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<ul class="summary-list"><li>These 6 vehicles can't be found on the showroom floor</li><li>They range from an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/car-mechanic-theon-parseghian-amphibious-vehicles-restoration-boat-volvo-houseboat-2018-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">amphibious Volvo</a> to a 70 mile per hour toy <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/barbie-toy-car-honda-dirt-bike-engine-fisher-price-power-wheels-2019-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Barbie Car</a></li><li>Each vehicle has been modified or built from scratch by car enthusiast from around the world</li></ul><p><em>The following is a transcript of the <keyword id="21654" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="video">video</keyword>.</em></p><p><strong>Narrator:</strong> This <keyword id="11234448" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="barbie-car">Barbie car</keyword> is no toy. YouTubers Edwin and Ethan build unnecessary motorized creations. Convinced most people thought about hot-rodding their toy car as a kid, the duo decided they would make it happen in real life. After buying a go-kart from Craigslist, they cut the frame to fit the length of the Barbie car and mounted the car on top. They removed the rear-mounted go-kart engine and replaced it with a front-mounted dirt-bike engine. Mounting the engine to the front removes weight from the rear and allows the Barbie car to effortlessly drift on command. After spending $1,700 on the project, the 70-mile-per-hour "toy" is both thrilling and dangerous.</p><p>Meet the Teslonda, a Honda Accord with a <keyword id="107096" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Tesla">Tesla</keyword> motor. After experiencing the performance of electric <keyword id="20632" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Cars">cars</keyword>, Jim Belosic decided to build his own. Since the 1981 Accord is too small to fit a Tesla battery pack, it's powered by Chevy Volt batteries. But that doesn't affect the performance of the Teslonda. It can reach 60 miles per hour in just 2.45 seconds. That's faster than a Bugatti Veyron. These massive rear tires had to be added so the car can properly grip the road. Inside, you'll find a hodgepodge of buttons and switches to turn on the various systems and fail-safes and an infotainment system inspired by '90s-style arcade games.</p><p>This is a <keyword id="2203832" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="monowheel">monowheel</keyword>. It reverses the design of a typical car or motorcycle. Instead of sitting above the wheel, the driver sits inside. The tire is attached to the outer frame, while the motor and seat are attached to the inner frame. Inside the frame, a third wheel known as the roller gets powered by the motor. That wheel rotates the outer frame independent from the inside frame to propel the vehicle forward. Riding a monowheel isn't like riding a motorcycle. The handlebars can't be used to steer left and right. The system is navigated by leaning in the direction you want to go. Just make sure you don't overshoot it.</p><p>Theon Parseghian always dreamed of owning a car that could cross the lake, but the few amphibious cars that existed were out of his price range. So he built his own. The shape of his Volvo station wagon resembled a V-shaped hull, a common shape for boats. But it needed to be made waterproof before setting out on its maiden voyage. The doors and rear hatch were sealed to form a unibody design. The roof and windows were removed so passengers can still access the car, and the rear seats were replaced with a jet pump to propel the car forward in water. Once it's in the water, it can reach up to 10 miles per hour, and the front wheels act like rudders to steer the amphibious vehicle in the desired direction.</p><p>This is the Diwheel, one of many ambitious designs from Youtuber Master Milo. It's essentially a monowheel powered by a car. In this case, the car is the inner frame, and the wheels act as the rollers. Milo used an old, beat-up Ford as his donor car. He chopped the car in half and shortened it to fit inside rings wrapped in tire tread. Careful and strategic planning went into the design to ensure its safety.</p><p>These innovative vehicles weren't made by one engineer, but several. They're speedsters made from warplane fuel tanks. It's a form of hot-rodding that began post World War II, when junkyards were filled with old warplane parts. Known as <keyword id="11234449" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="belly-tankers">belly tankers</keyword> or lakesters, enthusiasts would chop up the tanks and drop in huge motors. Fuel tanks were designed with great aerodynamics, which made belly tankers ideal for speed. The speedsters were used to race across dry lake beds in attempts to set land-speed records. The fastest belly tanker ever built reached a top speed of 198 miles per hour.</p>

6 unique rides by independent engineers

<ul class="summary-list"><li>After <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/world-war-ii">World War II</a>, US junkyards were filled with discarded <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/fighter-jet">fighter planes</a> and their leftover parts.</li><li>Racers became particularly interested in their drop tanks, the extra fuel cell these planes carried.</li><li>From these "belly tanks" they began building hot rods that are still popular amongst enthusiasts today.</li></ul><p><em>Following is a transcript of the video.</em></p><h2><strong>Why warplane fuel tanks make great hot rods</strong></h2><p><strong>Narrator: </strong>If you're not sure what kind of car this is, you're not alone. These tiny metal capsules with wheels are called belly tanks, or lakesters, and they're a major part of hot rod culture.</p><p><span>So where does that strange-looking 'bodywork' come from? The short answer? The sky. Following World War II, US junkyards and surplus stores were filled with an abundance of leftover warplane parts, which included plenty of drop tanks, or belly tanks. Belly tanks were supplemental gas tanks strapped to World War II fighter planes to help boost their notoriously poor range. However, after the war, racers found another use for them. America's gearheads quickly began transforming these discarded fuel cells into miniature speed demons and racing them out on dry lake beds, hence the name lakesters.