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A puzzling web of corridors
that appear to lead nowhere.

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They're hardly noticed by
the general public, but you can't

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00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:11,680
build an air force without them.

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A huge abandoned
facility in a remote desert.

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This was a hardcore military
base, fully prepared to survive

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00:00:21,320 --> 00:00:23,800
all-out war.

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Gigantic steel towers in
an industrial wasteland.

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They've not just changed
western Pennsylvania,

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but changed the world and
helped build america's 20th century.

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And a massive seven-tonne Cannon

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left on the edge of
an icy mountain top.

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It was a real, if
you like, war-winner

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for the Italians and it was
well worth bringing up here.

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It still did its job
and did it very well.

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Once, they were some of the most
advanced structures and facilities

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on the planet, at the cutting
edge of design and construction.

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Today, they stand abandoned,
contaminated and sometimes deadly.

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But who built them, and how?

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00:01:16,480 --> 00:01:19,600
And why were they abandoned?

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♪ ♪

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Just outside London is a
corrugated iron and concrete building.

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It stands amongst the scattered

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offices and workshops of an
unremarkable industrial estate.

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Would you expect
to find mysterious

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equipment and
enormous wooden devices

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00:02:02,400 --> 00:02:06,520
almost within arm's reach of
ordinary people, ordinary houses?

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00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:08,720
It's really astonishing.

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The interior of this lopsided
structure is initially mystifying.

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Two huge circular apertures
with gigantic propellers

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00:02:21,920 --> 00:02:27,840
lead to a vast concrete tunnel,
230ft long and 140ft wide.

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Its incredibly smooth walls

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00:02:31,160 --> 00:02:35,320
are pierced by veins
and hidden channels.

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00:02:35,360 --> 00:02:38,840
Yet it leads nowhere,
simply looping back on

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00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:41,480
itself in a series
of right angles.

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00:02:43,560 --> 00:02:47,320
The engineers constructing
the 24ft-diameter tunnel

36
00:02:47,360 --> 00:02:50,960
faced unforeseen problems that
they hadn't encountered before.

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00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:52,680
The sheer size of it made it

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quite difficult in terms of its
construction, as well as operation.

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What complex
process was carried out

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00:03:01,600 --> 00:03:06,320
in this mammoth tunnel that made
such technical features necessary?

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00:03:06,360 --> 00:03:10,800
And after so much effort,
why was it abandoned?

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00:03:23,320 --> 00:03:27,120
In may 1933, Adolf
Hitler created the reich

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00:03:27,160 --> 00:03:33,200
aviation ministry with former flying
ace hermann goering at the helm.

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This was a major step towards

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00:03:35,120 --> 00:03:41,080
the birth of Germany's new
air force, the luftwaffe, in 1935.

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00:03:41,120 --> 00:03:46,120
To Hitler, aerial warfare was
the future and soon, the full

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weight of Germany's aviation
industry was working towards

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00:03:49,040 --> 00:03:51,760
his program of rearmament.

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With some of the best engineers
in the world, they began designing a

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new breed of aircraft.

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00:03:59,320 --> 00:04:01,760
Aircraft technology
is transitioning

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00:04:01,800 --> 00:04:08,080
from olde-timey biplanes to what
we think of as a modern aeroplane,

53
00:04:08,120 --> 00:04:12,640
and the British government says,
"we cannot allow the Germans to get

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a technological edge on us."

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00:04:18,520 --> 00:04:21,160
As an aviation arms
race developed,

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the British set about building
a high-tech research facility.

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The farnborough wind tunnel.

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This testing facility was designed
to allow British engineers to study

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aerodynamics and
aircraft performance

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00:04:37,920 --> 00:04:42,400
with far greater accuracy
and in more realistic conditions.

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A wind tunnel is an absolutely
essential part of designing

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and building and
testing aircraft.

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Every element of the aircraft,
that's on the outside, affects

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00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:08,200
aerodynamics, even things like
the struts that hold the wheels,

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00:05:08,240 --> 00:05:10,320
or the way the
flaps are designed.

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So everything had to be subjected
to these tests, and tiny, tiny

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little variations can have massive
impact on how an aircraft performs.

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00:05:28,440 --> 00:05:31,720
Creating this complex
was an immense challenge.

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00:05:31,760 --> 00:05:36,680
Beyond its sheer size, every
material and component, from

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00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:40,320
the giant propeller to the concrete
walls, had to be carefully selected

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00:05:40,360 --> 00:05:43,920
and engineered to ensure
optimum performance.

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00:05:45,400 --> 00:05:47,160
Kenny odgers is lead technician

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00:05:47,200 --> 00:05:50,440
and an expert on the facility.

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00:05:55,400 --> 00:05:57,920
We're looking at four
years of construction

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00:05:57,960 --> 00:06:00,720
in concrete,
asking the people to

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00:06:00,760 --> 00:06:03,240
work at tolerances, which
I find quite frightening.

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Every little feature
in the tunnel had to

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00:06:07,720 --> 00:06:11,760
be perfect. The air flow had to
be able to move past the walls.

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00:06:11,800 --> 00:06:14,440
You couldn't have
little bolts sticking out.

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00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:17,640
The louvres had to be exactly
right to straighten out the air flow

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00:06:17,680 --> 00:06:21,760
and not add new
layers of turbulence.

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00:06:23,680 --> 00:06:28,960
In 1935, the 24ft wind
tunnel went into operation.

