The Tragic Story of Joker, The Chernobyl Robot

Рет қаралды 34,544

5 ай бұрын

After the explosion of Unit Four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in April of 1986, the remains of what was once one of the most advanced nuclear reactors in the Soviet Union lay scattered. Some landed on the ground close to the building and was enclosed in the Cascade Wall. However, a lot of the fuel and graphite also landed on the roofs of the Vent Block and Unit Three. The Soviet Union, desperate to restart the three remaining reactors at Chernobyl as soon as possible, wanted to cover the destroyed reactor, and this meant removing all of this waste. Humans were not the first choice; to preserve lives, they turned to robots.
Of all these machines, one of them is known by name far more than the others, and that is the Joker Robot. This is the story of the little robot that met its fate on the roof of the Nuclear Power Plant, from beginning to end.
Chapters.
00:00: Introduction.
01:00: 1974.
01:25: The MF-2.
02:28: Becoming Joker.
03:05 The Roofs of Another World.
03:37: Saviour.
04:02: Samoylenko vs the USSR.
05:10: Onto The Roof.
05:55: They Didn't See A Joke.
06:15: Death of a Robot.
06:29: Rescue Operation.
06:56: 3,828.
07:34: In the Corner.
08:08: Buryakivka.
08:47: Ending.
09:08: Dedications and Sources.

Пікірлер: 121

@thegamingducky8671 5 ай бұрын

I remember this story too! It's so scary that nothing but an invisible force can cause such scary things to happen. Just imagine how much radiation there was to cause an entire ROBOT to breakdown.

@thatchernobylguy2915 5 ай бұрын

A lot indeed. Some areas were in excess of 2,000 roentgens per hour even months after the disaster.

@BlackWolf18C 5 ай бұрын

It seems like every story of Soviet incompetence basically boils down to, "The experts in the field wanted to do it the smart way, but the government officials disregarded their advice and ordered them to do it the dumb way because they were in a hurry." Then there's just a surprised pikachu meme labelled 'Soviet Government Officials'. Either that, or it's more like, "We wanted to do this awesome thing, but we already shot everyone who knew how."

@andreypopov6166 2 ай бұрын

"Experts in the field" quite often became a part of the government...

@bsadewitz Ай бұрын

@@andreypopov6166That was precisely my first thought. It's not about "government" necessarily, but the centralization of power and accountability.

@denniskrenz2080 Ай бұрын

They wanted to save their own face that way, simply as that. It was not their fault that the robot failed in conditions it was never made for and not meant to be used (Like placing it right on top of debris, radioactive or not). Thats somebody elses department. They did everything right.

@davidbaca7853 5 ай бұрын

In the translated tapes of Legasov, he mentioned that the Joker at some point had been modified moving its computer into the lower belly of the robot where it had less protection.

@syukamijo4259 Ай бұрын

Why did they do that?

@_DML_ 4 ай бұрын

Even though it failed to save humans from having to clear the roof, at least it tried.

@pc14thenumber9 5 ай бұрын

"I, robot. I, land, I, died." -Joker maybe

@JerseyAir 5 ай бұрын

Poor joker

@skylineXpert 3 ай бұрын

ha ha hoo hee ha. Joker...

@andreypopov6166 2 ай бұрын

Any robot will die if stupid people take control over it.

@codertao 5 ай бұрын

Yet again I'm disappointed by the HBO mini-series. "We lied about the seriousness of the accident and so the Germans sent a robot that was never going to work- if only we told the truth" is very different from "In our haste to restart operations we broke a piece of repurposed equipment that (might) have worked for this". But the mini-series is going to be the canonical telling of the disaster for a lot of people.

@anthonytraficante9655 21 күн бұрын

6:10 “it says joker!! But i cant see any joke”!! 😂😂😂 thats what makes it hilarious!! 😂

@oscarr.g.509 5 ай бұрын

One of the best channels on YT, great work !

@thatchernobylguy2915 5 ай бұрын

Thank you!

@JD.78 5 ай бұрын

Fascinating story of how one robot and it's failure lead to the use of the clean up crew, probably the bravest endeavour by Humans in history. Cheers.

@thatchernobylguy2915 5 ай бұрын

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed :)

@JD.78 5 ай бұрын

@@thatchernobylguy2915 You're welcome.

@embersaffron5522 5 ай бұрын

the bio robots never needed to happen, Stredmash had a way to clean the roofs clean, but the union wouldnt let them use another Crane

@tuff4307 5 ай бұрын

What a great video! Keep making them mate!

@thatchernobylguy2915 5 ай бұрын

Thank you! :)

@HandyMan657 5 ай бұрын

Thanks for that story. Cheers

@garethjohnstone9282 5 ай бұрын

C3PO back in the house with another great vid. I think this channel is the most in-depth Chernobyl channel.