</span></p><p><strong>Bruce Meyer: </strong>The belly tank was a natural because it was an extra fuel tank attached to the bottom of a P-38 fighter plane. So it was already proven to to be aerodynamic. So it was the perfect shape for land speed racing.</p><p><span><strong>Narrator: </strong>One of the most famous belly tankers belonged to Alex Xydias, founder of the iconic So-Cal Speed Shop. Owned today by rare car collector and enthusiast Bruce Meyer, this legendary lakester still looks just as good now as it ever did.</span></p><p><strong>Bruce: </strong>The top speed that this car attained was 198 mph, and that was piloted by Alex Xydias. When we found the belly tank, it was very much complete. It had the original interior, original dash, all the original metal and suspension. So it was all there. Nothing had to be fabricated, but it still took a year of research with Alex Xydias and Wally Parks working with Pete Chapouris, who restored the car, to make it what you see today and as accurate as it is. It is 100% the original car.</p><p><span>Finding a belly tank in the '40s and '50s was very, very easy. Today, not so much.</span></p><p><strong>Narrator: </strong><span>That hasn't stopped plenty of car builders in shops and garages today.</span></p><p><strong>Sundeep Koneru: </strong>Sunrise Racing Division is our take on preserving vintage hot rods, especially the different eras of racing. Building our car took us about eight months. The process was first finding these tanks, which are becoming harder and harder to find. Next step was sending it to Steve Pugner, my buddy in Virginia. He does great metalwork, and he's the one who did all the metalwork on this car. Next was finding a motor.</p><p><span>The biggest challenge we faced was one, me and Steve are pretty tall guys, so trying to fit us in the back of that tank was a challenge. And of course fitting a big motor which ends up sticking out was a bit of a challenge too.</span></p><p><span>I think belly tankers are still as popular as they've ever been. There's more and more guys in their garages building belly tanks than I've ever seen before. Some of the big events you can go and see these are Bonneville during Speed Week or even El Mirage during their time trials.</span></p><p><strong>Bruce: </strong><span>Belly tanks were prolific back then, and some people used them to build land speed records. Today, it's not so easy. You don't see belly tanks just laying around, and the few that were used for land speed racing are few and far between. But they do exist and are being held by enthusiasts and people who understand the importance of them.</span></p>

Car builders make hot rods out of World War II fighter plane belly tanks

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A video showed a fighter jet crash landing at a military base in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thursday. </li><li>The pilot was forced to eject from the F-35B aircraft after it spun out of control.</li></ul><p>Video showed a US pilot ejecting from an F-35B Lightning II stealth fighter jet that crashed during the aircraft's trademark vertical landing at a naval base in Texas. </p><p>The plane was landing at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth on Thursday when things went wrong. </p><p>The video, published by <a href="https://twitter.com/cbs11doug/status/1603466654704406530">CBS reporter Doug Dunbar,</a> shows the aircraft bouncing on the tarmac before its nose leans forward and its back wheels lift up unexpectedly. The jet then begins to spin around on its nose. </p><p>The jet continues to spin, then rights itself as the pilot is seen ejecting from the aircraft with a parachute trailing amid plumes of smoke.</p><p>The pilot landed without injury, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/dfw/news/f-35-fighter-jet-pilot-ejected-after-landing-at-fort-worth-naval-air-base/">CBS News reported.</a></p><p>The F-35B is a short take-off/vertical landing variant built for operations from aircraft carriers with ramps, amphibious assault ships, and airfields with limited runways.</p><p>It is built differently from the F-35A, armed with a cannon, and the F-35C, equipped with the tools for carrier launch and recovery.</p><p>The F-35B achieved initial operating capability in 2015 and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-f-35-enters-combat-for-the-first-time-in-afghanistan-2018-9">first flew combat missions</a> in 2018. It is unclear exactly what caused the problem with this particular vertical landing Thursday.</p><p>Pentagon press secretary Gen. Pat Ryder <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3248297/pentagon-press-secretary-air-force-brig-gen-pat-ryder-holds-an-on-camera-press/">said</a> Thursday that the jet was still under the ownership of its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, and had not yet been handed over to the US military. The aircraft, however, was being flown by a "US government pilot" at the time of the crash, he said. This is not uncommon during testing.</p><p>In a statement provided to <a href="https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2022/12/15/pilot-ejects-from-f-35-military-jet-makes-crash-landing-in-fort-worth/">multiple outlets</a>, Lockheed Martin said: "We are aware of the F-35B crash on the shared runway at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth and understand that the pilot ejected successfully. Safety is our priority, and we will follow appropriate investigation protocol."</p><p>Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.</p><p>The F-35 program is among the most expensive weapons programs in the world.</p><p>But the advanced fifth-generation fighter has faced setbacks over the course of its development, including crashes involving both the US military and foreign partners, though not all were caused by problems with the plane.</p><p>The first F-35 crash involved a US Marine Corps F-35B that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/f-35-crashes-in-south-carolina-2018-9">went down in 2018</a> outside Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina due to a problem with the fuel tube. The next year, a Japanese F-35A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-happened-to-japanese-f-35-that-disappeared-in-pacific-2019-6">crashed into the sea</a>; however, the crash was attributed to pilot error.