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Instead of using scale models,
full-sized aircraft were suspended

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between the arms of the tunnel so
their aerodynamic performance could

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00:06:37,840 --> 00:06:41,880
be measured and
faults corrected.

86
00:06:41,920 --> 00:06:43,880
But the clock was ticking.

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00:06:43,920 --> 00:06:49,040
Germany's new prototype planes
began breaking numerous world records,

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demonstrating to the world
their technological prowess.

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00:06:52,480 --> 00:06:56,480
In 1936, the junkers ju 87,

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00:06:56,520 --> 00:07:00,440
a dive bomber known as
the stuka, was rolled out.

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00:07:00,480 --> 00:07:03,240
Soon after, it was the
messerschmidt 109,

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00:07:03,280 --> 00:07:08,280
which would form the backbone
of the luftwaffe's fighter force.

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00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:13,680
Through late 1939 and 1940,
they played a devastating role

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00:07:13,720 --> 00:07:17,080
in the blitzkrieg tactics that
crushed Western Europe

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00:07:17,120 --> 00:07:20,120
and forced the British army
back across the channel.

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00:07:22,520 --> 00:07:24,936
Over the course of the second
world war, the Germans make their

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00:07:24,960 --> 00:07:28,200
aircraft better and better.

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00:07:28,240 --> 00:07:31,960
And what's really important
for the British is that the British

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00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:35,680
have gotta be able to
improve aircraft ever so slightly

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00:07:35,720 --> 00:07:40,680
every minute of every day
in order to defeat the Nazis.

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00:07:44,840 --> 00:07:48,640
At the centre of the wind tunnel,
a giant 30ft propeller could blast

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00:07:48,680 --> 00:07:52,800
a 115mph jet of air across
the gap between its two arms.

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00:07:59,640 --> 00:08:04,640
The mighty fan rotated at up
to 250 revolutions per minute,

104
00:08:04,680 --> 00:08:08,440
sucking in air, which
span as it left the blades.

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00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:13,280
This turbulent air was then
progressively smoothed as it

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00:08:13,320 --> 00:08:15,960
flowed through a series of
straighteners and deflectors

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00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:19,000
around the
rectangle's corridors.

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00:08:19,040 --> 00:08:21,360
At the end, it
exited the tunnel's

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00:08:21,400 --> 00:08:25,520
jet toward the test plane
as a smooth current of air.

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00:08:27,400 --> 00:08:31,680
At full whack, the wind
was pushing around 4.5

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00:08:31,720 --> 00:08:34,440
million cubic feet of air, and
when you think back over things that

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were being tested, ok, everybody
talks about the iconic aeroplane,

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the spitfire and the hurricane,
but we had the westland whirlwind,

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a stirling,

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00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:47,440
then we had the hobby
and we had a heinkel.

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Testing German aircraft
such as the heinkel

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helped the British discover
secrets of their technology.

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00:09:00,120 --> 00:09:03,680
By 1940, with the battle of
britain raging in the skies,

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00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:06,336
farnborough continuously honed
the performance of British fighter

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00:09:06,360 --> 00:09:11,680
aircraft, including hurricanes,
and the iconic spitfire.

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You'll start world war ii where
the first models of the spitfire

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have a two-blade propeller.

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00:09:21,280 --> 00:09:22,960
End of the war,

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they have an adjustable
pitch four-blade propeller.

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00:09:25,240 --> 00:09:29,960
An adjustable pitch propeller is
one of the things that increases

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aircraft climb and
performance enormously.

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And you can't develop
propellers without a wind tunnel.

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Engineers quickly
identified and introduced new

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00:09:46,280 --> 00:09:51,040
aviation features that helped
secure victory in the skies over britain.

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Improved engine cooling and
reduced drag gave British pilots

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an edge in combat.

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00:10:02,720 --> 00:10:05,840
With the arrival of the famous
Lancaster bomber in 1942, it was an

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edge they would not relinquish
through the rest of the war.

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There's a process of
the engineering of British

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00:10:15,560 --> 00:10:18,840
aircraft getting
better and better,

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while the Nazis are
still trying to create

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the miraculous super-weapon
that is going to win the war for them.

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And as a result, the Germans
are tripping over their own attempts

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to improve their technology.

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The Nazis pressed for quantum
leaps in aircraft design, including

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jet-propelled aircraft,

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to turn the tide of war
back in their favour.

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Meanwhile, the allies focused
on incremental changes

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and mass-produced
proven aircraft.

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Wind tunnel facilities such as
farnborough played a pivotal role

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00:11:00,600 --> 00:11:04,560
in establishing air superiority
over the luftwaffe and securing

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00:11:04,600 --> 00:11:06,400
victory in world war ii.

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00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:17,360
But with the dawn of the jet age,
farnborough would gradually be

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00:11:17,400 --> 00:11:19,760
rendered obsolete.

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00:11:19,800 --> 00:11:23,120
Having a large tunnel
being propeller-driven

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00:11:23,160 --> 00:11:25,680
wasn't as necessary because
you could create high-velocity air

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00:11:25,720 --> 00:11:31,320
streams using jet engines,
and that made an older style like

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00:11:31,360 --> 00:11:35,360
farnborough obsolete and
basically doomed it to the history bin.

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00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:42,160
Finally, in 1992, its
wind tunnels fell silent.

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00:11:42,200 --> 00:11:46,920
But today, it's designated
an historic building.

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00:11:54,680 --> 00:11:58,440
The heroic struggle fought by
the raf in the skies over britain

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during those pivotal months
of 1940 is well-documented.