@oganvildevil 5 ай бұрын

It's also the most respectful in a way I really hope becomes more common. Onya for raising the bar

@tinyjr8618 5 ай бұрын

another great vid

@oganvildevil 5 ай бұрын

Well done

@saintuk70 5 ай бұрын

Fascinating

@1867Phoenix 2 күн бұрын

Boris Shcherbina: TELL GORBACHEV!!!! TELL GORBACHEV!!!! TELL GORBACHEV!!!! ** Destroys phone in extreme rage**

@Tylerx-z 5 ай бұрын

i had forgotten the name of the robot but nice vid.

@GWNorth-db8vn 5 ай бұрын

Joker's been either moved or buried a couple of years ago. It's gone from where it was sitting for so long.

@lada_niva_1.7i Ай бұрын

Its not at the junkyard anymore?

@GWNorth-db8vn Ай бұрын

@@lada_niva_1.7i - A group of stalkers went to see it just before the war, and it's gone. The junk around it is still in the same places, so they had the right spot.

@apc9681 5 ай бұрын

Great video, what show is the footage from 0:00-0:12 from? It came up in my head yesterday but I can’t remember it

@thatchernobylguy2915 5 ай бұрын

It's from a documentary called "The Bell of Chernobyl" by Rollan Sergienko :)

@apc9681 5 ай бұрын

@@thatchernobylguy2915 thank you!

@markusw7833 5 ай бұрын

Interesting.

@icetwo 5 ай бұрын

What I was wondering. Why didn't they just build hydraulic robots instead of electronic ones? That would have even been easy. You simply take a small excavator and remove all the electronic components and the hydraulic pumps and controls, and insert long hydraulic hoses between them. This way you could control everything from a safe distance without noticing the effect of radioactivity.

@bluef1sh926 5 ай бұрын

There were no excavators small or light enough in the entire eastern block, because there was no need for them to exist. On small excavations everyone just used manual labor, which there was always a surplus of. After Chernobyl there was no time to design, prototype, troubleshoot and manufacture a new machine from scratch. Very long hydraulic hoses are a terrible idea, a bundle of them would be too stiff for this size of machine to move freely. They would also be abraded and punctured while being dragged during machine operation. The correct way would be to take a purely mechanical machine and add an electric control system, based entirely on relays, electromagnets and analog servos, 0% silicon content.

@Blazs120gl 5 ай бұрын

I have always wondered why they never tried to come up with some sort of wire control. Especially on Masha,. there were some higher support elements (ladders and masts) that could have served as overhang or spooling points for wires providing control, power and even a ways to pull the vehicle if it gets stuck (by having steel cables wound into the harness). The vehicle itself needs no heavy shielding so weight could have been traded to more useful loads (stronger motors/arms). Apart of having relays to actuate motors, everything else needed could have been placed far enough to be safe to operate and service. Worst case they lose a cheap, replacable machine that contains no hi-tech stuff. Cables are also cheap to replace etc.

@Kinsanth_ 5 ай бұрын

The problem is the radiation. Gammarays destroy unprotected electronics with their high energy. Thats why living cells also get destroyed, thats why those robots got inoperable after such a short time. Never underestimate radiation, its extremely dangerous

@Blazs120gl 5 ай бұрын

@@Kinsanth_ Yeah, I know, I'm an electrical engineer. But when we're talking about the most basic things like wires and relays, these have no semiconductors or e.g. forms computer memory where data loss due to damaging ROM or RAM leads to bricking the device. Same goes to electric motors, they should hold out pretty long (none of the failures of the robots used were due to loss of the motor but the electronics and computers driving them).

@Kinsanth_ 5 ай бұрын

@@Blazs120gl ah, that explains a lot

@GWNorth-db8vn 5 ай бұрын

@@Blazs120gl - Overengineering Germans again. A bundle of cables that work would have been better in this instance. I bet it would be possible to make a motor that runs on ionizing radiation.

@adammorgan6229 5 ай бұрын

I almost wish I didn’t know that. So the USSR could have taken the opportunity to pioneer new radiation-tolerant robotics technology, but it was faster, cheaper, and more politically-expedient to give a bunch of guys a little hazard pay to go out on the roof and chuck a piece of graphite for Mother Russia. I recently read Kate Brown’s Plutopia. The stories about early nuclear weapons manufacturing safety in the US make me genuinely ashamed of my country. But the stories from Soviet Russia are the stuff of nightmares.

@alice20001 5 ай бұрын

This is the most Soviet thing I've heard.

@SUNRISE-ADVENTURES 5 ай бұрын

I never understood why they didn't clear the roofs from the door OUT? They run through all the debris..

