COULD WE BUILD… FALLOUT’S VAULT 33?
Do we have the technology to build self-sustaining nuclear bunkers, just like in the post-apocalyptic series?
WORDS JACK PARSONS
DID YOU KNOW?
In the 1950s, tourists flocked to Las Vegas for ‘atom bomb parties’, where they watched tests from a distance
The surface was decimated by war
© Alamy; LANDMARK MEDIA
HOW NUCLEAR FALLOU T SPREADS
The US Army tested the first atomic bomb in remote Nevada to limit damage, but winds still blew radioactive particles across 46 states, Canada and Mexico
Could you spend your whole life in an underground bunker? This is the premise of the Fallout series, based on the wildly popular video game franchise of the same name, set in a future where nuclear war survivors live in ‘Vaults’, waiting for it to be safe to return to the irradiated surface and rebuild society. Fallout’s name is inspired by the radioactive debris thrown into the air by a nuclear bomb, which then falls back to Earth. During the decadeslong standoff between the US and the Soviet Union known as the Cold War, there was widespread fear that either side would attack the other with atomic weapons. By 1965, around 200,000 Americans had built fallout shelters to hide in. Meanwhile, 16,500 public shelters were built in Russia.