 

    [00:35:41] ROD: Greek. It's gotta be acidophilus. 

    [00:35:42] WILL: Uh, well, they said Greek. It has a fat percentage of 10%, so you don't have to get like the fanciest yogurt.

    Like it doesn't have to 

    [00:35:49] ROD: because your six percent's garbage. 

    [00:35:52] WILL: Just nothing. So looking, looking for some home, uh, techniques. Uh, there you go. There you go. My problem is solved. Smear away. 

    [00:36:04] ROD: So I opened up telling you about, you know, fastest human made objects in the fastest, any of them gone. And I talked about the, the particular, the one that really won was the parker.

    Solar. 

    [00:36:14] WILL: That's cool. That's cool. So, so it's been looping around Venus in the sun. Yep. It's getting up to 400,000. 

    [00:36:19] ROD: It w was nearly 700,000 kilometers an hour. Yeah. I stayed in 

    [00:36:23] WILL: Miles 'cause 

    [00:36:24] ROD: I was for our, our American listeners did. Yeah, 

    [00:36:25] WILL: you did 

    [00:36:26] ROD: for, for them. Yeah. But anyway, so the one that really caught my attention, so it's the late 1950s, the pen.

    1950s. Yeah. 

    [00:36:33] WILL: 1950s. Wins this record. Oh. 

    [00:36:35] ROD: Well, not as fast as the pa the Parker is in winner. They put some plutonium in it, didn't they? Look, nuclear stuff was involved. 

    [00:36:41] WILL: Well, there you go. That's the 1950s. That's how they win every race. They're like, anything. We can use nuclear without any 

    [00:36:47] ROD: care. Dentistry is failing.

    What do we do? We nuke it. Like, like 

    [00:36:50] WILL: see, that's the thing. Yeah. If you wanna have a, have a science race against the 1950s, they're like, nuke. But we use nukes and you guys suck my dog. I can't call my dog still enough to cut their claws. Yeah. Plutonium, atomic age, man. Plutonium when you don't care. 

    [00:37:04] ROD: So the Pentagon says, look, we, we, we've gotta stop doing these air atmospheric nuclear tests.

    They should be underground with absolute nuclear. Yeah. So that we can 

    [00:37:13] WILL: understand when we're bombing the Soviet underground cities Exactly what it'll be like. Exactly. 

    [00:37:17] ROD: Yeah. So anyway, they say, look, we wanna have absolute nuclear containment in mind. We wanna make sure we can really test without causing too much radiation.

    So this is where we come to our underground nuclear testing program called Operation. Plumb. Bobb. Plumb. Bob Plumb. Bobb. 

    [00:37:30] WILL: I love saying the word plumb. It is, 

    [00:37:32] ROD: it really plumb. Bob. It it's great. It wants to be said. So there's a scientist on the project called, uh, Robert Brownley. He's sold to design a test for limiting nuclear fallout for underground explosion testing.

    Well, you're not gonna get any 'cause it's not gonna fall. It's gonna be under You're right. And that's what, that's the plan. 

    [00:37:47] WILL: It'd be nuclear of rise. That that's his, that's his fall up. Like one page report. 

    [00:37:53] ROD: There's no falling here. Yeah. This would be fall up and I fixed it 'cause we don't do that. So he, um, his solution was, look, you take your boom boom machine bomb, you put it in a deep pit.

    [00:38:04] WILL: Yeah. And you 

    [00:38:04] ROD: cap it with a four inch thick iron manhole cover four inch thick. So you got a big long tube and then you cap it. 

    [00:38:09] WILL: Yeah, it's 

    [00:38:10] ROD: a lot of iron. I think they, yeah, the iron 

    [00:38:12] WILL: is, you know, it's iron's, iron. 

    [00:38:14] ROD: I like iron. Iron is iron. So they, uh, yeah, build a big long hole or tube, pop the bomb down. It, you weld a plate on top.

    So the theory would be you contain, it's like a tamping where you tamp it down, you tamping hang on down. But this is 

    [00:38:27] WILL: one tube down. 

    [00:38:28] ROD: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Long tube. 

    [00:38:29] WILL: So, so like a rifle barrel. Kind of rifle. Yeah. That doesn't come up an earth rifle battle or something. Yeah. They don't mention that. They don't mention that.

    Which is interesting that you would say that it's like that is come up because there's, there's a few, few ways that you can bury things, but an a a in a rifle. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 

    [00:38:43] ROD: Not, 

    [00:38:43] WILL: not. For some reason that didn't come up. I, I just, I just feel where the 

    [00:38:47] ROD: physics is going here. Yeah. It's not hard to work out.