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00:12:04,680 --> 00:12:07,880
Less well-known is
the painstaking work

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00:12:07,920 --> 00:12:11,760
done by men and women
at facilities like farnborough,

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00:12:11,800 --> 00:12:15,880
work that helped give the
raf the tools they needed

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00:12:15,920 --> 00:12:17,640
to win the war.

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00:12:21,800 --> 00:12:25,000
The farnborough tunnels and
the farnborough establishment

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00:12:25,040 --> 00:12:31,400
itself was an absolutely
essential part of the British

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00:12:31,440 --> 00:12:34,600
military and war effort.

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00:12:34,640 --> 00:12:36,680
They're hardly noticed by

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00:12:36,720 --> 00:12:40,880
the general public, but you can't
build an air force without them.

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00:12:53,480 --> 00:12:57,480
In the gobi desert around
the Mongolian city of choir,

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00:12:57,520 --> 00:13:01,240
an empty landscape stretches
unbroken across the horizon.

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00:13:07,960 --> 00:13:14,000
Yet 19 miles northwest of the city,
a cluster of isolated strange grassy

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00:13:14,040 --> 00:13:16,600
mounds spring out
of the barren steppe.

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00:13:18,600 --> 00:13:22,480
They're largely empty areas.

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00:13:22,520 --> 00:13:26,920
These were miserable places
in the middle of nowhere.

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00:13:30,440 --> 00:13:36,160
Standing 30ft high and 80ft across,
each of the 40 mounds is connected

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00:13:36,200 --> 00:13:40,800
to the next by a strip of
concrete, overgrown with weeds.

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Nearby, a two-mile-long
roadway leads

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00:13:47,720 --> 00:13:49,800
off towards a
range of low hills.

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00:13:51,560 --> 00:13:53,280
Most bizarre of all

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00:13:53,320 --> 00:13:58,400
are the rows of crumbling apartment
blocks buttressing the background.

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00:13:58,440 --> 00:14:01,920
But why would anyone
build a community in

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00:14:01,960 --> 00:14:04,880
this vast and remote wilderness?

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00:14:04,920 --> 00:14:07,440
And why was it abandoned?

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00:14:13,960 --> 00:14:17,440
In the years after world war ii,

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00:14:17,480 --> 00:14:22,400
China and the Soviet union had
become firm communist allies.

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00:14:22,440 --> 00:14:26,200
By the 1960s however,
diverging ideological

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00:14:26,240 --> 00:14:32,520
interpretations of marxism led to
a breakdown in political relations.

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00:14:32,560 --> 00:14:36,000
This was exacerbated
by disagreements over

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00:14:36,040 --> 00:14:38,880
how to coexist with the us and
it developed into a potentially

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00:14:38,920 --> 00:14:43,000
disastrous border dispute.

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00:14:43,040 --> 00:14:47,680
Known as the sino-Soviet split, it
brought the two mighty communist

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00:14:47,720 --> 00:14:51,040
powers to the brink of war.

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00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:57,680
The reality is that the communists
in Russia and the communists

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00:14:57,720 --> 00:15:00,520
in red China, they couldn't
agree on where to have lunch.

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00:15:00,560 --> 00:15:04,400
Much bigger than communism
was the inbuilt rivalry.

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00:15:07,600 --> 00:15:09,600
As distrust grew,

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00:15:09,640 --> 00:15:13,800
military forces steadily
built up along their borders.

196
00:15:20,080 --> 00:15:21,880
Wedged in between
the two adversaries

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00:15:21,920 --> 00:15:27,200
was the ussr's ally, the
Mongolian people's republic.

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00:15:27,240 --> 00:15:30,080
As tensions Rose,
this Soviet satellite

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00:15:30,120 --> 00:15:34,920
state found itself at the centre of
a potentially explosive situation.

200
00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:40,080
Mongolia is something of a

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00:15:40,120 --> 00:15:46,000
contested area and, in fact, this
heated up back in the early 1960s.

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00:15:46,040 --> 00:15:47,720
It got to the point where there

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00:15:47,760 --> 00:15:53,040
were some serious, not just
skirmishes, but actual battles.

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00:15:53,080 --> 00:15:56,480
The Soviets created the
Mongolian people's republic

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00:15:56,520 --> 00:16:02,040
as a puppet state to buffer
them against Chinese attack.

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00:16:02,080 --> 00:16:07,720
The Soviets are really concerned
that, as China modernises,

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00:16:07,760 --> 00:16:13,800
as China grows stronger, that
Russia and China will fight a war.

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00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:18,280
In response, the
Soviet union deployed

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00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:23,080
hundreds of thousands of troops
near the Mongolian border with China.

210
00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:26,680
They were backed up by a
formidable network of air power.

211
00:16:31,560 --> 00:16:35,080
A key component was
the bayantal air base.

212
00:16:38,680 --> 00:16:42,800
This was home to the 126th
fighter aviation regiment.

213
00:16:45,760 --> 00:16:50,000
A huge new base designed to
provide a first line of defence against

214
00:16:50,040 --> 00:16:54,720
any Chinese attack on the Soviet
union's satellite state, Mongolia.

215
00:16:58,960 --> 00:17:02,880
This base is massive.
The runway's two miles,

216
00:17:02,920 --> 00:17:06,680
with hardened bunkers where they
could hide their aircraft from even

217
00:17:06,720 --> 00:17:09,280
the most serious aerial attack.