</p><p>2020 saw a US Air Force F-35A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/f35-crash-eglin-air-force-base-florida-2020-5">crashed at Eglin Air Force Base</a> in Florida due to a mixture of pilot error and issues with the aircraft, and a Marine Corps F-35B crashed in Florida after <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pilot-who-safely-crash-landed-after-f35-collision-gets-medal-2022-6">colliding with a tanker plane</a>.</p><p>The following year, a Marine F-35B <a href="https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39920/a-marine-f-35b-fighter-jet-accidentally-shot-itself-with-its-own-gun-pod">damaged itself</a> after a round fired from the jet's gun pod exploded close to the aircraft, throwing shrapnel into the plane, and then another F-35B operating off the British Royal Navy carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/f-35-pilot-flying-off-uk-aircraft-carrier-bails-out-2021-11">crashed into the Mediterranean</a>.</p><p>Following an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/f-35a-belly-landing-south-korea-gear-problem-2022-1">emergency belly landing</a> by a South Korean F-35 in early 2022, a US Navy F-35C <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/f-35-landing-mishap-aircraft-carrier-south-china-sea-2022-1">crashed on the deck</a> of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, caught fire, and slid into the South China Sea. This year also saw an Air Force F-35A <a href="https://www.388fw.acc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3194792/updated-statement-on-f-35-crash-at-hill-afb/">crash on the runway</a> at Hill Air Force Base, and then there was the latest crash in Texas.</p><p><em>Ryan Pickrell contributed to this report.</em></p>

Wild video shows F-35B jet crashing and skidding in botched vertical landing, forcing the pilot to eject

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo</span></p><p class="caption">Part of the wrecked fuselage of an US Air Force B-52 bomber where it crashed near Palomares, Spain, after colliding with a US Air Force KC-135 tanker while refueling on January 17, 1966.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>A crash involving a B-52 Stratofortress bomber over Spain in 1966 resulted in four nuclear bombs being lost for 81 days.</strong></li><li><strong>The bombs were <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060506213400/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2004/2/2004_2_28.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">not armed</a>, meaning there was no chance of a nuclear detonation.</strong></li><li><strong>The US personnel involved in the search and Spaniards in the area have lived with the legacy of the accident in the half-century since.</strong></li></ul><p><br />Early on the morning of January 16, 1966, a B-52 Stratofortress bomber took off from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina.</p><p>The bomber headed toward Europe, where it would patrol near the borders of the Soviet Union with four nuclear weapons, part of Operation Chrome Dome, a Cold War program to provide 24-hour rapid-response capabilities in case of war.</p><p>During its return to the US the next day, the B-52 was to rendezvous with a KC-135 tanker for refueling over Spain. Capt. Charles Wendorf, the 29-year-old Air Force pilot at the controls of the bomber, asked his staff pilot, Maj. Larry Messinger, to take over as they approached the refueling point.</p><p>Just after 10 a.m. on January 17, the planes began their approach at 31,000 over eastern Spain. Messinger sensed something was amiss.</p><p>"We came in behind the tanker, and we were a little bit fast, and we started to overrun him a little bit," Messinger recalled, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060506213400/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2004/2/2004_2_28.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to American Heritage magazine.</p><p><span>"There is a procedure they have in refueling where if the boom operator feels that you'</span><span>re getting too close and it's a dangerous situation, he will call, 'Break away, break away, break away,'" Messinger said. "There was no call for a breakaway, so we didn't see anything dangerous about the situation. But all of a sudden all hell seemed to break loose."</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo</span></p><p class="caption">The largest remaining piece of a US jet tanker after a collision with a B-52 bomber over southeastern Spain, January 18, 1966.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p>The B-52 collided with the tanker. The belly of the KC-135 ripped open, and jet fuel spilled into the tanker and onto the bomber. Explosions ripped through both planes, consuming the tanker and killing all four men aboard. Three men in the tail of the bomber were killed, and the four other crew members ejected.</p><p>Capt. Ivens Buchanan, strapped into his ejection seat, was caught in the fireball and burned. He crashed to the ground, but survived. Wendorf's and Lt. Richard Rooney's parachutes opened at 14,000 feet, and they drifted out to sea where fishermen rescued them.</p><p>Messinger hit his head during ejection. "<span>I opened my parachute. Well, I shouldn't have done that. I should have freefalled and the parachute would open automatically at 14,000 feet," he <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060506213400/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2004/2/2004_2_28.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. "But I opened mine anyway, because of the fact that I got hit in the head, I imagine." He drifted eight miles out to sea, where he was also picked up by fishermen.</span></p><p><span>A Spanish fisherman five miles offshore at the time <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060506213400/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2004/2/2004_2_28.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> seeing the explosion and the rain of debris. He then saw five parachutes - three with surviving crew members from the bomber; two others carrying "half a man, with his guts trailing," and a "dead man."</span><span></span></p><p><span>Soon after, on the ground in Spain, officers at Air Force bases <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/us/decades-later-sickness-among-airmen-after-a-hydrogen-bomb-accident.