@Titan604 5 ай бұрын

If you pick something up at the door you still have to run through all the debris with it to chuck it over the edge, only more slowly as you are carrying something awkward and/or heavy as well as highly radioactive, thus increasing the exposure time and dose. Better to start near the edge so you can run quickly through the debris without carrying anything.

@Rotwold 5 ай бұрын

They probably prioritised hot spots, it was probably easier (and safer) to focus on them first. The worst affected parts must've been above the reactor and where parts of the reactor had landed. Scary none the less.

@foo219 5 ай бұрын

@@Titan604Huh! I did not think of that. Now I feel dumb!

@nickmcwilliams685 5 ай бұрын

@@Rotwoldcorrect and I believe they prioritized graphite because it was visually identifiable and highly contaminated.

@Mann44 5 ай бұрын

Can you inform us about the Concret pumps ??

@saba3409 4 ай бұрын

the concrete pumps were built by Putzmeister my father worked there at the time

@iitzfizz 5 ай бұрын

I've got a feeling that Joker was just pulling a prank on everyone

@embersaffron5522 5 ай бұрын

oh damn i didn't realize that there was video of the biorobots

@TiborRoussou 5 ай бұрын

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/o9CaedqLrdDHp2Q.html

@Lazyforan4m3 Ай бұрын

Poor joker saw the job he was supposed to do and was hyped about and was ripped apart and scrapped lol

@johngaltline9933 5 ай бұрын

This is one of the stories that always just stuck in my head as a case of people overthinking... or underthinking, a problem. You know the radiation will fry sensitive electronics... so why on earth would you bother putting anything silicone based in them at all? There is already a tether cable on the robot... why not just run cable directly to the various motors on the robot and put the electronics on the roof next door... or just use switched to turn them on and off. You don't need precision work here to shove debris off the edge of a roof. Even easier and more reliable, just build a hydraulic powered robot. oil under pressure doesn't care about radiation various functions could be operated with simple electromagnetic solenoid, or if even that simple of an electric device is affected, you can use compressed air actuators to control hydraulics. Doesn't seem like any engineering student couldn't easily modify a hydrostatic drive mini loader, common enough even in the early 80's, to be operated with a set of compressed air powered controls from 50 meters away.

@nickl407 3 ай бұрын

Such a device would take weeks, if not months to produce. The roof had to be cleared in days, and as such they could realistically only utilize tools that already existed

@johngaltline9933 3 ай бұрын

@@nickl407 weeks or months to bolt a couple motors to a frame. A high school student taking 1980's robotics classes could do it in an afternoon.

@nickl407 3 ай бұрын

@@johngaltline9933 Putting an untested equipment into an environment that has never existed on this planet before takes a little bit more knowledge and expertise than an 1980s high school student could provide

@johngaltline9933 3 ай бұрын

@@nickl407 And that's the whole point. They chose to put equipment that was not tested, or that had been tested and proven not to work, in use, rather than bare bones things that had been proven to work, and that physics shows must work, that are not effected by radiation. Brushed DC motors, mechanical hydraulic pumps and hydraulic cylinders all work just fine with radiation and once more, any high school student that passed their physics class knows this. There is nothing new about using wire to power a motor, or, for something more common place in the 80's, 70's 60's or 50's, pure hydraulic power. anyone not overly focused on needing to use some advanced tech could have unbolted the controls from a small 'bobcat' type excavator, run 50 feet of hose from the machine to the controls safe behind a wall, and had a perhaps difficult to use, but fully functional little bulldozer controlled remotely, with off the shelf 1950's tech that is immune to radiation.

@nickl407 3 ай бұрын

@@johngaltline9933 I'm sure your bobcat contraption would fare better than the robot purpose built for radioactive environments. I'm sure you know better than the thousands of scientists and engineers who tirelessly worked on solutions to clear the Chernobyl roof. I'm sure you could build your device faster than the roof ended up being cleared

@DrDuck27Official 5 ай бұрын

What if they just let the radiation sit? Did you do a video on thAt/will you?

@DrDuck27Official 5 ай бұрын

Like the whole Chernobyl accident

@bmstylee 5 ай бұрын

If they didn't clean up the sight it would continue to emit high levels of radiation and a good part of Europe would be uninhabitable.

@zendell37 5 ай бұрын

Every time I watch videos like these I'm reminded of Bionerd23. She was the first exposure I had to modern Chernobyl in a primary source way. So much these days is second or third hand storytelling. It's almost a requirement since the pandemic. I really appreciated her sharing this world I'll never get to experience. I hope she's happy wherever she is.