218
00:17:09,320 --> 00:17:12,480
At the air base, there were 1,800
men, and the associated families

219
00:17:12,520 --> 00:17:16,040
that were in charge of
the aeroplanes, as well as

220
00:17:16,080 --> 00:17:18,640
the maintenance and
running of the facility.

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00:17:18,680 --> 00:17:23,120
This was a hardcore
military base,

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00:17:23,160 --> 00:17:26,680
fully prepared to
survive all-out war.

223
00:17:32,160 --> 00:17:39,040
In 1970, red army engineers rapidly
laid foundations in the vast expanse

224
00:17:39,080 --> 00:17:41,200
of the Mongolian steppe.

225
00:17:45,440 --> 00:17:49,320
In keeping with the secrecy
that surrounded its construction,

226
00:17:49,360 --> 00:17:52,960
the cost of this massive
installation is still unknown.

227
00:17:55,320 --> 00:17:59,880
Work at bayantal faced a
number of unique challenges.

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00:17:59,920 --> 00:18:04,160
This was a long way from the
typical Soviet air bases in Europe.

229
00:18:05,720 --> 00:18:08,960
A whole town had to be built from
scratch for the Garrison and their

230
00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:13,600
families, with every last nut
and bolt brought in from the ussr.

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00:18:16,600 --> 00:18:19,160
One thing the Soviets were
really good at was building massive

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00:18:19,200 --> 00:18:23,400
infrastructure in the middle
of nowhere. It would be difficult

233
00:18:23,440 --> 00:18:27,200
to build a two-mile runway, you
know, ten miles outside of Moscow.

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00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:29,520
Imagine doing it in
the middle of nowhere,

235
00:18:29,560 --> 00:18:34,120
thousands of miles away from
your normal sources of supply.

236
00:18:34,160 --> 00:18:39,760
What you see on this
base is how much effort,

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00:18:39,800 --> 00:18:45,120
resources and money the Soviets
poured into their defence system.

238
00:18:47,520 --> 00:18:50,920
In 1972, bayantal
became operational.

239
00:18:50,960 --> 00:18:55,480
Surrounded by anti-aircraft
missile batteries and a network

240
00:18:55,520 --> 00:18:59,560
of defence bunkers, the base
was formidably well-protected.

241
00:19:01,240 --> 00:19:05,760
Hidden within its blast-proof
shelters was a deadly strike force

242
00:19:05,800 --> 00:19:10,160
that included dozens of
mig-21s and 23 fighter jets.

243
00:19:12,720 --> 00:19:15,200
At the air base, there was a
squadron of mig-21s, which,

244
00:19:15,240 --> 00:19:19,640
at the time, was a
top-of-the-line fighter interceptor,

245
00:19:19,680 --> 00:19:23,480
so a supersonic jet that would
deal with any airborne threats

246
00:19:23,520 --> 00:19:26,480
that would come
from the Chinese.

247
00:19:26,520 --> 00:19:29,920
It's one of the ten great
aircraft of the cold war.

248
00:19:32,200 --> 00:19:37,280
The us encountered the mig-21
in the skies over north Vietnam,

249
00:19:37,320 --> 00:19:38,960
where it was a
formidable opponent.

250
00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:42,160
It was fun to fly, fairly easy

251
00:19:42,200 --> 00:19:47,440
to maintain, and the people
that flew it liked it and trusted it.

252
00:19:50,840 --> 00:19:55,160
While the aircraft were high-tech,
conditions at the base were brutal.

253
00:19:55,200 --> 00:20:00,680
In the summer, temperatures reach
40 degrees celsius, while in winter,

254
00:20:00,720 --> 00:20:03,920
the icy winds blasting across
the desert steppe could bring

255
00:20:03,960 --> 00:20:06,880
everything to a
stop at minus 40.

256
00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:12,440
The problems that they faced on
base were both from a maintenance

257
00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:14,400
perspective,
keeping the machines

258
00:20:14,440 --> 00:20:18,440
operational in the desert
environment, as well as morale.

259
00:20:18,480 --> 00:20:22,040
Keeping people motivated to live
in such a stark and barren place

260
00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:24,880
was quite a challenge.

261
00:20:24,920 --> 00:20:27,520
Yet bayantal
remained on a state of

262
00:20:27,560 --> 00:20:32,680
high alert throughout the 1970s
and '80s as tensions continued.

263
00:20:35,360 --> 00:20:37,280
At this point,

264
00:20:37,320 --> 00:20:43,040
China's interests are clearly
opposed to Soviet interests.

265
00:20:43,080 --> 00:20:47,280
And as long as Chinese and
Russian interests are opposed,

266
00:20:47,320 --> 00:20:51,960
there is always going to be
tension between Moscow and Beijing.

267
00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:55,960
And that tension is gonna be
stretched right across Mongolia.

268
00:20:59,840 --> 00:21:04,240
Bayantal air base helped prevent
China from taking direct military

269
00:21:04,280 --> 00:21:09,200
action against the ussr and
all-out war was narrowly avoided.

270
00:21:11,680 --> 00:21:16,640
When mikhail gorbachev came to
power in 1985, he made a determined effort

271
00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:18,440
to ease tensions.

272
00:21:21,560 --> 00:21:26,960
Just a few years later, in 1989,
the Soviet union was collapsing

273
00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:30,520
and bayantal no longer had
the funds to be maintained.

274
00:21:32,680 --> 00:21:36,000
This was not a country with
a lot of money at the time.