    I mean, really. Let me, let me tell you anyway, 'cause you'll like this. Wait, wait till we get to numbers. So you tamp it down. So basically then you weld it on and most of the stuff goes down, not up. Um, which is good. That's desirable. 

    [00:39:02] WILL: Okay. Why when you go boom, 

    [00:39:04] ROD: why would it go down? Because it's been held in place and it's deep underground, so it doesn't burst into the atmosphere.

    It stays underground. 

    [00:39:10] WILL: No. Sure, sure. Yeah. But, but deep in the hole, we've got a nuclear bomb. And let's, let's say the nuclear bomb, it goes. In a, in a sphere around the bomb. So half of it goes down. Yeah. And half of it goes up. So there's you, I, I didn't design this and, and then I'm just a messenger. When you have, have made a hole that points in an easier channel.

    Yeah. 

    [00:39:31] ROD: You're feeling like maybe you've given it 

    [00:39:32] WILL: egress. I, I, I feel like it's not going down very much. It's mostly going whole. Well, what 

    [00:39:38] ROD: they can't do, I, I, I agree with you, barrel. But like, if they actually just buried it and then poured a bunch of concrete on it and blew it up, they'd be kind of like, okay, you ready?

    Did it blow up? Yep. See, the Soviets would've done that hard to measure, felt like concrete and, but it's hard to measure what happened when you do it. They wanna measure things. They wanna measure things. It's the fifties, it's the atomic age. So we get to test one Pascal, a 1957 July. They put the bomb at the bottom of a hollow column, 150 meters deep.

    [00:40:04] WILL: Alright, nice. 

    [00:40:05] ROD: Mm, they weld a 900 kilogram iron cap on the top. 

    [00:40:09] WILL: 900 kilograms would be very heavy for me to lift. It's, it's, I'm, I'm close to. It's like you and me combined. I'm close to a nuclear bomb in strength and, and adding you. Then how, how possibly could a nuclear bomb lift this? It couldn't. It's impossible.

    'cause welded and I meant it's welded. 

    [00:40:24] ROD: Not any welding. You arc welding. Yeah. Nice. I was gonna ask about the technique. Oh, definitely arc welding. Oh, 

    [00:40:28] WILL: is it gonna do like the fork welding where you do the Of course. Yeah. No, 

    [00:40:30] ROD: you turn buckle con. 

    [00:40:32] WILL: Yeah. Nice. 

    [00:40:33] ROD: So within a couple of milliseconds of the bomb's detonation, the cap was jettisoned out, the cap disappears and basically they describe it as a Roman candle shooting out the top.

    [00:40:42] WILL: Nice. 

    [00:40:43] ROD: Which is pretty. That's test one. Nice. Test two is where the fun begins. Pascal BY called Pascal, I dunno, probably after as triangles, like No, no. He did the, the, the difference engine calculating machine language. 

    [00:40:56] WILL: He made Molly and then he made, uh, triangles 

    [00:40:58] ROD: and that language that I learned in high school.

    Yeah, all of those Pascal did all of them. He did, he did. He was a Willy Wonker of mathematicians. So this time for Test two Brownley was ordered to calculate the bomb's shockwave inside the underground shark. What's the shockwave? How fast. How big? So he goes. All right. I wanna, uh, he also wants to test the velocity of the ejected 

    [00:41:15] WILL: cap.

    Good. 'cause, 'cause podcast listeners later will be wondering what, what could that velocity be? They're gonna be happy to hear the 

    [00:41:22] ROD: result. Good. I'm glad he did the 

    [00:41:24] WILL: maths. 

    [00:41:24] ROD: So they got a camera that captures one image per millisecond on the cap. That is not fast enough I suspect. They, they captured something.

    So in 2002, brownie, hang on about, so hang on, on the cap. It's not sitting on the cap. It's, no, no, no. It's like capturing a view of the, yeah. I assume it's piping back to somewhere that isn't getting muted. So years later, 2002, Brownley apparently wrote an essay or a report or something talking about stuff that happened around this test, including a dialogue with a guy called Bill Ogle, who is a division leader or deputy a, a leader in this project.

    So it goes like this, Ogle, what time does the shock arrive at the top of the pipe? Brownley 31 milliseconds, ogle. Ah, and what happens Brownly, the shock reflects back down the hole, but the pressures and temperatures are such that the welded cap is bound to come off the hole. Ah, Ogle says, so how fast does it go?

    Yeah. Brownly. My calculations are irrelevant on this point. They're only valid in speaking of the shock reflection. Oh, 

    [00:42:23] WILL: ogle. How fast did it go? Yeah, motherfucker. Like, don't tell me your calculations are irrelevant. Yeah. Shut up. Egghead. 

