From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: Anyone ever visit the 'TRINITY SITE' in NM where 1st test 
	occurred?
Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2004 03:00:53 -0500
Message-ID: <fbrcvv4h4o7sr5iblmi03mfpm5biak2l9b@4ax.com>

On 03 Jan 2004 03:29:12 GMT, mtsoft6224@aol.comeondown (Mark-in-OR) wrote:

>>I have better places to go and see, besides, it's still radio active
>>enough that I don't care to go there ever, just like Oak Ridge, TN
>>
>>Tom J
>>Ducking ;-)
>
>Whilst there's really not much to see at Trinity.. a concrete slab, some
>rusting steel, and glassy sand, Oak Ridge is fascinating.  There's a great
>museum and the original carbon pile reactor is open for visits.
>
>Mark

Trinity site is really only meaningful if you're a nuclear engineer, physicist
or nukophile.  To us, it's like that big black stone in Mecca the moslems hike
from all over to see.  The beginning of it all.  The nuclear alpha.  To
everyone else it's just some desert with some rubble sticking up out of the
sand.

The most fascinating part is the Trinitite, the green fused sand where the
fireball touched the desert floor.  Here's a photo of some from my collection:

Next to it is a krytron tube, a high speed switch used in the detonator
circuits of early bombs.  This is the device people with long memories will
recall that Israeli agents got popped trying to smuggle out of the US in,
what?, the early 70s or something like that.  This one was used in detonator
design work at Los Alamos, probably in the late 40s.

Unlike the wild claims such as made at this site,
http://goamericanwest.com/newmexico/trinity.shtml, Trinitite is NOT very
radioactive.  Most all the fission and activation products have long since
decayed.  There is probably as much natural thorium in the sand as there is
fission byproducts.  While barely detectable on a thin window GM counter, it
is probably 10X less radioactive than ordinary potassium chloride salt
substitute.

Unfortunately both the Atomic Energy Museum and the Graphite Reactor have been
effectively destroyed by relatively recent government action.  The Georgia
White Trash (Carter) started the destruction of the Energy Museum, by having
his energy department remove most of the very interesting nuclear exhibits,
particularly the ones involving actual radioactive materials.  Reagan's
administration gave it benign neglect.  The active destruction commenced again
with the Arkansas White Trash (Klinton).  During his admin, almost all the
nuclear exhibits were removed.  About all that remained when I visited 2 years
ago was a cell from the Calutron and a few photos.  The rest of the museum is
now an enviro-whacko shrine.  Funny, Klinton did the same thing to the
Warner-Robbinson AF museum in Georgia.

If you're interested in reading propaganda and outright lies about how solar,
wind, biomass and other "alternative" (read: nonexistent) energy sources will
save the world, then by all means go.  Otherwise it's a wasted trip.

The Graphite Reactor is suffering an even worse fate.  It's being demolished.
When I was there 2 years ago, most of the building had been taken over for
bureaucrat office space.  Only the face of the reactor and some of the control
room (highly vandalized) remain intact and open.  The ability to climb up and
around the reactor has been removed.  The area is now locked.

DOE announced within the last year that they plan on destroying the reactor
for "safety" reasons, leaving only the face intact.  They claim the reactor is
still "dangerously radioactive".  Neither their numbers nor my measurements
bear that out.

I took a handheld meter with me on my last visit, just because I was curious.
No activity at all detected at the face of the reactor.  None in the handling
room.  Yanking a shield plug and thrusting the instrument in yielded only the
slightest activity.  This is exactly what I expected, since the graphite was
extraordinarily pure (nothing to neutron activate) and since the thing was
shut down about 50 years ago.

There is a significant segment of government and academia that want to deny
our nuclear past, to apologize for our having developed and used the bomb and
to deny the nearly 60 years of peace it brought.  They think that an
ingredient in this process is wiping the face of the earth of anything
nuclear.