275
00:21:36,040 --> 00:21:38,800
It's part of the reason the Soviet
union ultimately collapsed, was

276
00:21:38,840 --> 00:21:43,720
the need to spend so many precious
resources building and maintaining

277
00:21:43,760 --> 00:21:48,200
this far-flung network of
expensive military facilities.

278
00:21:48,240 --> 00:21:52,440
And this base shut down,
as did hundreds of others.

279
00:21:52,480 --> 00:21:56,440
In December 1989, the
bayantal air base was abandoned.

280
00:22:03,080 --> 00:22:06,880
Today, this once-vital
air base is a ghost town.

281
00:22:08,440 --> 00:22:10,120
The base is largely
abandoned now.

282
00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:14,000
None of the structures are
used for the original purpose.

283
00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:16,800
Native people, the Mongolia,
can be found on the base, but not

284
00:22:16,840 --> 00:22:19,920
in the buildings themselves.
They live in and amongst

285
00:22:19,960 --> 00:22:22,056
the buildings, using them for
shelter from the environments.

286
00:22:22,080 --> 00:22:24,400
But largely, the buildings
are completely empty

287
00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:26,080
and abandoned.

288
00:22:31,720 --> 00:22:35,160
Bayantal air base shows that
nuclear armageddon could have started

289
00:22:35,200 --> 00:22:39,760
not just in cold war
Europe, or the United States,

290
00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:45,000
but even in the vast desert
wastelands of Mongolia.

291
00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:50,880
Like most military installations,
this one was never used in war,

292
00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:54,400
but that's not necessarily
how you measure

293
00:22:54,440 --> 00:22:56,800
the success of an investment
in military infrastructure.

294
00:22:56,840 --> 00:23:01,040
If it prevented a conflict,
then it did its job as well.

295
00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:10,520
On the other side of the planet,
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

296
00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:13,760
is a perplexing wreck
of rusting metalwork.

297
00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:27,000
A steel and concrete mass rises
above the trees that grow along

298
00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:29,440
the banks of the
monongahela river.

299
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:37,240
It's really peculiar-looking and
you're thinking it's some sort

300
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:40,160
of steam punk theme
park. It's that weird.

301
00:23:43,280 --> 00:23:45,120
When you first see
the Carrie furnaces,

302
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:49,760
you're taken right back to an
age of huge industrialisation,

303
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:52,160
with these enormous plants.

304
00:23:56,040 --> 00:23:59,320
The scale of this unusual
construction dwarfs nearby

305
00:23:59,360 --> 00:24:01,320
buildings.

306
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:10,320
A mighty chimney soars 280ft
high and a row of rocket-shaped silos

307
00:24:10,360 --> 00:24:15,360
are flanked by two 110ft-high
pipe-covered steel towers.

308
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:22,600
Connecting them
all is a mid-air rail

309
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:26,240
line that seemingly
leads nowhere.

310
00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:28,160
When people first see these,

311
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:30,760
I think they're just struck
by how big they are.

312
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:35,360
This crazy collection of pipes
and tubes, and intricate plumbing

313
00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:38,200
on a massive superhuman
scale. It's kind of mind-blowing.

314
00:24:42,120 --> 00:24:44,800
What exactly took
place in this jumble

315
00:24:44,840 --> 00:24:47,080
of pipework, concrete and steel?

316
00:24:47,120 --> 00:24:51,960
And why was this
gargantuan facility abandoned?

317
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:58,560
At the turn of the 20th
century, an explosion in building

318
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:03,480
and transportation across the
usa created huge industrial need

319
00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:06,640
for steel.

320
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:09,240
Iron and steel were the backbone

321
00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:11,840
of the development of
north American infrastructure.

322
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:15,240
Every building,
every highway bridge,

323
00:25:15,280 --> 00:25:18,400
every car, every
train, every ship

324
00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:23,080
and tank, they all contained
steel that came from Pittsburgh.

325
00:25:23,120 --> 00:25:28,520
This was the birth of america,
really, the industrial revolution,

326
00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:31,120
the empire state building,
the Brooklyn bridge.

327
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:35,320
Every city had its proud
structures that came from this

328
00:25:35,360 --> 00:25:39,080
dangerous, complicated
process of producing steel.

329
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:46,160
This dangerous process
involved the smelting of iron ore.

330
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:49,080
But not enough could
be smelted to keep up with

331
00:25:49,120 --> 00:25:51,320
the ever-expanding
steel production.

332
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:58,160
Ron baraff is a director
at rivers of steel heritage.

333
00:25:58,200 --> 00:25:59,896
He works to preserve
the history of industry

334
00:25:59,920 --> 00:26:02,240
and steel in western
Pennsylvania.

335
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:09,000
They made iron that not just
changed western Pennsylvania

336
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:13,200
but changed the world, and
helped build america's 20th century.

337
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:17,160
Us steel came up with a
solution to the bottleneck.

338
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:21,440
These are Carrie
furnaces 6 and 7.

339
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:25,440
The extraordinary towers

340
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:29,520
were designed to produce more
iron for the production of steel.

341
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:33,760
Really what you're
doing is melting rocks.

342
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:39,120
It is a manmade volcano that is
reducing three basic ingredients.

343
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:41,280
Iron ore,

344
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:46,760
coke - which is coal that's baked
and is carbon - and limestone.

345
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:51,040
And you're subjecting it to an
immense amount of heat and reducing

346
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:52,880
it down to iron, which is then

347
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:57,120
transported from this site across
the river and converted into steel.