    [00:42:30] ROD: Dude's gotta know. Yeah, like how fast did it go? Uh, Brownley, those numbers are meaningless.

    I only have a vacuum above the cap. No air, no gravity, no real material strength in the iron cap. Okay. 

    [00:42:40] WILL: Okay. He's like, he. There's the earth's atmosphere here, buddy. You know, we too many things. I don't know, man. I can't tell you numbers. Well, no go Effectively, the cap is just loose 

    [00:42:48] ROD: traveling through meaningless space.

    Uh, ogle and how fast is it going? Yeah. And apparently this last question was basically a shout going for fuck's sake answer me. So let's pause for context. I, 

    [00:43:00] WILL: I, I just want, I just want, this military guy is like, can I shoot someone with this? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I, can I shoot some Nazis with a, with a cap from, is this a 

    [00:43:06] ROD: son of a bitch?

    Bullet Or wrote a colossal son of a bitch? Bullet. So we'll pause for context before we answer ogle question. To get to low earth orbit, you need to get about. 28,000 kilometers an hour. I can do that. Your thing. Oh no, you can. You're very strong and fast. Yeah. Yeah. Which is an unusual combination. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    Like the peacemaker to escape earth's gravity. So escape velocity, you need to get to 40 odd thousand kilometers an hour. 

    [00:43:31] WILL: Okay, 

    [00:43:32] ROD: nice. So keep that in your mind. Brown Lee's answer to the question that ogle shouts and how fast is it going is six times the escape velocity from the earth six times. So is it 240,000 kilometers in that vicinity?

    So, to be clear, to begin with, no one thought that the, the, the cat would be launched into space. Like there was never a consideration. But once the bomb detonate, so we get back to the camera one frame per millisecond. It appears in one frame. 

    [00:44:02] WILL: Yeah. Okay. Okay, good. Just one frame. That's what I was thinking.

    I was like, cap, and that's the end of it. And so, so there's not a lot of calculating? Not a lot. When, 

    [00:44:09] ROD: when 

    [00:44:10] WILL: things happened. Yeah. No, no. Like 

    [00:44:11] ROD: we went, boom, it went, that's, that's the end of it. So there's no direct velocity measurement. They have to infer and calculate. So Brownley goes, I've done some math.

    It's probably traveling at about 200,000 kilometers an hour. So to be fair, only five times escape velocity, which I think is magnificent. So, so which way was it pointing? Does it go around the sun? Does it? Well, I said, look, everyone expected they could go and look for the manhole cover before the experiment, but it turns out they couldn't because it probably ended up in space.

    No, no. Well, in space, well, well and truly and like this is before Sputnik was 

    [00:44:43] WILL: launched, so it may have been the first. Hey, good on them. Good on them. You can write to the Americans and say, actually you beat them. You beat them. Not, not deliberately. Yeah. And not as, not as high 

    [00:44:53] ROD: tech, but, but so what? The giant rifle barrels, so basically not only the fastest, manmade object in history until the plummeting Parker solar probe, but it might have been one of, if not the first manmade object to be shot into space.

    So. I like it more than the Parker of Solar Pro because it's way funny. It's basically in my head is Roadrunner and the coyote trying to do something and instead this 900 kilogram iron plug just teleports into space at velocities they'd never even 

    [00:45:22] WILL: considered. I love it. I love it, but it's also. In my head, I'm like, we'll never repeat the fifties again.

    Ever. And there, there will never be the fifties that time when it's like, we can fucking do anything. Yeah. And we probably should. Yeah. And what do you have all fuck the consequences, all the resources. What 

    [00:45:36] ROD: about your morals? Oh, we, we didn't think of that. No. That's for, that's for other people in the future to care about retrospective you guys and your, your, your revisionist views of history, 

    [00:45:45] WILL: like we're evil.

    Oh my God. Uh, look, if you have, uh, fascinating things that you'd love us to do, if we got in a time machine to go back into the 1950s or some plutonium, uh, today, or some, or some plutonium today, let us know. You can, uh, shoot it to our email address, which is a little bit of science@gmail.com. No, it's not.

    Cheers, a little bit of science.com au. Dot com. That's what I meant, but that's cool. No, it's, it's cool. Whatever. Send it to an email and see who's got, email the request to somebody. Also make sure you give us, give us uh, some reviews and, uh, what kind of reviews? Uh, five star reviews. Oh one 11, just five.

    And also come and join the Twitch stream. We've had people asking what is what, what was the penis in terms of girth? And we will not tell you, but we will tell them two inches. Oh, dammit. No, it was, it was, it was 19. It was, it was a rectangle. It's like, it's like 

    [00:46:38] ROD: spherical dick.

Will Grant
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