MythBusters (2014 season)

For further testing, Adam and Jamie set up two platforms 30 feet (9.1 m) apart. Jamie was concerned that using only a belt to support his weight could lead to serious injury, so he did a short test swing only a few feet above the ground while carrying a Leia dummy. He was able to complete the swing but suffered considerable pain; as a result, he declared the second part of the myth plausible but likely to injure a person badly.

For the third part, Jamie donned a safety harness and performed the swing first by himself, then carrying the dummy. After both of these attempts succeeded, he made one last swing carrying actress Sophia Bush, as a stand-in for Leia, and was able to cross the gap safely. He and Adam declared the overall myth plausible.

From studying the movie scene, they determined that the logs were pulled back 45 degrees and released to hit the AT-ST at a height of 20 feet (6.1 m). The team placed a passenger van at this height and began to pull the logs back, but the structure began to buckle well before they reached 45 degrees. When the logs were released, the impact damaged both sides of the van considerably, prompting the team to try a full-scale test on an armored truck.

In order to be able to reach a larger swing angle, they reinforced the structure and lowered the logs to just above ground level. This time, the logs punched the truck’s side panels off the frame, leading the team to declare the myth plausible. However, they noted that the chances of such a trap succeeding were very small, since the logs would have to be placed at just the right height to hit the AT-ST. For a final test, they put a Stormtrooper dummy in the driver’s seat and repeated the swing; the dummy was smashed to pieces.

A food refrigeration facility was chosen to simulate the cold climate on Hoth, and Adam and Jamie built an insulated chamber inside that could be loaded with dry ice to achieve a temperature of -40°C. Both Thermo Boy and the organs were warmed to 99 °F (37 °C) and loaded into the Tauntaun, which was then moved into the chamber; once Thermo Boy had cooled to 95 °F (35 °C), Adam and Jamie started to monitor his temperature. They reasoned that Han might need 2.5 hours to build an emergency shelter for himself and Luke, and that Luke would die of hypothermia if his temperature fell to 82 °F (28 °C) within that time. At the end of the test, Thermo Boy had only cooled to 92 °F (33 °C), and Adam and Jamie deemed the myth plausible, speculating that the reason for this might be the strong ability of water (which composes the majority of most mammals) to absorb and retain heat.

They built a shack, placed Adam’s still inside, and plugged the condenser outlet to simulate a clog in the tubing that would allow pressure to build up. The still was loaded with pure ethanol and heated; there was no explosion after 30 minutes, but Adam and Jamie observed large quantities of smoke and flames coming from the shed. They found that the still had been destroyed by fire, and Adam theorized that gradual failure of the material and welds would have let the ethanol vapor escape slowly enough to burn rather than explode.

In the workshop, they boiled a pan of ethanol inside a model shack and experimented with methods for igniting the vapor. An open flame, created by sparking a rag tucked between electrodes, caused an explosion that blew out one of the model’s walls. For a second full-scale test, Jamie’s still was set up in a new shack, heated, and allowed to vent its vapor until a flammable concentration had been reached. When they sparked the rag, representing a cigarette being lit by an unsuspecting moonshiner, it triggered an explosion that blew the shack apart. Adam and Jamie declared the myth confirmed.

The team used the 2010s car for the performance testing to determine whether moonshine was as effective as gasoline. They chose three different moonshine proofs (151, 170, 192) and planned to do three trials on each proof, calculating the average time to go from 0 to 60-mile-per-hour (97 km/h). The car would not start on 151 proof, reached an average of 19.4 seconds at 170, and achieved 9 seconds at 192. At Petaluma Speedway, Tory drove 3 laps in this car, clocking times of 2:26 (gasoline) and 2:24 (moonshine). He noted that even though the acceleration was slower on moonshine than gas, the effect gave him better traction on the dirt surface of the track.

For the longevity test, they chose to use Thunderhill Raceway Park for the many twists and turns on its track. Grant, in a moonshine-fueled car, drove past Kari and Tory, who were standing by a parked gasoline car; they then jumped in and began chasing him. He was able to stay ahead of them through 3 laps, totaling almost 10-mile (16 km), and the team declared the myth confirmed. However, Kari commented that standard passenger car engines are not designed to run on high-purity ethanol, and that it gives poor gas mileage.

The plate glass shattered into shards that inflicted a small number of slash wounds on one analog, while the other one was not injured. The laminated glass broke into several large sheets and did not inflict any injuries; the tempered glass broke into many small fragments that caused multiple injuries to both analogs. Since the workers were at high risk of being wounded by the flying glass, Adam and Jamie classified the myth as busted.

To achieve an actual flip, they fitted an SUV with a high-pressure nitrogen cannon set to fire upward, as well as several jugs of gasoline rigged to explode. The two effects were synchronized to the impact of a dummy RPG against the front end. The cannon failed to fire on their first attempt but worked on the second, causing the SUV to flip partway backward and then drop back onto all four wheels.

Declaring the myth busted, they decided to modify the Beast so that it could successfully plow through the traffic. They fabricated an attachment similar to a locomotive cowcatcher, in the hope that it would throw the cars aside and out of the Beast’s way. For this test, they set up 16 cars instead of 10 and lubricated the attachment’s surface with lard; driving at 40 miles per hour (64 km/h), they were able to push all the cars far to each side and continue rolling forward.

Kari repeated the experiment, using a concentrated laboratory-grade peroxide solution and potassium iodide instead of yeast. This test generated a large volume of hot foam and steam, and was deemed unsafe for the home. In a final test, dubbed “Monster Toothpaste,” the Build Team scaled up the recipe by a factor of 200. When the chemicals were mixed, they generated a massive eruption of foam.

A 2 liter bottle bulged out greatly before exploding and gave a maximum of 7 pounds per square inch (48 kPa);, enough to cause permanent hearing damage. When Adam and Jamie repeated the test with the bottle held in a set of rubber/bone forearms made by Jamie, the blast inflicted several lacerations, fractures, and wounds from embedded shrapnel.