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U.S. Offers Glimpse at Manhattan Project Facility

Posted by samzenpus on from the see-and-feel-the-radiation dept.

jonerik writes "According to this article from the Associated Press, the US government is this week permitting the public a rare glimpse of its high-security Y-12 nuclear weapons plant as part of Oak Ridge, Tennessee's annual Secret City Festival, which is being held this coming weekend. Although the plant is still associated with ongoing nuclear weapons work, members of the public will be permitted to see parts of the facility associated with its work on the Manhattan Project's 'Little Boy' bomb, which was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945. The facility produced the uranium-235 which was used in the device using 1,152 massive calutrons across nine separate buildings in 1944 and 1945. 'Don't you know the people in Knoxville wondered what in the world was going on out here,' Department of Energy guide Ray Smith said on Monday. 'All this material was coming in, truckload after truckload, and nothing ever left.'"

2 of 488 comments (clear)

  1. good idea? by rich42 · · Score: 0, Redundant
    "Although the plant is still associated with ongoing nuclear weapons work, members of the public will be permitted to see parts of the facility..."

    Is this really a good idea? I'm just imagining local Al Qaeda operatives on the tour...

    "so again, to separate out the U235, the electromagnetic coils need approximately a 45KVA power supply - correct?"

    "Could you tell me roughly how many camels on treadmills that works out to?"

  2. Re:This sounds dumb...but by caudron · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Japan had a bunch of religious nutcases in control and the bombs shocked everyone back to reality.

    Correction. The first bomb shocked them back into reality. The second was because we wanted to use our cool new toys.

    I'm not naive enough to think the bomb wasn't a necessity, but dropping two on them was overkill, pure and simple.

    I'll leave the final note to Reinhold Niebuhr:

    "Our dreams of a pure virtue are dissolved in a situation in which it is possible to exercise the virtue of responsibility toward a community of nations only by courting the prospective guilt of the atomic bomb."

    Sad, really.

    --
    -Tom