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">scrambled</a> to pack the troops they could find - cooks, clerks, and musicians - into buses to head toward Palomares, a coastal farming village in southeast Spain.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo</span></p><p class="caption"> The wreckage of a US Air Force KC-135 tanker that collided with a B-52 bomber over southeast Spain. Spanish officials in background are searching for bodies, January 18, 1966. </p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>"It was just chaos," John Garman, then a military-police officer, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/us/decades-later-sickness-among-airmen-after-a-hydrogen-bomb-accident.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The New York Times in 2016. "Wreckage was all over the village. A big part of the bomber had crashed down in the yard of the school."</span></p><p><span>By the evening of January 17, all the airmen had been accounted for and no villagers were hurt. But US personnel continued their search for the four nuclear bombs the B-52 had been carrying.</span></p><h2><span>Days of searching</span></h2><p><span>The bombs - each carrying 1.45 megatons of explosive power, about 100 times as much as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima - were <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060506213400/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2004/2/2004_2_28.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">not armed</a>, meaning there was no chance of a nuclear detonation. </span></p><p><span>One was recovered intact, but the high-explosives in two of them, designed to detonate and trigger a nuclear blast, did explode. The blasts left house-size craters on either side of the village, scattering plutonium and contaminating crops and farmland.</span></p><p data-para-count="315" data-total-count="1250">"There was no talk about radiation or plutonium or anything else," Frank B. Thompson, then a 22-year-old trombone player, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/us/decades-later-sickness-among-airmen-after-a-hydrogen-bomb-accident.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The New York Times in 2016.</p><p data-para-count="315" data-total-count="1250"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo</span></p><p class="caption">Nuclear-search-team members have lunch at Camp Wilson in Palomares Beach, Spain, February 17, 1966.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Thompson and others spent days searching contaminated fields without protective equipment or even a change of clothes. "They told us it was safe, and we were dumb enough, I guess, to believe them," he said.</p><p>The fourth bomb remained missing after days of searching, its absence embarrassing for the US and potentially deadly for people in the area.</p><p>The Pentagon <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060506213400/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2004/2/2004_2_28.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called on engineers</a> at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, who crunched the available numbers in order to determine where the missing bomb may have landed. The circumstances of the crash and the multitude of variables made such an estimate difficult.</p><p>Clues pointed to a sea landing for the fourth bomb, but there was little hard data to indicate where.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo</span></p><p class="caption">An H-bomb lost in the crash of two US Air Force planes in January 1966, seen during a recovery operation on April 8, 1966.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>An interview with the fisherman who watched five members of the bomber's crew land at sea yielded a breakthrough.</p><p>The "dead man" was in fact the bomb attached to its parachute, and the "half man, with his guts trailing" was the empty parachute bag with its packing lines trailing in the air.</p><p>That information led the engineers assisting the search to recommend a new search area, bringing the total area being scoured to 27 square miles - with visibility of only 20 feet in some spots.</p><p>On February 11, the Navy called in Alvin, a 22-foot-long, 8-foot-wide submersible weighting 13 tons. It had room for a pilot and two observers, carried several cameras and a grappling arm, and could dive to 6,000 feet.</p><p>Alvin's primitive technology made the search a slog. There was no progress until March 1, when they spotted a track on the seabed.</p><p>Two more weeks of searching went by before they spotted the bomb - 2,550 feet below the surface, almost exactly in the spot where the fisherman had seen it enter the water. On March 24, divers in Alvin managed to attach a line to the bomb's parachute. Just after 8 p.m., a winch on a Navy ship began to reel in the line. About an hour later, the line broke, sending the bomb back to the ocean floor.</p><p>They found it again on April 2, resting about 350 feet deeper in the same area. The Navy rigged up another retrieval plan using an unmanned recovery vehicle, but it got caught in the bomb's parachute. On April 7, the admiral leading the search ordered his crew to lift the whole thing.</p><p>The laborious process that followed, assisted by Navy frogmen, lifted the missing nuclear bomb to the surface, bringing the 81-day saga to a close.</p><p>Alvin's pilots became international heroes, but little else about the incident ended so well.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo</span></p><p class="caption">US Air Force Maj. Gen. Delmar Wilson, left, and US Navy Rear Adm. William S. Guest at Palomares Beach, inspecting the H-bomb that was recovered from the sea, on April 8, 1966.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>'<span>They told us everything was safe'</span></h2><p>US soldiers plowed up 600 acres of crops in Palomares, sending it to the Savannah River nuclear complex in South Carolina for disposal.</p><p>The US government <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060506213400/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2004/2/2004_2_28.shtml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">paid $710,914</a> to settle 536 Spanish claims. The fisherman, who wanted his claim for finding the bomb, sued for $5 million and eventually won $14,566. Madrid, where protesters had chanted "Yankee assassins!" during the search, asked US Strategic Air Command to stop its flights over Spain. The airborne-alert program of Operation Chrome Dome was curtailed and ended for good in 1992.