Why Apollo Astronauts Trained at a Nuclear Test Site

Apollo astronauts trained in nuclear bomb craters at the Nevada National Security Site. But why?Thanks Audible! Start listening with a 30-day trial and your first audiobook plus two Audible Originals free when you go to http://audible.com/veritasium or text veritasium to 500500

I found this story fascinating because in a way a nuclear bomb crater is more like a meteorite impact site than an impact site itself. Consider: Barringer Crater was claimed to be a meteorite impact site but geologists dismissed it as a volcanic formation. It was only after studying nuclear bomb craters and the minerals found there that geologists concluded the energy and pressures that created Barringer Crater were too high to be from volcanic activity and therefore must have formed from a meteorite impact.

Special Thanks to:
Nevada National Security Site
The National Atomic Testing Museum
Jonny Hyman and Verse: https://youtu.be/7bUUGzi-AAY
Active Galactic for footage of craters in Arizona: https://youtu.be/yhoooBpndog

Special thanks to Patreon supporters:
a human, Alfred Wallace, Arjun Chakroborty, Brent Stewart, Bryan Baker, Chris Vargas, Chuck Lauer Vose, Clip Tree, Coale Shifflett, Colin Bellmore, DALE HORNE, Daniel Milum, Donal Botkin, Eric Velazquez, Illya Nayshevsky, James Knight, James Wong, Jasper Xin, Joar Wandborg, Johnny, June Kang, Kevin Beavers, kkm, Leah Howard, Listen Money Matters, Lyvann Ferrusca, Manuel Zürcher, Mathias Göransson, Michael Bradley Wirz, Michael Krugman, Mohammed Al Sahaf, OddJosh, Philipp Volgger, Pindex, Roberto Rezende, Robin DeBank, Ron Neal, Sam Lutfi, Stan Presolski, Tige Thorman, Warrior8252

Filmed by Raquel Nuno
Story and Editing by Derek Muller and Jonny Hyman
Music and Animation by Jonny Hyman
Produced by Casey Rentz

Four wheels, two wheels, or none at all. It does not matter. These people found a way to break records anyway. A...
A sailboat reached 103.93 km/h without an engine but just wind. That incredible moment came when ROCKWOOL...
Most people never go faster than a commercial airliner. Louis Skupien just broke the sound barrier twice, hit Mach...
Forget 220 mph race bikes for a second. Before the lights even went out at the 2026 Thai GP, MotoGP's biggest...
An expert takes a closer look at AI-generated history videos and separates fact from...
This Rolex is smaller than a pea. And it came loaded with problems that almost ended the whole restoration before...
Imagine spending months nursing a wild animal back to health, then finally opening the cage door and watching it...
A puppy-filled interview full of chaos, laughs, and unexpected moments. Zendaya and Tom Holland’s...
He quit his job to build toy cars. Then a millionaire called. Six months ago, 164Luke walked away from his...
Messi chased his last World Cup. Spain made sure history had other plans. Spain beat Argentina 1-0 in extra time...
No blueprints. No wheels. No explanation left behind. 4,600 years ago, someone stacked 2.3 million stone blocks...
A week of island festivities marks the start of MrBeast’s married life MrBeast, also known as Jimmy Donaldson,...