Humans have historically strived to go where no man has gone before, to explore and dive into the most remote areas on Earth. It’s only logical that our next step is to explore past Earth and into the great beyond that is space. To beat the gravitational influence of Earth and get to space, a ship needs to reach escape velocity, which is roughly 25,000 Mph.
If it takes 25,000 Mph to escape Earth, then what are the fastest man-made objects? Well, there’s an urban legend that dates back to when the US was testing nuclear bombs underground and in particular to operation ‘Plumbob’, during which a bomb was set off at the bottom of a 500-foot hole and capped with a manhole cover. The strength of this bomb had been miscalculated and it not only blew the manhole cover off of the hole, but caused it to be launched at 6 times the escape velocity of Earth. The manhole cover was apparently ‘captured in footage' in just a single frame from a camera shooting 1 frame per millisecond.
If you’re interested in some of the fastest man-made objects, look no further than the infographic below
