What Caused America's First Nuclear Meltdown? The SL-1 Accident.
Posted: Mon May 10, 2021 10:14 am
I read a lot about nuclear research history from the 50s and 60s, because it's frightening how cavalier we were about radiation back then. People mistakenly write this off as 'well, we didn't know how dangerous it was back then', but this is BS. We knew EXACTLY how dangerous it was. It was just a different time. No OSHA, no regulations.
Case in point is this incident, which despite my having read a lot about these things, I've never heard of before. Remarkable as it is the first case of a nuclear reactor meltdown in the US, and the only US reactor accident that caused fatalities.
This was an Army experimental small reactor, intended as a prototype to be used to power military bases in hard to access regions like the Arctic.
To add intrigue, to this day they're not sure if it was an accident, or a murder/suicide involving a love triangle.
While the video is safe for work, be warned that the description of the corpses is bit gruesome.
Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1
Case in point is this incident, which despite my having read a lot about these things, I've never heard of before. Remarkable as it is the first case of a nuclear reactor meltdown in the US, and the only US reactor accident that caused fatalities.
This was an Army experimental small reactor, intended as a prototype to be used to power military bases in hard to access regions like the Arctic.
To add intrigue, to this day they're not sure if it was an accident, or a murder/suicide involving a love triangle.
While the video is safe for work, be warned that the description of the corpses is bit gruesome.
Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1