348
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:05,640
These furnaces were
purposely built near Pittsburgh.

349
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:08,200
This was because
of the extensive

350
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:10,760
natural deposits
of coal that exist in

351
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:14,000
the nearby appalachian basin.

352
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:18,920
In that part of america, you have
a lot of structures in the earth's

353
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:21,320
crust, which have brought coal,

354
00:27:21,360 --> 00:27:23,840
have brought limestone
and have brought iron ore

355
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:28,760
close to the surface, and you
need those three things to make iron.

356
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,520
Building began in 1906.

357
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:43,080
It was no easy task creating
these 90ft-tall combustion chambers.

358
00:27:43,120 --> 00:27:44,800
Made of 2.5-inch-thick

359
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:48,800
steel plate, they are lined with
thousands of bricks capable of

360
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:53,640
withstanding temperatures of
almost 2,000 degrees celsius.

361
00:27:57,160 --> 00:28:02,560
A system of counterbalanced cars
was designed to carry tonnes of ore,

362
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:05,400
coke and limestone
up an inclined ramp

363
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:08,680
to be emptied into the furnaces.

364
00:28:11,120 --> 00:28:14,320
We can think of the furnace as,
like, a giant test tube with a big

365
00:28:14,360 --> 00:28:16,000
bunsen burner underneath.

366
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:19,320
We're adding in the chemicals
to make the reactions to get

367
00:28:19,360 --> 00:28:23,880
from a solid rock with iron in it,
to liberating free iron as a metal.

368
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:28,800
And we do that by reacting the
iron with the coke, to free the iron,

369
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:32,720
and we also add calcium
to get rid of all the silica.

370
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:35,320
All of this is
happening in mid-air.

371
00:28:35,360 --> 00:28:39,280
Suspended in mid-air,
this big push of air up,

372
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:42,840
material coming down, the coal
burden coming down, being heated,

373
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:45,320
and the iron rains out.

374
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:52,160
In 1907, the new
furnaces began operating.

375
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:54,520
The process of emptying
the white-hot iron

376
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:56,200
from the furnaces and into

377
00:28:56,240 --> 00:29:00,440
the waiting rail cars made for
hazardous working conditions.

378
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:03,240
This was not a job
for the faint-hearted.

379
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:07,400
This is a tap hole
here behind me.

380
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:11,200
It's a Clay plug that's drilled
out. The drill's right in front

381
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:13,840
of me here, so it drills
through, the iron starts

382
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:16,616
flowing, iron goes down this
runner and through a hole in the floor.

383
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:18,800
Then hopefully,
stationed directly

384
00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:23,000
below that hole in the floor
is a bottle car or ladle car.

385
00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:25,960
Fatalities were high.

386
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:27,880
Injuries were extremely high.

387
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:30,000
Fatigue was always a problem.

388
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:32,520
You know, working in these
plants, especially early part of

389
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:37,280
the 20th century, you were an
old man if you were in your 40s.

390
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:41,520
It would eat you
up and spit you out.

391
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:52,320
During the American
20th century,

392
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:57,080
furnaces 6 and 7 proved
a phenomenal success.

393
00:29:57,120 --> 00:30:02,080
Each producing up to 1,000
tonnes of hot iron every day.

394
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:05,080
In 1910, 60% of

395
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:09,640
the usa's entire steel output
was coming from Pittsburgh.

396
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:12,720
And Carrie furnace
was particularly efficient,

397
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:14,880
thanks to its hot metal bridge,

398
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:17,200
which took molten iron straight

399
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:20,000
to the heart of the homestead
steel works across the river.

400
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:22,440
This helped production
keep up with spikes in

401
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:25,320
demand for steel in war time.

402
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:29,520
During world war ii, 180 tonnes

403
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:34,040
of molten iron were shipped
across the bridge every single hour.

404
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:37,360
At its height,
and you're looking

405
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:40,880
second world war on,
these furnaces alone,

406
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:43,520
just this complex of furnaces,
were outproducing Great Britain.

407
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:45,880
You know, the Pittsburgh region

408
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:48,680
was outproducing all of
the axis powers together.

409
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:53,400
This region gained the moniker
of the 'arsenal of democracy'.

410
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:58,560
This was the heart of
america's industrial might.

411
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:00,440
But as the years went by,

412
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:04,360
the way the furnaces operated
became increasingly outdated.

413
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:10,320
It was incredibly dangerous,
absolutely incredibly dangerous.

414
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:15,600
The force of the pressure inside
this furnace, the amount of gases

415
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:18,880
that are in there...

416
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:22,560
It is a constant balancing act.

417
00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:25,560
You have too much pressure build
up in these vessels, they can explode.

418
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:29,280
It requires team work, it requires
everyone being on that same page,

419
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:32,360
and understanding that
they're trying to tame a volcano.

420
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:40,200
By the 1970s, demand for iron from
the Carrie furnaces had dropped off.

421
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:41,896
Even more seriously,
this early 20th-century

422
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:47,280
technology was raising
serious concerns about safety.

423
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:52,880
This is heavy industry
we're talking about.

424
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:56,480
The conditions for the men working
at the Carrie furnaces would have

425
00:31:56,520 --> 00:31:58,520
been like working in hell.

426
00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:03,480
Extremely hot, you're
working around molten iron.

427
00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:06,400
Soot in your face, the fumes.