</p><p>The US personnel involved in the search and Spaniards in the area have lived with the legacy of the accident in the half-century since it happened.</p><p>Despite removing soil in the immediate aftermath, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/19/us-to-clean-up-spanish-radioactive-site-49-years-after-palomares-plane-crash" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tests in the 1990s</a> revealed high levels of Americum, a product of decaying plutonium, in the village. More tests showed that 50,000 cubic meters of the soil remained radioactive. The US agreed to clean up the contamination remaining in the village in 2015.</p><p>Many of the US veterans who assisted the search have said they are dealing with the effects of plutonium poisoning. Linking cancers to a single exposure to radiation is impossible, and there hasn't been any study to assess whether they have an elevated incidence of illness, but in the years since some have been ravaged by disease.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>AP Photo/National Archive Record Administration</span></p><p class="caption">An unidentified US soldier looks through the material found after a US B-52 bomber collided with a tanker plane during aerial refueling, January 17, 1966.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Of the 40 veterans involved in the search who were identified <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/us/decades-later-sickness-among-airmen-after-a-hydrogen-bomb-accident.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">by The Times in 2016</a>, 21 had cancer - nine had died from it.</p><p>Many of the men have blamed the Air Force, which sent them to clean the scene with little protective gear and later fed troops the contaminated crops that Spaniards refused to eat. One military-police officer was given a plastic bag and told to pick up radioactive fragments by hand.</p><p>The Air Force also dismissed tests done at the time showing the men had high levels of plutonium contamination.</p><p><span>"It took me a long time to start to realize this maybe had to do with cleaning up the bombs," <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/20/us/decades-later-sickness-among-airmen-after-a-hydrogen-bomb-accident.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Arthur Kindler, who was a grocery supply clerk at the time of the incident. </span></p><p><span>He was so covered in plutonium during the cleanup that the Air Force made him wash off in the ocean and took his clothes. Four years later he developed testicular cancer and a rare lung infection; he has had cancer in his lymph nodes three times since then. </span></p><p><span>"You have to understand, they told us everything was safe," Kindler said. "We were young. We trusted them. Why would they lie?"</span></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/us-nuclear-war-mission-control-doomsday-plane-2017-9">This US plane doubles as Mission Control during nuclear war- take a look inside</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

The US Air Force lost 4 nuclear bombs in Spain 52 years ago - and the disaster is still being felt now

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li>On Saturday, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/elon-musk">Elon Musk</a> showed off <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/spacex">SpaceX's</a> new details of the rocket company's planned super-heavy launch system called Starship.</li><li>SpaceX posted a new animation to YouTube that shows the 39-story rocket launching from Boca Chica, Texas, where the company is developing the system - including a prototype called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/starship-mk-1">Starship Mark 1</a>.</li><li>The animation underscores SpaceX's interest in using <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/boca-chica">Boca Chica</a> as one of two bases of operations for Starship launches. Musk said launches could be as frequent as 1,000 times per year.</li><li>However, SpaceX may face a down-to-Earth hurdle - a neighborhood called Boca Chica Village - before Starship missions can fly to the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/moon">moon</a> or <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/mars">Mars</a>.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>SpaceX, the aerospace company founded by tech mogul Elon Musk, has posted a new vision for launching <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-mars-starship-spacex-starhopper-rocket-moon-2019-6">Starship</a>: a notional <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starship-nasa-saturn-v-sls-moon-rockets-comparison-2019-7">39-story steel rocket system</a> designed to help build moon bases and populate Mars.</p><p>On Monday, SpaceX uploaded a nearly <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzFQJUzoUvM" target="_blank" rel="noopener">two-minute-long video</a> to YouTube that paints a futuristic portrait of how the company plans to get people into space on the cheap with Starship.</p><p>The video is technically unlisted on the video-sharing site, but it appeared on <a href="http://spacex.com/starship" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a new website</a> that SpaceX created to promote Starship and its aspirational capabilities. Importantly, the clip details an aspirational base of operations for Starship: SpaceX's private but as-yet nascent launch site at Boca Chica, a relatively remote yet inhabited area at the southeastern tip of Texas.</p><h2>You can watch the video using an embedded player below:</h2><p>&#xa0;</p><p><em><strong>Read more</strong>: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starship-rocket-site-boca-chica-texas-faa-written-reevaluation-2019-8">New documents reveal SpaceX's plans for launching Mars-rocket prototypes from South Texas</a></em></p><p>Musk debuted the video during <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-starship-mars-rocket-update-mars-colonization-texas-2019-9">a highly anticipated talk on Saturday</a> at the launch site while he stood between two rockets: one from SpaceX's past, called Falcon 1, and a towering prototype, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starship-mark-1-mk1-steel-rocket-ship-construction-2019-9">called Starship Mark 1</a>, of its forthcoming rocket system.