In the seventies of the last century, the former Soviet Union came up with a shocking plan to dig through the earth. At that time, the industrial strength of the Soviet Union was strong, and some people thought that it was entirely possible.
So, under the attention of scientists around the world, the project to dig through the earth was launched. However, the project, which took 24 years, ultimately failed, and why the Soviet Union abandoned such an important project has become the focus of attention for later generations.
Although World War II ended, the former Soviet Union and the United States were caught in the Cold War, challenging each other economically, technologically, and industrially, but without achieving a clear advantage.
In this case, the United States came up with a bold plan: to dig up the earth. Behind this simple plan was the powerful industrial power of the United States. In 1958, the United States officially implemented the "Moho Plan", set up an engineering team in the suburbs, and began a huge excavation project.
However, the project did not go smoothly and many difficulties were soon encountered.
The U.S. project, which was expected to invest $20 million, was ridiculed for its failure, but the U.S. did not give up. They quickly shifted their mindset to aerospace engineering and invested heavily in research and development.
Despite the difficulties and setbacks along the way, in April 1981, the United States successfully flew the first space shuttle, the Columbia, a feat that put pressure on the former Soviet Union.
At a time when NASA has repeatedly broken through scientific and technological barriers, experts in the former Soviet Union have begun to save face. They believe that if what the United States could not accomplish, the Soviet Union did, wouldn't that prove that Soviet industry was stronger than the United States?
So, the Soviets launched this project to excavate the earth, and in order to differentiate themselves from the United States, and to attract better engineers and workers, the engineering team provided attractive conditions for the workers involved in the project.
Everyone received not only a house in the capital of the USSR, but also a good monthly salary.
The drilling rig independently developed by the former Soviet Union has a diameter of 229 cm, on May 24, 1970, works began on the Kola Peninsula. A few years later, they discovered a gold mine with a diameter of about 23 centimeters and discovered diamonds.
Although this was an exciting discovery, the machine stopped working under high loads due to the deterioration of the underground environment.
After careful calculations, the team decided to restart the excavation from the 7,000 meters previously excavated, hoping to go deeper into the ground. Now, a few years later, the engineering team is once again approaching a depth of 10,000 meters, but having learned the lessons of previous failures, they are extremely cautious at every step, but even so, the loss of the drill bit is unavoidable.
The difficulty of the project far exceeded the experts' expectations. Therefore, after 24 years of hard work, digging 10,000 meters, this seemingly simple distance is actually full of challenges.
Although standing on the ground, we can only see dirt and stones, but the internal structure of the earth is not simple. It is composed of parts such as the earth's crust, mantle, and core.
Mokhorovich defined a dividing line, just 2,885 kilometers underground. The initial engineering of drilling through the earth's crust was not difficult, since the upper part of the earth's crust was dominated by soil, sedimentary rock, and a small amount of granite, which were relatively easy for Soviet drill bits.
Another reason for the ease of initial engineering is the simple installation of the equipment, which allows the rig's pillars to be mounted directly on the ground.
As the depth continues to increase, so do the challenges that engineers need to face. Despite repeated attempts, they were unable to find the fulcrum that would maximize the efficiency of the rig.
Eventually, the engineering team dug into an area where no living creatures existed, which gave them confidence. However, as the depth deepens, so does the difficulty.
The crust below is mainly made up of granite and basalt, which slows down the progress of the drill rig considerably.
Although there is oxygen supply equipment to ensure oxygen, every time you work for a while, you need a group of construction teams to go up to the ground and change another group of construction teams to come down, so as to reduce the load on the workers.
It took the construction team several years to drill several kilometers underground, but a new problem arose: they discovered a very peculiar phenomenon in the earth's crust, which became particularly prominent after reaching a certain depth.
The temperature deep underground is like summer, which is unbearable for humans, so at a depth of 1,000 meters, we rely on the power of machinery to ensure safety and efficiency.
In 1994, the Soviet Union abruptly announced the cessation of an important project, which sparked speculation. It has been suggested that the engineering team may have discovered something horrible underground, or that the industrial level of the former Soviet Union could not continue to drill down.
Despite the limited information we have, outsiders are bold enough to speculate. One theory is that people on the ground can hear people howling as if someone was howling when the rig was running, and at first experts speculated that it might be the sound of the drill bit rubbing against some special substance underground.
Before the team could start drilling, the wails rang out again, and the experts immediately used instruments to detect them. At the same time, scientists were surprised to discover an unprecedented coincidence: in 1970, an unmanned spacecraft of the former Soviet Union successfully soft-landed on the moon and brought back 101 g of lunar soil from the moon.
Nevertheless, this coincidence did not stop the engineering team. However, when the rig was running in an orderly manner, the machine suddenly alarmed, and the engineering team pulled up the rope holding the drill bit and found that the drill bit had been completely melted, which shocked the engineers present.
Doubts abound about the Uralmash-4E series of drill rigs in the former Soviet Union, and news that the drill bits have been melted down several times has sparked a lot of speculation and discussion.
In order to address the public's curiosity, the relevant departments conducted a detailed investigation and response.
There are three main reasons: first, the R&D and mass production of machines require a lot of investment; Secondly, the consumption and purchase of materials also require a lot of money; Finally, although there is no specific data to show that the former Soviet Union invested in this project, compared with the fact that China spent 300 million yuan to drill an 8,875-meter deep well in Sichuan Province, it is conceivable that this investment will be astronomical.
If this money was not a burden for the former Soviet Union in its heyday, then the scale and complexity of the project can be imagined.
The advancement of underground engineering is also limited by the industrial level, the deeper into the ground, the greater the challenge of temperature and soil quality, if there is not enough technical support, even if the first is not stopped, the follow-up project may be forced to terminate because of technical bottlenecks.
This was even more pronounced after the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991.
On this land, they held on for three years. However, even after all that time, the engineering team still failed to achieve the results they had hoped for. In 1994, Russia** officially announced the cessation of the Kola Peninsula drilling project, the withdrawal of the engineering team and the dismantling of the drilling equipment.
However, Russian scientists spent the next 12 years studying the cave, although the former Soviet Union did not meet their initial target of 15,000 meters.
Although during the drilling process in the Soviet Union, the engineering team found a high content of ** ore in the ground, but the value of these ores is insignificant compared to the human, material and financial resources invested by the former Soviet Union.
However, through this project, the former Soviet Union gained valuable data on the composition of the earth's soil, which was worth far more than the ore itself.
The fact that complete fossils can still be preserved in such an extreme high temperature environment provides important physical evidence for biologists to study the evolution and origin of organisms, and also provides valuable information for geologists to further study the internal structure of the earth.
In addition, it is certain that the drilling at a depth of 12,262 meters contributed to the development of the scientific and technological level of the former Soviet Union. However, now this deep borehole, lying alone on the Kola Peninsula, seems a little lonely and lonely.
Although the "Telescope Project" failed to achieve its hope, mankind's exploration of the unknown world has never stopped. With advanced spacecraft, we are able to explore more distant galaxies, taking a step forward in uncovering the mysteries of the universe.