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There was one standout star of Chernobyl‘s depressing fourth episode, and it wasn’t any of the human characters. It was an adorable little robot by the name of Joker. In the latest episode of The Chernobyl Podcast, series creator Craig Mazin and podcast host Peter Sagal broke down the real-life story of the lunar and police robots that were used to clean up radioactive waste after the disaster.
After the Chernobyl 4 reactor exploded, it left a large amount of debris on the surrounding roofs. This included huge chunks of radioactive graphite. Officials realized that they could throw the graphite back into the reactor to build a sort of Sarcophagus over the reactor, encasing the radiation. But there was just one problem. It wasn’t safe for any human to go onto the highly radioactive roof.
“Exposure to radiation is cumulative, and it doesn’t go away,” Mazin explained on the podcast. “That place would … kill you in a minute and a half.”
The real solution the Soviet Union came up with was to use Russian lunar landers, called Lunokhod, and a borrowed police robot. Joker was one of the latter robots. It was originally from West Germany, and just like “The Happiness of All Mankind” shows, it was sent to the rooftop to remove the rubble. Two men even risked their lives moving graphite to make sure Joker could move freely on the roof. And yet the robot supposedly designed for these types of missions almost immediately died of radiation exposure.
“The Soviets — and this is mind-blowing to me — they refused to tell anyone how bad the situation was. Even then, months later, after the world knew about Chernobyl and knew what it meant they were still soft-pedaling just how bad it was to the point where they refused to tell the West Germans how much radiation was on that roof,” Mazin said. “It was 600 percent or 700 percent more than it could handle. And what blows my mind is the Soviet power system thought that was OK. Why not? Let’s just see. It’s the same kind of attitude that leads to Chernobyl in the first place.”
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Most of the robots used seen in Episode 4 are CGI. However, the crew actually built a version of Joker for this episode. As for the real Joker, it’s still around. There are pictures of the robot online and it can be found in a garbage heap in the radiation zone. It’s still very dangerous and very radioactive.
The other depressing addition to this subplot was also true. After Joker and its peers largely failed, the Soviet Union did send up groups of soldiers to remove the debris. They were referred to as “biorobots,” and as seen in the episode they could only be exposed to the radiation for 90 seconds at a time. Any longer than that and they would risk death. As Mazin reveals, roughly 3,000 men completed this mission, all donned in homemade armor. Naturally the Soviet Union refused to properly equip these men who were risking their lives.
As is always the case with this show, Chernobyl may seem grim, but the reality was worse. So, so much worse.
You can download new episodes of The Chernobyl Podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
New episodes of Chernobyl premiere on HBO Mondays at 9/8c p.m. ET.