</p><p>"There are many troubles in the world, of course, and these are important, and we need to solve them. But we also need things that make us excited to be alive," Musk <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-starship-presentation-youtube-livestream-video-texas-2019-9">said</a> on Saturday. "Becoming a space-faring civilization - being out there among the stars - this is one of the things that I know makes me be glad to be alive."</p><p>Before the animation was shown this weekend, it was unclear if and how SpaceX planned to expand its operations in South Texas to support operational Starship launches. But the video clearly shows expanded launch activities in South Texas, which Musk backed up with his own words.</p><p>"This is gonna sound totally nuts, but I think we want to try to reach orbit in less than six months," Musk said. "I think [it's] definitely possible that the first crewed mission on Starship could leave from Boca."</p><h2>What SpaceX's new Starship launch sequence animation shows</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div><p>For years, Musk has said the key to making humans an interplanetary species able to settle Mars - the "ultimate goal" of SpaceX - is making spaceflight as affordable as possible.</p><p>Right now, even the Falcon-class rockets that SpaceX builds, despite having reusable fairings and 16-story boosters, are not fully reusable. With each flight, multimillion-dollar hardware crashes back to Earth or is lost to space. With all other rocket systems, no parts are saved at all.</p><p>Musk thinks Starship could be the first fully reusable launch system. If his vision pans out, SpaceX may need only pay for fuel, minor refurbishment, and the system's development costs, which he <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/29/business/elon-musk-spacex-mars-starship-cost/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told Rachel Crane of CNN Business</a> on Saturday may be about $2-3 billion - not $10 billion, as he said in September 2018. The cost of sending one pound of stuff into orbit may, as a result, drop 100- to 1,000-fold, Musk has previously said.</p><p><em><strong>Read more</strong>: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-moon-mission-passenger-bfr-big-falcon-rocket-2018-9">Elon Musk just revealed who's going to fly to the moon on SpaceX's new rocket ship</a></em></p><p>"The critical breakthrough that's needed for us to become a space-faring civilization is to make space travel like air travel," Musk said on Saturday.</p><p>SpaceX's new animation, though it doesn't contain many new basic details - <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-mars-speech-transcript-2016-9">Musk first detailed the core concept in 2016</a> - nonetheless illustrates the company's latest plans.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div><p>The Starship system would have two stages: a 164-foot-tall Starship spaceship, proper, and a roughly 223-foot-tall booster, called Super Heavy.</p><p>Each Super Heavy booster would use up to 37 car-size Raptor rocket engines to heave itself and a Starship on top toward space. Once high enough, the Starship - a crewed vehicle, a cargo-carrying spacecraft, or a fuel tanker variant - would detach and fire its six engines to reach orbit.</p><p>Meanwhile, the animation shows, the Super Heavy would plummet back to Earth, re-fire its engines, and land back on the concrete pad it launched from.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div><p>Depleted of much of its fuel, the Starship would then await a second Starship launch to refill its tanks. The two spacecraft would connect end-to-end in space, perform a refilling operation, and then disconnect. The fueled-up Starship would then have enough fuel to blast on its way to deep space, perhaps a higher orbit, the moon, or even Mars.</p><p>Although the animation doesn't show this, it's presumed the mostly empty Starship would scream back to Earth, using a skin of heat-resistant tiles lining its belly to deflect and absorb the searing-hot plasma generated by returning to Earth at around 25 times the speed of sound. The Starship would then land near a Super Heavy, receive an inspection, get craned back onto the booster, and be fueled up with methane and oxygen for its next flight.</p><h2>The video suggests SpaceX's and Earth's future in deep space</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div><p>Musk has for months said SpaceX's plan is to build and launch Starship systems from two locations: Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Boca Chica, Texas.</p><p>"Both sites will make many Starships. This is a competition to see which location is most effective. Answer might be both," Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1128448802942177280" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tweeted</a> in May.</p><p>During his nearly two-hour appearance on Saturday, Musk firmly asserted that notion.</p><p>"We are going to be building ships and boosters at both Boca and the Cape as fast as we can," he said. "It's going to be really nutty to see a bunch of these things. I mean, not just one, but a whole stack of them. And we're improving both the design and the manufacturing method exponentially."</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div>But the animation released by SpaceX, as well as other statements Musk made, suggest Boca Chica is seen as a likely base of operations for Starship.<p>Unlike the company's launch sites at Cape Canaveral, which are leased from NASA and the US Air Force, Boca Chica is privately owned - and has less red tape, no adjacent competitors (such as Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance), and has room for expansion.</p><p>When asked about plans for the site's future by Chris Davenport of The Washington Post, Musk said there will be "a lot more buildings and a lot more stuff - way more stuff than is currently here," including plants to produce liquid oxygen and methane using solar energy and carbon dioxide from Mars.</p><p>Musk said a single Starship site, if the vehicle is launched at its maximum rate, could see three of four launches a day - or more than 1,000 launches a year.