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In October 1957, one of the worst nuclear incidents in history occurred at the Windscale reactor in the United Kingdom. The Windscale Fire remains the fourth largest nuclear incident in history, with only the incidents at the Fukushima and Chernobyl reactors and the Soviet Mayak military reprocessing facility being worse. Windscale was similar to the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge and the B Reactor at Hanford, but with one crucial difference. At the insistence of Sir John Cockcroft, the reactor had been equipped with filters to capture the smoke from any fire at the facility. While they were called Cockcroft's Follies at the time because of their expense, during the Windscale Fire they helped prevent an even larger incident by capturing over 99% of the materials release.

If Cockcroft's Follies had not been built, or if one of the Manhattan Project reactors at Hanford or Oak Ridge had suffered a fire, what kind of impact might there have been on the British and/or Manhattan Project nuclear programs? Might the Western nuclear programs have moved ahead with an increased focus on safety and have otherwise moved ahead with civilian nuclear power?
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