10: The Kugelpanzer The Kugelpanzer was one of the most unique
technological advances in warfare ever developed by the Germans.
Its design came after the First World War, when militaries were trying to figure out
how to deal with No Man’s Land.
This is the area between two front lines, where it's the most dangerous.
One of the German solutions was to create a rolling ball tank.
They created their very first working prototype in 1917.
It was called the Treffas Wagen.
But it was abandoned and a new concept was designed in 1936 called the tumbleweed tank.
The tumbleweed design was the brainchild of a Texan inventor named A.J.
Richardson, but his version of the rolling ball tank remained just that - an idea.
No Tumbleweed was ever actually constructed.
The Germans later came up with the Kugelpanzer and went through with building a prototype.
Whether any additional models were ever constructed remains unclear, and as of today we only know
of this single prototype.
It was captured by the Red Army in the 1940s after it was seemingly abandoned on a battlefield
somewhere.
Theories about how the Red Army was able to get ahold of this unusual vehicle include
that it was sent to Japan as part of a technology sharing scheme, or that it was captured at
the Kummersdorf proving grounds alongside another infamous vehicle, the Maus.
The Russians now have the only surviving ball tank, a one-man vehicle with 5mm armor designed
to literally roll like a bowling ball across the field of battle.
Just imagine coming across that on the battlefield!
It’s basically a tank-style human hamster ball.
9: Solar Powered Boat An enterprising Canadian built a solar-powered
boat houseboat with the intention of living off the grid.
He later abandoned the vessel, and it was discovered three years later on a beach in
County Mayo, in western Ireland.
The solar-powered wooden houseboat had drifted across 2000 miles (3218 km) of the Atlantic
Ocean to wind up in Europe.
It was a journey that would have made the Vikings proud.
The boat was discovered in 2016 by a local Irishman walking along the beach at night.
He didn't know what to think of it, as it looked kind of like a wooden caravan or camper
that had somehow washed up on the shore.
What was especially strange about the vessel was the message written inside on the wall
- “I, Rick Small, donate this structure to homeless youth.
To give them a better life that Newfoundlanders chose not to do!
No rent no mortgage no hydro."
The puzzled locals posted about the find on social media, and got many responses but no
one stepped forward with additional information.
Nobody claimed the vessel, so a member of the community turned it into a local garden.
Nobody figured out where the boat came from for another three years.
That was when Canadian inventor Rick Small realized his boat was being used as a garden
somewhere and came clean.
He had invented the boat to take to the Arctic, planning to live onboard and enjoy unlimited
energy because of the solar panels.
But he could never find a good motor, the whole thing proved to be a poor idea, and
he abandoned the boat to its fate.
Would you live on a functioning solar powered houseboat?
8: Soviet Space Boat There is a rusting behemoth of a vehicle in
Russia that looks like it belongs in the Star Wars universe.
It was once a streamlined Soviet passenger boat that used unique hydrofoil technology
to lift its hull from the water as it reached high speeds.
This would decrease drag and allow it to travel at nearly 100 mph (160 kph).
Some models were even equipped with airplane turbine engines on either side.
It was nicknamed the Raketas, or “Rocket.”
These unusual looking boats were once the heroes of the Russian river waterways.
Sadly, these interesting innovations didn't last very long.
While the Raketas were still popular, a whole lot of them were made.
At least 3000 of these vessels were built to patrol the waterways in Russia and Ukraine.
There were different models, but they were all the same basic vehicle.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, production of hydrofoils faltered.
Every last vessel was decommissioned and sent to a ship graveyard somewhere.
And ever since, hydrofoils haven’t really been that popular.
The only places we know of them still being in service are Vietnam, Canada, Thailand,
and one in China.
The Russian hydrofoil river rockets are abandoned, some left to rust in the forests, and others
in places like the Ratmir Base.
7: The Boirault Machine The Boirault machine was a piece of experimental
French technology designed back in 1914.
It was supposed to be a type of landship, kind of like a tank before tanks ever took
off.
It had a single overhead track, and its skeleton was enormous.
They were designed as something to overcome trench warfare.
The idea was to create an armored vehicle that could move across the country while being
protected from enemy fire.
It was also supposed to move easily across irregular terrain, straight across barbed
wire barriers, and over trenches dug in the earth.
The first attempt at an impenetrable machine came in 1915, using designs by Louis Boirault.
It was a relative success.
The machine had massive tracks inside a metallic frame and could easily get over most difficulties
in battle.
But it was way too slow and too fragile, and too difficult to maneuver.
The machine was abandoned and replaced by modern tanks shortly after.
6: The International Space Station One of the greatest pieces of technology ever
developed is about to be abandoned.
I'm talking about the International Space Station.
NASA recently shared their plan to abandon the space station forever.
But they're not just going to leave it in orbit as a giant piece of space garbage.
They're actually planning to let it drop out of orbit and crash into the ocean.
The International Space Station launched way back in 2000, 22 years ago.
It's a huge piece of equipment 356 feet (108 meters) from one end to the other.
In January of 2031, all scientific endeavors on the station will come to an end and it
will be decommissioned completely.
NASA plans on crashing it into the waters of Point Nemo, an uninhabited area in the
Pacific Ocean.
Point Nemo is where space objects go to die.
