nuclear

Kirk Sorensen's Google Tech Talk on liquid-fluoride thorium reactors, a design that could burn nuclear waste and use thorium as fuel. It draws on Oak Ridge National Laboratory work from the 1950s and 60s.

A 2006 Google Tech Talk by Robert Bussard on inertial electrostatic confinement (polywell) fusion as a cheap, clean alternative to conventional thermonuclear reactors. He argues it could be made viable with modest funding.

A sketch from the British sitcom Yes, Prime Minister in which Jim Hacker and the chief scientific advisor discuss the logic of the nuclear deterrent.

Tom Lehrer performs his satirical song Who's Next, about the spread of nuclear weapons, with a spoken introduction. It is a short musical comedy piece from the Cold War era.

A 2008 Google Tech Talk making the case for the liquid fluoride thorium reactor as an abundant, safe source of electrical power. It covers the technical motivations and design of thorium molten-salt reactors.

A dramatization of a hypothetical Soviet first strike that destroys US bombers and Minuteman missiles, filmed with US Air Force cooperation. It is a short version of the 1979 documentary First Strike.

The 1951 US civil defense film 'Duck and Cover', starring Bert the Turtle, which taught schoolchildren to drop and shield themselves during a nuclear attack. It was shown to millions of children and is preserved in the National Film Registry.

The climactic lesson scene from the 1983 film WarGames, in which the computer learns that the only winning move in nuclear war is not to play. It includes the character entering zero players and the famous closing line.

Tom Lehrer's gallows-humor song about nuclear annihilation, in which everyone goes together when the bomb drops.

Footage of a Minuteman III ICBM test launch and its reentry vehicles striking the Kwajalein atoll target area. It shows the missile climbing through clouds and the warheads descending.

Steve Blank's Computer History Museum lecture argues that Silicon Valley's roots lie in WWII radar and electronic warfare work, Stanford's Fred Terman and Cold War military funding rather than the semiconductor alone.

Steve Blank tells how World War II, Stanford's Frederick Terman and military and intelligence agencies shaped the rise of Silicon Valley. The talk centers on the Cold War electronic warfare and signals intelligence work that seeded the region's tech industry.

Short footage of the 1983 Soyuz T-10-1 pad fire, in which the launch escape tower pulled the crew away seconds before the rocket exploded.

Short US Missile Defense Agency footage of the December 2008 free-flight hover test of Lockheed Martin's Multiple Kill Vehicle. The test showed it hovering for 20 seconds while tracking a simulated target.

Short archival footage of a USMC KC-130F Hercules making unarrested landings and takeoffs on the USS Forrestal in 1963. It is the largest and heaviest aircraft to have landed on a carrier, and the tests were judged successful but too risky for routine use.

A three-minute clip of Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address of January 17, 1961. In it he warns of the unwarranted influence of the military-industrial complex.

A four-minute extract from the documentary The Fog of War in which Robert McNamara discusses the Gulf of Tonkin incident. He acknowledges that the second reported attack did not happen.

Short footage of a Sprint missile from the 1970s Safeguard anti-ballistic missile system launching. The uploader notes the video is not sped up and that this is how fast it takes off.

Short clip of Donald Rumsfeld's 9/10/2001 speech acknowledging that $2.3 trillion in Pentagon transactions could not be tracked.