I currently live about 200 miles from where the tests took place, I've been there twice. They used to do free public tours twice a year, I think they're down to one: it has to be organized as the site is within the White Sands Missile Range. My aunt was working as a telephone switchboard operator in a town called Silver City when the detonation happened: it shook up the town and broke windows. The cover story was that a munitions train had blown up.
Yeah, sure, first atomic weapon, but it's going to be nothing compared to the explosion from certain groups when they find out the name of the actor playing the 13th Doctor has been officially announced: Jodie Whittaker.
It's DOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM! for white males, I tell you. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!
http://www.capitalcentury.com/1944.html has my grandfather describing the test 53 years later. I've always wondered how different it was to see that without all the weight of meaning that attaches to the mushroom clouds now, but it wasn't really something I could have asked him.
Now, the uranium bomb, they were so sure that one would work that they didn't even bother to test it ...
(it was easier to make U238 into plutonium than to extract U235 from uranium ore, but a lot harder to make the plutonium explode, so that one had to be tested)
If you can make plans, the tours were the first Saturday of April and October, and they start at like 7am leaving Alamogordo. It's around a 3-4 hour drive to the site in a convoy escorted by military police. It's all free, but you pass through a checkpoint entering the base, so everyone in the car has to produce ID and registration (and maybe insurance). But if you Google for Trinity Site Tour and look for a page for White Sands Missile Range, you can get full info. And if you manage to attend, I can point you to the safe and best places to eat in Alamogordo, or more specifically, a few places to avoid: my wife is an astronomer and a visiting crew ate at one particular place and two of them came down with food poisoning.
There's also some very pretty hikes in the area. I have lots of photos in the area at my photography web site, WayneWestPhotography.com.
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james_davis_nicoll) wrote2017-07-16 10:50 am
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It's DOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM! for white males, I tell you. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!
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(it was easier to make U238 into plutonium than to extract U235 from uranium ore, but a lot harder to make the plutonium explode, so that one had to be tested)
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If you can make plans, the tours were the first Saturday of April and October, and they start at like 7am leaving Alamogordo. It's around a 3-4 hour drive to the site in a convoy escorted by military police. It's all free, but you pass through a checkpoint entering the base, so everyone in the car has to produce ID and registration (and maybe insurance). But if you Google for Trinity Site Tour and look for a page for White Sands Missile Range, you can get full info. And if you manage to attend, I can point you to the safe and best places to eat in Alamogordo, or more specifically, a few places to avoid: my wife is an astronomer and a visiting crew ate at one particular place and two of them came down with food poisoning. There's also some very pretty hikes in the area. I have lots of photos in the area at my photography web site, WayneWestPhotography.com.