</p><h2>SpaceX is trying to buy out Boca Chica Village&#xa0;</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div><p>SpaceX first gained permission to build out a commercial spaceport in Boca Chica area in July 2014. It has since radically revised that plan, with tweaks approved by the Federal Aviation Administration, though it has encountered some hurdles along the way.</p><p>One of them is Boca Chica Village. As <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-texas-spaceport-boca-chica-village-buyout-offer-letters-2019-9">first reported by Business Insider</a>, SpaceX - citing safety issues and increasing disruptions - recently offered to privately buy out the owners of about 35 residences there that sit amid its spaceport in a small residential neighborhood. Though SpaceX has offered three times an appraised value, many of the residents (most of whom are retiree-age) have told Business Insider they do not plan to accept the offer.</p><p>"I don't see any fundamental obstacles. We are working with the residents of Boca Chica Village because we think oh, it's time, it's going to be quite disruptive to their - to living in Boca Chica Village. Because it'll end up needing to get cleared for safety a lot of times," Musk said Saturday, in response to a question that Jeff Foust of Space News asked. "I think the actual danger to Boca Chica Village is low but is not tiny. So therefore, we want super-tiny risk. Probably over time, better to buy out the villagers."</p><p><em><strong>Read more</strong>: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-texas-starship-launch-site-development-challenges-2019-6">Elon Musk is building SpaceX's Mars rockets in a tiny Texas hamlet. But getting them off the ground there may be harder than he imagined.</a></em></p><p>It's unclear if villagers are barreling toward a standoff with SpaceX over their properties. Not-yet-published reporting by Business Insider suggests the company may let residents who don't mind the disruptions stay for now.</p><p>However, the Cameron County Spaceport Development Corporation, which was created to support SpaceX, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-boca-chica-texas-launch-site-spaceport-corporation-eminent-domain-2019-9">does have eminent domain authority</a> and can, with the vote of local commissioners, initiate a condemnation process. (SpaceX previously declined to comment on the matter.)</p><p>"I'm sure that authority was put in place for a reason. I'd be willing to explore it," Nicholas Serafy Jr., the chairperson of the corporation, previously told Business Insider. "I wouldn't say it's been an elephant in the room, but it may become an elephant in the room."</p><div id="gtx-trans" style="position: absolute; left: 167px; top: 1641.36px;"><div></div></div><div></div>

A stirring new SpaceX animation of Starship launching shows how the rocket company plans to turn Texas into Earth's interplanetary transport hub

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="SIPRI" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5474962add0895d1208b4689-960/the five largest exporters of major conventional weapons -2004-2008 and 2009-13- and their recipient states -2009-13.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/transfers/measuring/at-images/The%20five%20largest%20exporters%20of%20major%20conventional%20weapons%20-2004-2008%20and%202009-13-%20and%20their%20recipient%20states%20-2009-13.png">SIPRI</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>The current difficulties surrounding France's sale of two Mistral-class helicopter carriers to Russia mark another awkward chapter in the country's history of arms sales.</p>
<p>France currently ranks fifth in the largest arms exporter nations, according to the independent Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The country accounted for 4% of global exports between 2009-2013, down from 9% between 2004-2008, placing it behind only the US, Russia, Germany and China.</p>
<p>Although France is by no means the only country to have a checkered history with regards to arms exports, it nevertheless has made some significant missteps in recent history. And the memory of these might help explain, at least in part, the French government's hesitation over handing over the first of the Mistral warships to Russia while the crisis in Ukraine rumbles on.</p>
<p>Here are a few of France's least-proud moments.</p>
<p><strong>The sale of Exocet missiles to Argentina</strong></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>In the early 1980s the French-built anti-ship Exocet missile, which skims over the water at a height of 1-2 metres, making it hard to detect by radar and difficult to hit with conventional arms, was much in demand. <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1842&amp;dat=19870519&amp;id=amgeAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=EMkEAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=3973,3549447">According to reports it had been ordered by 25 nations</a>, including Iraq, Peru, Pakistan and Syria as well as Argentina's military junta that had seized power in a 1976 coup.</p>
<p>By 1982 France had supplied five of these missiles to the country. Then on April 2, 1982, Argentine forces invaded the Falkland Islands, which had been held by Britain for 150 years, beginning the Falklands War.</p>
<p>France's then President Francois Mitterrand responded to the invasion by declaring an embargo on any further French arms sales and assistance to Argentina (although <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17256975">later reports suggested a French technical team remained in the country to ensure that the weapon system was in working order</a>). But the presence of the Exocet missiles remained a major concern for British military commanders.</p>
<p>Their fears proved well-founded. On May 4th one of the Exocets hit the British destroyer HMS Sheffield, killing 20 of her crew and sinking the ship.</p>
<p></p>
<p><strong>The sale of Mirage F-1s and the 'lease' of five Super Étendard jets to Iraq before the Iran-Iraq War</strong></p>
<p>The sinking of the Sheffield was a high-profile demonstration of the Exocet system's effectiveness, and <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1842&amp;dat=19870519&amp;id=amgeAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=EMkEAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=3973,3549447">may actually have boosted demand for the missiles</a>. One customer in particular took a keen interest in acquiring them - Iraq.</p>
