The trouble in Panama has repercussions that echo all the way to the Livermore, Calif., laboratories of Project Ploughshare, where the AEC is investigating the peaceful uses of atomic energy. Ploughshare scientists are bringing their calculations to a high polish, for if a new Isthmian canal is to be dug, nuclear explosives may be used. And Ploughshare men are sure that they can blast a wide sea-level canal in a couple of years at a fraction of the cost of conventional digging.
Ploughshare optimism is based on studies of a long series of craters blasted by both chemical and nuclear explosives...