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Can A Metal Bowling Ball Survive Inside a Nuclear Explosion?
Scott Manley
Scott Manley explains the Cold War experiments in which steel and aluminium spheres, known as Lew Allen's Balls, were placed near nuclear detonations. The spheres survived the fireball, and he walks through what the declassified results show.
Cited as a fun, well-explained account of objects surviving nuclear blasts, relevant to Orion-style and spacecraft survivability discussions.
3 Hacker News mentions · 2020–2026