Bombs on Ice?

Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, who has seldom shunned the spectacular, made an ear-jarring proposal last week. He suggested dropping an atomic bomb to crack the more than 1,800-ft.-thick Antarctic polar icecap. Thus, the U.S. might gain access to the copper, iron, gold, coal and other minerals reported hidden below.

First step in the Rickenbacker plan: a photographic and radar survey of the 5,000,000-square-mile Antarctic continent. From Tierra del Fuego, Tasmania and South Africa, long-range bombers would make three wide sweeps across the polar area, flying distances up to 6,500 miles. Weather, rescue and emergency air stations would be manned by "paratroopers" at Little America and other places. Next step: sites for base camps would be selected, and sleds, dogs and scientists would be flown in for further exploration of the more promising bomb targets. Suggested base for the bomb-carrying planes: New Zealand--less than 6,000 miles round trip from the South Pole.

On the outcome of the bombing, Captain Eddie was less specific. But he was sure that such a program is "well within the reach of potential execution [although] we may have to stretch a little in the reach." Difficult questions left unanswered: Can an atomic bomb penetrate 1,800 feet of hard-packed, flintlike ice? How long would the minerals continue to be dangerously radioactive?

Captain Rickenbacker was not the first to eye the polar icecaps. Hiroshima's dust had hardly settled when English geophysicists suggested that polar icecaps might be blasted away entirely and, since the glaciers are tag-end relics of an all-but-ended ice age, the icecap would in all probability never reform. Some years ago an Australian geophysicist, Sir Edgeworth David, speculated on what would happen if the Antarctic icecap were dissolved. Sir Edgeworth concluded that the world's sea level would rise about 50 feet (others calculated as much as 100), inundating every seaport; climatic zones would be shifted; violent quakes would rack the earth as the Antarctic was relieved of ten quadrillion tons of ice which have depressed its land level some 600 feet.

Skeptics who doubted the scientific value of Captain Eddie's proposal could rest assured that it had some publicity value for his new radio show, The World's Most Honored Flights (Mutual, Sun. 3:30 p.m., E.S.T.).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.