<p>As Dr Pierre Razoux, senior research adviser at the NATO Defense College in Rome, writes in his 2013 essay "<a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3ASFHGu9S2gC&amp;pg=PA212&amp;lpg=PA212&amp;dq=%22france%27s+involvement+in+the+iran-iraq+war%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=vRqk4zD0HV&amp;sig=4br4kvTF9K9fqQ3_FJofX95QeBw&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=0mV0VOT5LcH5aP7-gPgD&amp;ved=0CCEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false">France's involvement in the Iran-Iraq War</a>":</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span><em>The Iraqi leadership regarded the aircraft as the ideal weapons system to launch an effective attack on the Iranian terminal in Kharg and oil traffic to Iran. The Dassault company...offered to sell the Iraqis twenty-four of the Mirage F-1 fighters that had been upgraded to carry and fire two Exocet missiles each...In the meantime, the French government agreed to 'lease' Iraq five Super Étendard fighters from its own naval inventory.</em></span></p>
<p>Unfortunately the deal rocked the already delicate relations between Iraq and its neighbour Iran, with the Iranian leadership indicating that it would amount to a <em>casus belli </em>if the planes were delivered.</p>
<p><span>Undeterred, the French government pressed on launching "Operation Sugar", whereby five French fighter pilots employed by the Dassault company equipped with false passports secretly flew the five jets to the Qayarah West base in northern Iraq, according to Razoux. The flight included having to refuel on a French aircraft carrier based off Cyprus and a brief stop-off in Turkey before flying along the Turkey-Syria border at low altitude to avoid Syrian radar.</span></p>
<p><span>Whether the delivery was spotted or not by Iran remains unknown, but two weeks after their delivery a truck bomb hit a building in the Lebanese capital Beirut where a contingent of French paratroopers were stationed. The French authorities believed the attacks were ordered by Iran.</span></p>
<p>Over the next few years France delivered 29 Mirage F-1s to Baghdad in deals that were worth as much as $500 million, some of which was paid for with crude oil <a href="http://countrystudies.us/iraq/99.htm">according to the US Library of Congress</a>. While <a href="http://countrystudies.us/iraq/105.htm">French aircraft were used extensively in the 1984 tanker wars</a> between Iraq and Iran, these same aircraft became a major problem only three years later.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>On the night of May 17, 1987, the USS Stark was hit by two Exocet missiles fired by an Iraqi F-1 Mirage jet. In the words of <a href="http://www.jag.navy.mil/library/investigations/uss%20stark%20basic.pdf">a US Navy report the attack was "unprovoked and indiscriminate",</a> as the Stark was in international waters at the time. It resulted in the death of 28 crew members, although the ship itself was rescued after its crew fought a blaze that lasted for 24 hours.</p>
<p><strong>Arms deals with Libya between 2004 and 2009</strong></p>
<p>In October 2004, the European Union ended 11 years of sanctions against Libya. In particular, the deal included easing an arms embargo in exchange for a commitment from the Gaddafi government to give up the development of weapons of mass destruction.</p>
<p>That deal paved the way for European arms dealers to rekindle their relationship with the country. And so they did.</p>
<p>Between 2004-2009 the EU granted export licenses for €834.5m worth of arms and ammunition to the former Italian colony. The vast majority of this was provided by Italy, Germany, the <keyword id="6354868" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="UK">UK</keyword> and, of course, France.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Perhaps unsurprisingly considering their shared history, Italy was the largest provider of arms to Tripoli in the five years after the end of the embargo, selling around €277 million worth to the country. However, France came a close second with just over €210 million worth of military exports.</p>
<p>Once again France's hold on the military jet market was in evidence, with the country securing €126 million worth of contracts with Libya pipping Italy as the largest supplier of planes over the period. Furthermore, it was also the largest supplier of bombs, rockets and missiles to the former pariah state.</p>
<p>Indeed in 2008, France sold just shy of €9 million worth of munitions to Gaddafi.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="Europa" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5474962add0895d1208b468d-960/sale of munitions to libya.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://docs.google.com/a/businessinsider.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AonYZs4MzlZbdGFBN1NWM0hrbFc0OWd1dDR2dUVfbnc&amp;hl=en">Europa</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>Three years later the West, with France among the leading protagonists, was drawn to intervene in Libya as the country descended into a brief but bloody civil war that saw <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/16/world/africa/16libya.html?pagewanted=all">forces loyal to Gaddafi fire into residential neighbourhoods</a>. Although there is no suggestion that any of the countries that supplied arms to the country could reasonably have known what would transpire, it was a stark reminder of the risks inherent in these types of deals with potentially unstable states.</p>
<p>As the charts above show, France is far from the only country that has seen arms deals come back to bite it. Yet w<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">ith all of these awkward historical examples, it is perhaps no surprise that French President </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">François Hollande has proven reluctant to OK the sale of the Mistral ships while the situation in Ukraine remains so unstable.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This will be of particular concern since the second of the two ships, the Sevastopol, is due to join up with the Russian Black Sea fleet based in the (recently annexed) Crimean port of the same name.</span></p>
<p>With both sides in the Ukraine conflict seemingly unable or unwilling to stick to a ceasefire deal, Russia may well be waiting a long time yet on its order.</p>

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