"For obvious reasons of morale, these tunnels are not near those in which the men's dormitories are situated."

Xoder — Thu, 13 May 2010 08:53:07 -0800

Project Iceworm was part of an investigation into the feasibility of storing nuclear missiles under Greenland's ice sheet, in the event that the Cold War turned Hot. In 1960 the US Air Force took it upon themselves to bury a city, called "Camp Century" in the ice sheet, and see how life went there. There's an excellent documentary (parts 2, 3, 4) on YouTube about its construction and installation of various facilities, including the first portable modular nuclear power plant. In 1957, the Danish government declared Denmark (and its territories, like Greenland) Nuclear-free zones, presumably to try to protect themselves in the event of nuclear hostilities between the NATO powers and the USSR. Camp Century was not the last violation of this policy by the United States. In the 1990s, the Danish government launched an investigation into the 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash, and discovered that the US had stockpiled nuclear weapons at Thule (the resulting scandal was called "Thulegate"). The crash also triggered the end of Operation Chrome Dome, an ongoing alert/readiness mission due to the release of nuclear materials after the crash. Only 85% of the Uranium and 94% of the secondary materials (like Plutonium and Tritium) were recovered, causing Time to call the incident one of the worst nuclear accidents in history. PS: If you're in Syracuse, NY, you might want to check out Box 19 and 20 of Alco's records to get some original documentation on the remarkable PM-2A reactor that powered Camp Century.

MetaFilter posts tagged with campcentury

"For obvious reasons of morale, these tunnels are not near those in which the men's dormitories are situated."