Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/08/mythbusters_mythfire_cannon/
Mythbusters cannonball ‘myth-fires’
Misses target, hits houses and car
Posted in Science, 8th December 2011 10:42 GMT
If non-US readers have ever wondered how far the Alameda County bomb disposal range (beloved of Discovery Channel show Mythbusters) is from homes, it seems it’s at least close enough for a misdirected cannonball to hit a house.
And then another house, a hill and a car.
Mythbusters hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman are red-faced, to say the least, at the damage wrought when their partners (Tory Belleci, Kari Byron and Grant Imahara) fired a home-made cannon at a target, and missed.
The aim of the experiment was, apparently, to measure the velocity they could achieve with their maker-style ordnance. The cannon had been fired at a target comprising huge containers of water, reports [1] The Seattle Times.
When it missed, the 30 pound (roughly 14kg) cannonball made its way through a cinder-block wall; skimmed a hillside; passed through a house (in through the front door, out through a back wall, causing sundry damage inside but not waking or injuring the three occupants), knocked some roof tiles off a second house, and finally wrecked a Toyota Sierra minivan close to 1 Km from where it was fired.
According to the LA Times, Adam and Jamie are apologising [2] in person to everybody affected, and have said they’ll cover damage and hotel bills. And yes, they still intend to screen the episode the cannon was built for. ®