Crazy Story About the Fastest Man-made Object in History

On August 27, 1957, at a remote testing site in the Nevada desert a group of scientists launched a man hole cover into space at approximately 125,000 miles per hour.

By Nathan Johnson

Published 4 years ago in Wow

On August 27, 1957, at a remote testing site in the Nevada desert a group of scientists launched a man hole cover into space at approximately 125,000 miles per hour. And if you think that is crazy, you won't believe what would happen if you made an a true-black swimming pool.

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Did you know that the fastest ever moving man made object was a manhole cover? Neither did we, and yes, though the TIL says "unconfirmed", we have reason to believe this myth has been upheld over the years as true to the story. So here is the odd history of Operation Plumbbob, lead by Astro Physicist, Robert Brownlee.

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Part os the Nevada desert, where the government tested nuclear weapons is marked completely with massive potholes from under ground explosions. And it was in one of these explosions, that a manhole cover was lunched into outer space.

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And over the years the stories authenticity has been called into question and people have summarized that maybe the manhole covered burned up in the atmosphere of fell back down to Earth, but according to Brownlee, that couldn't be true.

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Brownlee has maintained from the beginning that the manhole cover made it to outer space saying, "After I was in the business and did my own missile launches," he said. "I realized that that piece of iron didn’t have time to burn all the way up [in the atmosphere]."
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