During the Cold War in the mid-20th century, the US had all kinds of offbeat science and engineering projects happening on the glaciers of Greenland. One of the strangest was a proposed plan to isolate nuclear waste by leaving capsules of the material on top of a glacier, and letting it melt its way through the ice. The idea was that the waste would self-bury and only emerge thousands of years later when it wasn't so dangerous. That project never got off the ground because there were plenty of answers to "what could possibly go wrong?" Other experimental projects were actually accomplished, such as a hovercraft that could hop over ice crevasses and a snowmobile that could carry cargo and was powered by an airplane propeller. Another idea was a subway rail system under the ice to transport nuclear missiles. There was even a full camp built underneath the ice that lasted a few years.
Ultimately, the big infrastructure projects were abandoned because glaciers move. You can't maintain a railroad when the walls move several feet a year. Plus, ice tends to melt when the temperature rises, and even the mightiest military in the world cannot control the weather. Read about the weirdest military projects carried out on Greenland's glaciers at Undark. -via Ars Technica
(Image credit: US Army)