428
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:08,856
Just the heat, the oppressiveness
of that environment would have been

429
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:13,680
unbelievable and the
risk of injury or even death

430
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:15,680
were all around
you, all the time.

431
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:21,560
You had these high temperatures,
toxic fumes, dangerous work that

432
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:23,600
required a lot of skill.

433
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:27,040
This was work for very,
very tough, motivated people.

434
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:33,440
In 1978, time ran out for the
two giant furnaces and their fires

435
00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:38,640
were extinguished for good,
leaving the site abandoned.

436
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:46,880
The rest of the Carrie works around
the region were deemed too dangerous

437
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:48,440
and contaminated.

438
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:51,320
So they were all demolished.

439
00:32:56,200 --> 00:33:00,040
Furnaces 6 and 7
however, still survive.

440
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:06,400
Designated a national historic
landmark in 2006, they are now

441
00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:08,840
a local tourist attraction.

442
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:18,840
Where we're standing, in 1907,
this was the high tech of its day.

443
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:23,160
And, you know, it's the building
of america's 20th century.

444
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:25,560
It happened in places like this.

445
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:38,000
Across the Atlantic ocean

446
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:41,000
in the Italian alps,
the cresta croce Ridge

447
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:45,600
sits 10,000 feet above sea level,
amongst the rugged mountain tops.

448
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:53,800
On the brink of an
almost vertical cliff

449
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:58,240
stands an 11ft Cannon. It's
supported by a steel cradle

450
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:01,600
and two huge wooden
spoked wheels.

451
00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:08,800
The idea people could move
something so massive on top

452
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:13,000
of a mountain so high

453
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:15,840
really is a testament
to what humans can do.

454
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:22,960
There is no doubt
about the purpose of this

455
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:25,280
six-tonne steel Cannon.

456
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:27,320
More of a mystery, however,

457
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:31,680
is why it's perched here
on this barren mountain top.

458
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:37,560
If I came across an old Cannon
like that in the middle of the Italian

459
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:42,480
alps, I would be utterly amazed,
because how did this get there?

460
00:34:42,520 --> 00:34:46,040
And why was it abandoned
to this icy wilderness?

461
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:53,840
Since its formation in 1871,

462
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:57,360
the nation of Italy had
been attempting to build up

463
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:04,240
its army and Navy to protect itself
from their chief adversary, Austria.

464
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:10,440
In 1915, Italy entered world war I,
taking up the allied cause against

465
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:14,160
the austro-Hungarian empire.

466
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:17,840
For Italy, it was a war of barbed
wire, machine guns and, above all,

467
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:24,400
heavy artillery along the
northern border in the Italian alps.

468
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:28,480
The Austrians had, for
centuries, dominated Italy,

469
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:30,960
along with the French.

470
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:32,896
And what the Italians
see in the first world war

471
00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:38,560
is those Austrians coming
across the passes yet again,

472
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:45,000
to try to dominate the country
that the Italians had only just built.

473
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:47,160
And the Italians had to stop it.

474
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:55,520
In 1916, there was a critical danger
that Austrian troops would breach

475
00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:59,600
Italian mountain defences and
break through what was then the border

476
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:04,560
between Italy and Austria,
just by the cresta croce Ridge.

477
00:36:06,760 --> 00:36:08,360
The artillery piece
was the prime

478
00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:12,520
killing weapon of world war I,
and Italy's success in defending

479
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:16,880
this mountainous border
would hinge on its effective use.

480
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:20,200
You would never
beat the Austrians

481
00:36:20,240 --> 00:36:24,600
unless you got heavy artillery
up into the mountains in Italy.

482
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:31,840
One or two guns will dominate
a large amount of territory

483
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:33,520
in a mountain terrain.

484
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:39,560
The Italian army, however,

485
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:41,760
was desperately short
of modern heavy guns.

486
00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:46,760
The only solution available
was an outdated gun from 1888.

487
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:52,200
The 5.9-inch g-model Cannon.

488
00:36:55,800 --> 00:37:00,480
Nicknamed 'the hippopotamus',
it was designed to fire a 60lb shell

489
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:03,800
over a distance of six miles.

490
00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:08,000
Easily outranged by
more modern guns,

491
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:12,360
it was all that Italy had available
to defend its borders in 1916.

492
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:24,840
When you needed fire support,
you wanted not small mountain guns

493
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:28,400
that you could transport on the back
of a donkey - everybody had those.

494
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:30,200
You needed heavy artillery.

495
00:37:36,240 --> 00:37:38,280
On 9 February, 1916,

496
00:37:38,320 --> 00:37:42,440
the hippopotamus Cannon
arrived in the valley below.

497
00:37:45,080 --> 00:37:50,000
It faced a daunting journey
up the mountains near the town

498
00:37:50,040 --> 00:37:52,160
of passo del tonale.

499
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:55,320
If the town was captured,
Austrian troops would have

500
00:37:55,360 --> 00:38:00,000
a clear run to the vital
manufacturing city of Milan.

501
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:05,440
The gun had to be sited on a
Ridge blocking the Austrian advance.

502
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:09,640
With no roads and the
mountains covered in deep snow,

503
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:14,520
the only option was to manually haul
the 6.6-tonne Cannon thousands of

504
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:17,640
feet up the mountain, in
temperatures of 20-below.

505
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:27,800
Well, as an engineer and as an
amateur mountain climber, the idea

506
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:32,040
of taking a Cannon and
hauling it up is almost impossible

507
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:36,680
to imagine, because of the
weather and the snow conditions,

508
00:38:36,720 --> 00:38:39,960
and just the absolute misery
that those men had to go through.

