In August 1957, during a nuclear test known as Pascal-B, part of the larger Operation Plumbbob at the Nevada Test Site, a 900-kilogram steel plate was launched at an astonishing speed—far exceeding any object previously propelled from Earth. The test aimed to study how to contain radioactive fallout from underground nuclear explosions. A 150-meter-deep shaft was constructed with rigid walls and a narrow diameter, similar to the barrel of a gun. At the bottom of the shaft was a nuclear bomb, and at the top was the steel plate, which was welded in place. When the bomb detonated, the force propelled the plate upward at an estimated speed of 66 kilometers per second—six times the speed needed to escape Earth's gravity. The test was led by physicist Robert Brownlee of the Los Alamos Laboratory, who was researching ways to contain underground nuclear explosions. For Pascal-B, the team aimed to go beyond previous tests, detonating a bomb with an estimated yield of 300 tons of TNT. Brownlee set up an ultra-fast camera at the top of the shaft to capture the steel plate's movement. However, the plate was gone from the camera's view almost instantly—so fast that it appeared only as a blur in a single frame, indicating it had already exited the field of view. Based on Brownlee's calculations, the steel plate reached a speed of about 67.2 kilometers per second. However, its exact fate remains unknown. Some believe it was vaporized by the intense heat generated from friction with the atmosphere, while others think it may have escaped into space. Brownlee himself never confirmed the idea that the plate became the first human-made object in space, stating he was not a direct witness and never affirmed the plate had reached space. If the steel plate had survived its journey through the atmosphere, it would have entered space weeks before the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1. However, no official confirmation of this has ever been made. The test’s purely vertical trajectory made it impossible for the plate to achieve orbit. Today, the steel plate is likely still somewhere above the Nevada desert, a relic of a failed containment experiment that, by accident, produced the fastest object ever launched by human hands.