Most Useless Megaprojects In The World

Tune in for the most useless megaprojects in the world!

Legal Stuff.

[alkalinekats]

I feel like the inclusion of Challenger at the end was a bit uncalled for, that was not a useless megaproject, and if anything the reason why it exploded was not due to it being useless, but rather carelessness.

[docthebiker]

The rock the Costa Concordia struck was charted, not "uncharted" and the captain never spotted it. He actually abandoned ship and left his passengers to fend for themselves.
The problem was not the size of the ship, as there are bigger, but the quality of the crew.

[geoffschulz]

38:08 "spilling highly flammable liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen...", these were solid fuel boosters, there was no "liquid hydrogen or liquid oxygen" expelled. The liquid fuel was stored in the big orange tank between the boosters and was ignited by the flame shooting out from the O rings.

[m.adnansohail]

That person crossing the border left his bag behind

[booksteer]

The great physicist Richard Feynman was on the board of inquiry of the Challenger explosion. He was trying to get answers about the vulnerability of the rubber O-rings in freezing weather, but he wasn't getting a satisfactory answer. So, he took a small O-ring and dunked it in his glass of ice water for a few minutes, and when he took it out, it snapped when he applied stress to it. You gotta love a scientist who is grounded enough to do things so simply without a half a million dollar grant.

[mattbosley]

Okay, the Costa Concordia wasn't useless. It just had the misfortune of having a useless captain. That wasn't the ship's fault.

[moistbread]

I’ve taken the H3 and I would hardly consider it unused. It’s a super fast and efficient way to get to the north end of the island, and it can even get congested at times

[rsqrinsac]

I don't see the Challenger explosion as a useless megaproject, it fits more in the category of engineering disaster.

[jim-dianeautry]

One major fact that was omitted from your commentary on the Crazy Horse Memorial being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain is that this is a private, no-profit project. The Memorial Foundation refuses to accept any Federal funding.

[jameslmorehead]

The Challenger disaster should never had happened. The SRB manufacturer specifically mandated that they were not to be used at temperatures below 45F. Launch day was much colder. The SRB engineers were pressured from the top to certify they were good to fly. Most refused, and were removed from the project shortly, but a couple folded and signed off on it. The initial hole in the SRB was only the size of a pencil. But that pencil sized hole was angled just perfect to let the burning stream of rocket fuel to turn into a cutting torch. The reason for pushing to launch? It was being televised directly into countless classrooms around the country as one of the crew was a teacher. The bureaucrats forced kids to watch this crew die. I was one of those kids. I knew one of the men in charge of training the crew, and have met many people directly tied to the crew.

You know what really sucks? The crew did not die in the explosion. They died on impact with the ground. They were awake and aware of the situation, trying with every ounce of hope they had that they could find a solution to slow their decent. Unfortunately, the same bureaucrats that pushed for the launch also pushed to cut the crew capsule recovery module. It weighed 800 pounds, and at 1, 000 dolars per pound to launch, that was an expensive piece of equipment. See, the shuttles, while looking like a raditional aircraft, were really just a crew capsule attached to the front of a payload bay and a couple of engines. The design was such that in the event of a failure at launch, the crew capsule could remove itself from the rest of the ship and float back to the ground with parachutes packed away in the crew recovery module. That module also contained the solid rockets to push the capsule away from the craft. So, removing the module saved nearly a million dollars per launch, but cost the Challenger crew their lives.

[WizardOfOss]

About the Gundam, there are actually three life sized Gundam in Japan, the third one being in Fukuoka. Which also moves just a bit. But thing is, both that one and the "simple" one in Tokyo you can watch for free, and are basically a fancy billboard for the Gunpla shops inside the mall. The one in Yokohama, you have to pay for, at least to get a proper view. And pay a lot more if you want to get up close in that tower and get 20 seconds to have your picture taken right next to the head. And people are flocking to see it, and many end up buying quite a bit of merch and/or (often exclusive) Gunpla kits in the process. So pretty sure this thing is making money while looking cool...

[thesmashingmonkeys]

We just went to see the Gundam when we visited Japan this month and really enjoyed it. We had fun and visited other areas of Yokohama, which we would not have done if it wasn't for visiting the Gundam. There were plenty of people there from Japan and other countries as well. We paid to go inside, where there is also a small museum and a gift shop, but you can actually view the Gundam from outside the facility for free

[XxBigChungusxX]

I don’t think your neighbors were “jumping on the bed”… they was def doing the dirty

[CCABPSacsach]

I like how most of these aren’t useless, it’s just that they either failed because of simple errors and carelessness that are overcome in future projects (e.g. Challenger) or are just exaggerated for clickbait (e.g. H3, Gundam)

Also, I like how H3 is described as “not even interstate but only within the state” as if that’s a bad thing. Like, yeah… yeah, most interstates do that… H3 isn’t special…

[SirAsdf]

May I recommend The Marble Arch Mound for Part 2?

For anyone wondering what that is, basically, the Westminster City Council decided that their city needed a new tourist attraction to bring back the tourist revenue lost during the Covid pandemic.

What did they come up with?

An 82-foot tall pile of dirt right smack dab in the middle of London. No, seriously.

Even worse, it was literally across the street from the titular Marble Arch, a prominent and beautiful piece of marble architecture that's been in London for almost 200 years. And they thought their little dirt tower was going to look good compared to that.

And they originally wanted to charge people the equivalent of 10 US Dollars PER PERSON so they could have the "privilege" to climb this oversized eyesore.

The whole thing was closed and demolished after being open for less than 5 months when they realized no tourist wanted to spend their time and money in London climbing a useless hill of dirt.

And worst of all, this giant heap of mud somehow cost SEVEN MILLION BRITISH POUNDS to build and remove. Which was actually double what it was originally forecast for, but even that sounds way too high for what it ended up being.

It was just a huge waste of time and money, and the whole thing was slammed by the press and the public.

[lightningstrife]

The life sized gundam isn't useless tho. It has an entrance fee and a viewing dock (which costs even higher). Not useless to the company if they earn from it

[MjYosh]

H3 being labeled “unused” is very inaccurate. It’s very commonly used because it’s a quick way to get to the windward side. But yeah, sadly, it destroyed so much of the sacred parts of the land…

[cynthiakelly]

Challenger WAS NOT a useless megaproject ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
the Challenger mission, designated STS-51-L, was the tenth flight for the orbiter and the twenty-fifth flight of the Space Shuttle fleet. The crew was scheduled to deploy a communications satellite and study Halley's Comet --
the unfortunate failure of the O-rings on this one mission does NOT make Challenger/SpaceShuttle
a useless projgect -- it was far from useless

[grunyonthoughtsfromagrunt]

The Chalanger? Disaster yes and mistakes that shouldn't have been made most definitely.
But useless engineering project nope.

[JayCee]

The H3 on Oahu is one of my all time favorite drives! The view when you pop out of the tunnel on the Kaneohe side is breathtakingly beautiful. It is used pretty frequently though…no doubt in my mind that a lot of Native Hawaiians avoid it because of of superstition and/or principle, but between the military community, tv/movie productions, and tourists, the highway sees its fair share of travelers ☺️