This is happening all over.  All the other historically significant facilities
around the Graphite Reactor such as the first fast flux reactor, are long
gone.  Rocky Flats, Hanford and other major sites are being leveled.  Even at
the Wright Patterson AF museum I found the nuclear stuff discarded and
neglected when I visited last year.  The Fatman casing was sitting off in a
construction area covered with dirt.  The more modern bombs (training models)
were off in an unlit corner of a hanger.  I found them only by accident.  Only
Bockscar is on prominent display.  Even the BUFF on display only mentions the
SAC's role in a by-the-way manner.  Most attention is given to the
mis-application of the BUFF in Viet-Nam, ignoring the nearly 50 years of
non-stop, around the clock nuclear patrolling by SAC.

As someone who played a small part in that segment of our country's history,
it really pisses me to see how it's being treated.



I'm OK now.  I'm off my soapbox.....

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: Anyone ever visit the 'TRINITY SITE' in NM where 1st test 
	occurred?
Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2004 18:30:41 -0500
Message-ID: <1jjevvccq3ohielqi0bo59v84288mdmuue@4ax.com>

On 03 Jan 2004 09:08:23 GMT, mtsoft6224@aol.comeondown (Mark-in-OR) wrote:


>>Unfortunately both the Atomic Energy Museum and the Graphite Reactor
>>have been effectively destroyed by relatively recent government action
>
>Ah crap... I visited there in the late 80's and it was fascinating.  The guard
>shacks on the highway, etc.   Pity.  It had a lot of good info on the town and
>the brains who did the research.

The shells of the guard shacks are still there.  You can even see 'em when the
kudzoo dies in the winter.

>>The Graphite Reactor is suffering an even worse fate.  It's being demolished.
>
>This even more of a shame that paranoia is wiping it out.  It was fascinating
>to walk around on the overhead catwalk and even just to get a sense of the
>implications of the project.

Yes indeed.  I am in awe bordering on worship of the great men of physics and
chemistry that made the bomb happen.  To imagine what they did as fast as they
did it without the benefit of even electronic calculators.  I can't imagine.

One little minor event illustrates this.  When they touched off the big one at
Trinity Site, Fermi stepped out of the bunker and when he calculated the shock
wave would arrive, dropped some scraps of paper.  he measured how far sideways
the wave blew the paper.  Using his slide rule and no paper, he mentally
calculated the yield of the device to better than 15%.  It took several weeks
of data analysis to determine this from the instruments.

>>Even at the Wright Patterson AF museum I found the nuclear stuff
>>discarded and neglected when I visited last year.  The Fatman casing was
>>sitting off in a construction area covered with dirt.  The more modern
>>bombs (trainiing models) were off in an unlit corner of a hanger.  I
>>found them only by accident. Only Bockscar is on prominent display.
>>Even the BUFF on display only mentions the SAC's role in a by-the-way
>>manner.  Most attention is given to the mis-application of the BUFF in
>>Viet-Nam, ignoring the nearly 50 years of non-stop, around the clock
>>nuclear patrolling by SAC.
>
>Well the Vietnam stuff is what draws the crowds. Early on, they had a great WWI
>and WWII collection with some decent Korean stuff.  IIRC, the Korean stuff was
>disappearing last time I was there (maybe 15 years ago..). Even the WWI and
>WWII stuff was being "re-packaged" into smaller areas while the space stuff was
>expanding.

Don't misunderstand, I'm very happy that Viet Nam is finally getting its due
with the proper recognition.  What I'm angry about is that nuclear related
things like the BUFF's SAC role has been minimized.

BTW, you ought to visit again.  They opened a new hangar last year that more
than doubles the space.  A third hangar should be open by now.

>Did/do they still have the XB-70 and B-58 Hustler?  Those are kinda' undeniably
>nuke since that was what they were designed for.

Yep, they're still there.  Unfortunately, outside where the elements are
getting to them.

>
>I was raised just down the road from the AFMuseum.  (It's current location).
>Fondly remember the old place in Fairborn and then the moving of all the
>aircraft to the new site.

I have a good friend who lives in Arcanum.  I drop in on the museum every year
or so to see what's new.  That and a day at Mendelson's makes a trip to Ohio
worth it :-)

John