@GWNorth-db8vn 5 ай бұрын

TBH, I always thought she was too cavalier about the way she handled things. She liked to point out that she was in no danger, but that was because she knew what she was doing. She set a terrible example for the tourists who don't know what they're doing and put themselves in danger as a result.

@zendell37 5 ай бұрын

I agree to a point. She didn't put on a show to convince people there's no danger. People do that themselves. Think of all the bodies on Everest. People will ignore the dangers thinking something will save them these days.

@setituptoblowitup 5 ай бұрын

Just member lil Joker you gotta crawl B4 you can walk you tried running💨

@cosmicgreen 5 ай бұрын

"Jokah"

@whirledpeas3477 5 ай бұрын

Narrator is a great Monday morning Quarterback 😂

@abriannaaguilera2123 5 ай бұрын

The Little Robot that Could.

@gcooper642 4 ай бұрын

Aye, but it kinda could'nae

@ErectedGasCan 5 ай бұрын

I am blown away how advanced robots were back then.

@kv-2232 5 ай бұрын

Is Joker still on the scrapyard? 😢

@HustleMuscleGhias 5 ай бұрын

Still there and still highly radioactive.

@kv-2232 5 ай бұрын

@@HustleMuscleGhias What is the scrapyard called?

@Nnneemo 5 ай бұрын

@@kv-2232Буряковка.

@kv-2232 5 ай бұрын

@@Nnneemo But i think this scrapyard dont exist anymore

@alstonofalltrades3142 5 ай бұрын

lots is on the scrapyard, lines of expensive helicopters and all sorts.

@danielpittman889 5 ай бұрын

1:01 Not the same kind of nuclear boom the Russians were about to experience, amirite?

@mbunds 5 ай бұрын

Little?

@CMDRINC Ай бұрын

it was never advanced. not even for the time. the reactor setup was using unclosed water loops, directly connected to the outside, we dont do that anywhere else

@thatchernobylguy2915 Ай бұрын

I was talking about the Joker robot being advanced in this video. However there was never a direct connection between the reactor loop and the outside; the only external water flow was from the heat exchangers of the turbines, which didn't come into contact with the reactor water, and was sent to circulate in the cooling pond, which a lot of reactors use :)

@ghostintheshelll 5 ай бұрын

When Germans design a robot, it will inevitably look like a Panzerkampfwagen.

@diegotapia2830 6 күн бұрын

So hbo pretty much fanficted the whole thing

@hadrionics2755 5 ай бұрын

Alternate title: The most useless robot in history

@markusw7833 5 ай бұрын

lol

@cruickshankoutdoors7575 5 ай бұрын

Last time I was this early, we hadn’t actually found out about the Chernobyl accident yet

@bmstylee 5 ай бұрын

I mean the last time I was this early the xenon still identified as iodine.

@amacca2085 4 ай бұрын

Is it not Masha not marsha

@ant4812 5 ай бұрын

Cool video. Just one thing, it was the Red Brigade - not the Red Army, that the West German authorities were worried about at the time.

@GWNorth-db8vn 5 ай бұрын

It actually was the Red Army Faction, AKA the Baader-Meinhoff gang. The Red Brigades were Italian.

@theenchiladakid1866 5 ай бұрын

Thy wanted to to what?

@repairdroid77 5 ай бұрын

It would really be nice to see the text at the end of the video not being plastered with thumbnails of other videos. Why even have text if you cover it up?

@GWNorth-db8vn 5 ай бұрын

There's a way to stop those, but it also gets rid of the page of thumbnails after the video ends.

@randyhavard6084 Ай бұрын

The incompetence, negligence, and corruption of the Communists party knows no bounds

@paulmurgatroyd6372 5 ай бұрын

It's not tragic, it's like being sad about a broken spanner or something.

@bayo_yayo4317 5 ай бұрын

Second!!

@user-iq5ds8nw4w 5 ай бұрын

First!!

@dunatyphon5416 5 ай бұрын

"Advanced nuclear reactor"...... You should probably research that bit....

@thatchernobylguy2915 5 ай бұрын

For the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s, Unit Four was considered one of the most advanced and safe reactors in the country, with many redundancies. The problem is that no reactor ever could survive the conditions it found itself in in the last few seconds.

@alstonofalltrades3142 5 ай бұрын

I'd say it's advanced, I watch Oceanliner Designs and historic travels and the amount of detail and massive teams of skill sets to build Olympic class ships... They are not advanced by comparison now I know. Still hard as hell to plan, make and budget for though. They should have had containment buildings. Fukishima should stored the spent fuel inside the containment buildings. USA shouldn't have been first at having a meltdown. The UK (my country) shouldn't have been pushing Windscale to reckless levels to try and catch up in the nuke race and nearly cause Cumbria to become an exclusion zone as well.