Between 1952 and 1992, the United States tested nearly 1,000 nuclear devices in the desert less than 100 miles from the Las Vegas strip. Referred to as the Nevada Test Site, the area's isolation fit the needs for testing America's nuclear arsenal throughout the Cold War.

However, not all of the experiments conducted in the Nevada desert represented advances in atomic weaponry. Starting in the early 1960s, the United States experimented with peaceful uses for nuclear weapons, referring to the various tests collectively as "Project Plowshare." Taken from the biblical book of Micah with the verse "they shall beat their swords into plowshares," the concepts for peaceful atomic uses included, expanding canal systems, connecting inland waterways, and cutting paths through mountainous regions.

One such project proposed using multiple bombs to create an artificial harbor. In 1962, the Atomic Energy Commission conducted a proof of concept test for this proposal at the Nevada Test Site. Nicknamed "Sedan," the 100 kiloton test shot, detonated more than 600 feet below the desert surface, displaced nearly 12 million tons of earth and lifted debris 290 feet into the air. The resulting crater spanned 1,280 feet in diameter and opened a hole in the earth more than 300 feet deep, making it the largest man-made crater in the United States.

Unfortunately, the test resulted in significant radioactive release as the fallout travelled to the northeast as far away as Iowa. Although the test proved successful in terms of earth-moving efficiency, the dangerous human and environmental impacts, which still has trace radiation in the crater to the present, caused the termination of the program.

Despite the ending of Operation Plowshare in 1973, the Nevada Test Site continued to conduct underground nuclear tests until 1992 when President George Bush entered into the international testing moratorium. Although larger nuclear detonations occurred at the site, no other test created a crater as large as "Sedan."