There are an estimated 250 to 300 spacecraft currently buried underwater here, mostly satellites.
The International Space Station will be the greatest human achievement to settle to the
bottom of the space graveyard.
How do you feel about the International Space Station being abandoned after all these years
of service?
Let me know your thoughts on this great technological marvel crashing into the ocean and don't forget
to hit subscribe before the end of the video!
5: Cosmic Ray Experiment An instrument designed as part of a cosmic-ray
experiment was turned off abruptly and abandoned in 2019.
It happened because of a disagreement between NASA and a small host of universities - primarily
the University of Maryland, who led the experiment .
The piece of technology is called the Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass apparatus, and it
was used to measure high-energy cosmic rays.
It was installed on the International Space Station in 2017.
But when NASA demanded new management, researchers with Pennsylvania State University, Northern
Kentucky University, and Kyungpook National University became upset.
They rejected NASA's demands and the piece of equipment was turned off.
It cost somewhere around $32.4 million, with a budget of $1.2 million a year for operation.
It lasted just two years studying cosmic rays before being shut off and abandoned because
of an argument.
As of right now, there are no plans to reactivate it.
In fact, there is a high probability that the equipment will ultimately be incinerated
if an agreement can’t be reached.
It’s just sitting in space, useless, not collecting any data.
Talk about a waste of science – and money!
4: The Vespa 150 TAP The Vespa 150 TAP was a bazooka moped used
by paratroopers.
In the 1950s, this bizarre piece of technology was part of a military strategy best described
as “scoot and shoot.”
It was a tiny military scooter used by French paratroopers who wanted a modern version of
a pack mule that could be thrown out of a cargo plane deep in enemy territory.
Perhaps the weirdest part is that the Vespa really worked.
It was small, light, and could be thrown into battle attached to a parachute.
It was based on an Italian motor scooter and saw about 600 being produced between 1956
and 1959.
It had a more robust frame than your usual Vespa.
It had racks for storing gear, it used a single-cylinder, two-stroke motor, and it reached speeds of
40 miles per hour (64 kph).
It also had a war machine equipped for blowing apart bad guys.
This was an M20 75mm rifle, which fired 22-pound projectiles at 1000 feet (304 m) per second.
This Vespa was one weird invention that really worked.
They were used by the French in Algeria to destroy enemy fortifications.
But as warfare progressed, there didn't prove much of a need for parachute Vespas and the
idea was ultimately abandoned.
You can now find these unusual mopeds in museums all over the world.
3: TA-4K Skyhawk In 1986, the Royal New Zealand Air Force initiated
Project Kahu.
It was to improve the capabilities of their A-4K fleet of fighter aircrafts.
All 22 of their Skyhawk fleet were upgraded except for one that got lost in 1989 before
it had the chance.
They were given armament upgrades, new vertical stabilizers, and the ability to fire laser-guided
bombs.
The project was completed in 1991 at a cost of around $140 million.
New Zealand managed to turn these old fighter aircrafts into modern death machines like
the F-16 Fighting Falcons.
However, they saw absolutely no action.
The Skyhawks were removed from service in 2001 and put in storage.
The government managed to sell eight of them in 2012, and just kind of scrapped the rest
and handed them over to museums in New Zealand and Australia.
Imagine spending all of that money to upgrade aircraft just to remove them from service
without any effective usage!
What do you think of military spending like this?
2: The Hughes H-4 Hercules The Hughes H-4 Hercules was a prototype vehicle
designed by the Hughes Aircraft Company during World War Two.
The vehicle was designed to be a strategic airlift flying boat, capable of transatlantic
flight transport.
In other words, it was a seaplane that could fly across the Atlantic Ocean and bring troops
from America to the battlefront in Europe.
However, this technology wasn't completed in time to help with the war effort.
The aircraft only made a single flight in November of 1947.
Only one prototype was built fully functional, and it only flew that one time.
Once the war was over, with just one H-4 Hercules ever built, the technology was abandoned.
And yet to this day, the H-4 Hercules is the biggest and most ambitious flying boat ever
designed and put together.
It had the biggest wingspan of any aircraft that made it skyward until 2019 when the Scaled
Composites Stratolaunch came along.
You can find this giant flying boat stationed today at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum
in Oregon.
Chances are, it’s never going to fly again.
1: The Ribauldequin The Ribauldequin is known under a few different
names, such as the organ gun or the infernal machine.
It was one of the very first attempts at an artillery gun that could shoot rapidly.
The shockingly advanced piece of tech first came around in the 14th century.
It was made up of many small cannons laid on a flat platform that were designed to be
fired one after the other.
There was a match connecting the touch hole of each barrel, allowing for instantaneous
firing of every last barrel.
They were called organ guns because they resembled pipe organs, like the ones often seen in old
churches.
The first model was used in 1339 and had 12 barrels attached to it.
It made its field debut during the Hundred Years War between England and France.
Technically, this technology wasn't really abandoned.
It's just that the original became outdated as other versions were tested out.
The Italians used one with more barrels in the War of the Roses.
A heavier version was used in Moldavia in 1475.
And there was even one used on a horse-drawn wagon that had three sets of guns to decimate
infantry and armored cavalry.
Which of these abandoned technologies would you love to bring back to life and try out?
Let me know in the comments and thanks for watching!
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See you again soon, bye!