509
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:49,240
Professional mountaineer
Cain Olsen is visiting the Cannon

510
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:53,320
to better understand exactly
what those men went through.

511
00:38:55,080 --> 00:38:58,200
To imagine, you know,
18-year-old, 19-year-old kids,

512
00:38:58,240 --> 00:39:03,240
you know, hundreds of them,
to get this up here in lots of

513
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:07,680
snow, from a mountaineering
point of view, it's incredible.

514
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:12,160
Freezing temperatures weren't

515
00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:15,240
the only obstacle faced
by these young soldiers.

516
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:21,480
During the gruelling march upward,
they were twice buried by avalanche.

517
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:25,400
Members of the
tow team were killed.

518
00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:29,080
Yet the mountain troopers
and artillerymen had to

519
00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:31,960
dig out the Cannon and
continue the long haul.

520
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:37,240
Now, the friction capacity of
snow is very much a function of

521
00:39:37,280 --> 00:39:41,640
the weather conditions, so
cold, dry snow is almost like sand.

522
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:43,240
So imagine dragging
a heavy weight

523
00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:46,960
through a sand dune, where
wet, sticky snow is almost like mud.

524
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:48,720
And so

525
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:52,360
there's really no great way to
drag a heavy weight through snow.

526
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:59,000
Despite this, after 78
days of incredible effort,

527
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:02,920
the Cannon arrived
at its first firing position.

528
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:05,720
But the initial location
proved problematic.

529
00:40:09,720 --> 00:40:13,560
The Austrians were positioned
on that Ridge over there.

530
00:40:13,600 --> 00:40:17,920
And from its original position,
the Austrians were just a bit too

531
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:23,320
far away, so that's why they had to
then move it over onto cresta croce

532
00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:27,120
and from cresta croce, they
could easily hit the Austrians.

533
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:35,200
Italian artillerymen faced yet
another problem, as historian

534
00:40:35,240 --> 00:40:38,240
David Caldwell-Evans
has discovered.

535
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:41,480
There's virtually no recall
mechanism on this gun.

536
00:40:41,520 --> 00:40:45,120
When you fire it, it's
gonna slam straight back

537
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:47,296
and there's nothing you
can do about that, other than

538
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:50,040
try and stop the roll back.

539
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:53,600
Each wheel had a wooden
wedge behind it, and when it fired,

540
00:40:53,640 --> 00:40:57,080
the wheel would rock back up,
come up the wedge, and then slide

541
00:40:57,120 --> 00:40:57,960
back into position again.

542
00:40:58,000 --> 00:40:59,920
That was the only way
they had of stopping it,

543
00:40:59,960 --> 00:41:03,640
basically recoiling straight
off the back of the mountain.

544
00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:08,880
Austrian troops were stunned to
find themselves under bombardment by

545
00:41:08,920 --> 00:41:13,240
a Cannon twice the calibre
of their own mountain artillery.

546
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:15,000
Shelters dug deep

547
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:20,000
into the ice, snow and rock were
pulverised by the enormous shells.

548
00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:24,160
It not only stopped the
Austrian advance in this sector,

549
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:29,760
but went on to provide covering
fire for Italian counter-attacks.

550
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:32,360
This was the largest-calibre gun

551
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:36,640
at high altitude anywhere
in the first world war.

552
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:39,040
The Austrians had
nothing to compete with it.

553
00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:42,440
So, although it was obsolete,
although it was well past

554
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:44,320
its sell-by date of world war I,

555
00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:46,496
it still was bigger than
anything else up at this altitude.

556
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:50,960
What this gun is doing
really is saturation fire.

557
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:57,520
For two long years, the battle
above the clouds ebbed to and fro.

558
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:02,960
The two sides simply battered
each other and, of course,

559
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:09,000
the mountain positions gave
you a very important advantage.

560
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:15,600
In 1918, Italian troops stormed
forward with the help of the g-model

561
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:19,720
gun atop cresta croce Ridge
and drove the Austrians back

562
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:21,240
for good.

563
00:42:24,720 --> 00:42:28,200
When world war I came to an end,

564
00:42:28,240 --> 00:42:32,040
the obsolete hippopotamus
was simply abandoned.

565
00:42:39,080 --> 00:42:40,720
Today, the surviving heavy guns

566
00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:46,880
of world war I are gathering
dust in museums across the globe.

567
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:52,080
Yet the extraordinary hippopotamus
still stands where it fired its last

568
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:53,920
epic shots.

569
00:42:56,480 --> 00:42:59,480
It was a real, if
you like, war-winner

570
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:03,240
for the Italians, and it was
well worth bringing up here.

571
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:05,760
Although it was out of date,
although it didn't compare with

572
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:07,520
more modern guns

573
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:11,320
in use in France, it still did
its job and did it very well.

574
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:19,320
The story of the cresta croce Cannon
is a reminder that a decisive weapon

575
00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:20,936
doesn't have to be
technologically advanced,

576
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:24,840
it just has to be in the
right place at the right time.

577
00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:41,256
Now abandoned, they were
once on the cutting edge

578
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:45,080
of human engineering.

579
00:43:45,120 --> 00:43:50,480
Within these decaying structures
are the echoes of history.

580
00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:53,880
They speak of war and terror,

581
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:56,320
but also of exploration
and human endeavour.

582
00:43:56,480 --> 00:43:59,480
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