Ed Helms

I'm sure screenwriters have been pulling details from this event for plenty of doom-worthy plots over the years.

Today's snafu takes us deep into the paranoid void of the Cold War at the point where the space race meets the arms race.

So picture this.

You're on vacation in Hawaii.

Maybe you're having dinner at a beachfront bar in Waikiki.

It's a warm July night in 1962.

You're listening to a Navy band play some classy dance tunes when suddenly –

A massive flash lights up the sky.

The band goes quiet.

A red glow streaks across the sky like someone just opened a zipper to hell.

It's not aliens, although that would be a reasonable guess.

This is America, baby.

That's right.

We are literally nuking space in this moment.

Apparently, during the Cold War, literally nothing was off the table.

It's 1962.

Cold War had pushed the U.S.

and the Soviet Union into this intense arms race.

It turns out it extended far beyond Earth.

So scientists were asking really hard questions like, what happens if we set off a nuclear bomb in outer space?