Thousands Visit Trinity Test Site For 70th Anniversary of First Atomic Blast

HughPickens.com writes The NYT reports that thousands of visitors converged Saturday on the Trinity Test Site in New Mexico where the first nuclear bomb was detonated nearly 70 years ago. Many posed for pictures near an obelisk marking the exact location where the bomb went off and were also able to see a steel shell that was created as a backup plan to keep plutonium from spreading during the explosion. "It brought a quick end to World War II, and it ushered in the atomic age," Erin Dorrance said. "So out here in the middle of nowhere New Mexico changed the world 70 years ago." Pete Rosada, a Marine Corps veteran, drove with another military veteran from San Diego to make the tour. Rosada said he previously visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese targets of atomic bombs during World War II after the test at the Trinity Site. "This completes the loop," said Rosado.

Tourists who joined a vehicle caravan out to the site at a school in Tularosa were greeted by demonstrators from the Tularosa Basin Downwinders who came to protest the 70th anniversary tour. The Downwinders is a grass-roots group that has set out to bring public awareness about the negative impacts of the detonation of the bomb. Henry Herrera was 11 years old when he got up to help his father with the car on that fateful July morning in 1945 and says the dust from the blast scattered all over Tularosa, remembering how his mother had to wash clothes twice that day due to the fallout dusting the family's clothes line. "I stop to think I'm one lucky, fortunate guy because I'm here and so many are dead," says Herrera. "Gobs of people from around here died and nobody knew what they died of, they just went to bed and never woke up." Albuquerque resident Gene Glasgow, 69, visited the Trinity Site for the first time with relatives from Arizona. Born and raised in New Mexico, he said he'd grown curious through talking to people who witnessed the explosion, including one man who was laying trap line in the mountains at the time. "He thought the end of the world had come."

Comments

Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how terrorists and third world countries are still today trying to do something we did 70 years ago.

Re:Funny

[50000BTU_barbecue]

Funny how your corporate masters and the politicians they bought are trying to go back how people lived 300 years ago.

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

More like 3000.

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

But 3000 years ago the rich landowners were hunting poor people for sport, just like, oh yeah, George Zimmerman.

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Must suck to be you.

Re:Funny

[ScentCone]

So, 3000 years ago, rick landowners were actually lower middle-class guys getting their heads pounded into the sidewalk? That explains a lot.

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Greeks were building with concrete in 1000 BC. Sure it could have happened back then too.

Re:Funny

[ganjadude]

rich land owner??? zimmerman lived in an apartment.

if that was an attempt at a joke it failed. If It was serious, it was stupid

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? It's typically environmental activists that are trying to get us to go back to the simpler, more agrarian society of 300 years ago. When was the last time you heard corporations arguing for things like composting toilets, fewer showers, plant-based diets, walking places more instead of driving, etc? Corporations have been driving toward a more consumer-oriented society, which is not at all how people lived 300 years ago. Maybe there are some corporations arguing for societal regression, but on balance I think you have it far more wrong than right.

Re:Funny

[spauldo]

He's talking about social conservatives, who want life to return to a non-existent "golden age" when men did what Jesus said if they didn't want to go to hell and women did what they were told if they didn't want to run into another door.

They tend to coincide with a lot of rich industrialists, who believe we should go back to a simpler time when they could shoot union leaders and not have to worry about silly things like safety or disability insurance, or paying actual money to the workers.

Personally, I'd say he probably means 150 years rather than 300. 300 years ago, the north was full of religious extremists and in the south you were either a slave-owning plantation worker or a nobody.

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a poor joke, but let's not defend someone as violent and stupid as George Zimmerman. He's the kind of guy that looks for trouble, and then creates it, as has been shown by his antics since he killed someone. It's clear that he's a terrible person.

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

That wasn't hunting. It wasn't even adjudicated as manslaughter. Lets face it, it was just another day in America. I'm surpised Norman Rockwell didn't do more in this area of Americana. Now, I know there will be some newly decriminalized border jumper that will complain that America is more than the United States and I, I just don't care.
Two minorities converged in a yellow wood and I, I took the path less travelled by. I really don't remember what I was doing when treyvon lost the fight he started. I think I was eaing potato chips.

Re:Funny

[ScentCone]

Hit "antics" since then appear, when it comes to actual friction, to be mostly a result of hanging out with exactly the wrong significant other (who has admitted fabricating things about his actions for attention). He'd have less trouble if he left her, for starters.

But the whole Trayvon Martin thing? Zimmerman didn't look for or cause the long series of neighborhood breakins that had him wondering who that unrecognized guy was out cutting through. He wasn't looking for the guy, he saw him while he was on his way out to run an errand. You remember that part, right? And his call to the police? And his stopping, and turning around to go back to his truck just like the police asked him to do before the doubling-back Martin jumped him, and started beating him? I know it's been a while, but the details are readily available.

Re:Funny

[AK Marc]

Head pounded into a sidewalk after calling in a dangerous/suspicious person, then following that dangerous person and cornering them in a blind alley. Zimmerman was hunting, and bagged himself one of the most dangerous game. A few scrapes come with the territory. He's lucky he had them, or the murder-1 would have stuck. When you kill all the witnesses, nobody seems to care that your story is contradictory (he contradicted the 911 tapes multiple times, among other inconsistencies). And why did he get out of his car to look for a street sign on a different street to tell the 911 operator where to find him after he hung up and help was already on the way? It's not like telling them the name of the wrong street would help anyway. Oh, and the head of the neighborhood watch getting "lost" one block from home on streets he patrols daily doesn't sound very likely. Especially in a gated community with only a few streets in the first place.

Re:Funny

[AK Marc]

He was stalking someone, and the person being stalked by an armed man feared for his life and tried to defend himself. The aggressor was Zimmerman.

Re: Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

FACT-George Zimmerman was not supposed to get out of his vehicle, per the neighborhood watch policy.
FACT- He disobeyed the policy.
FACT- He confronted a person even though he was just a volunteer.
FACT- He got his ass beat in a fist fight.
FACT- Because he was a pussy & never had been in a fist fight, he thought that it was ok to shoot somebody, a kid, because he got his ass whooped. If his life was in danger it was his own fault for trying to confront a citizen when he had absolutely no right to confront him. You act like a bad ass when u r just a volunteer, you are the definition of a PUSSY BITCH george Zimmerman. you will never be anything but a looser pussy that cant fight like a man!!!

Re:Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a fucking idiot. Traytray didn't know zimmerman was armed. I have no doubt his punk pussy ass would have tried to play tough guy fight club if he had.

Re:Funny

[AK Marc]

That's why you make sure to kill the witnesses. Maybe Zimmerman waived it at him trying to scare him off. You can't know he didn't know. Zimmerman hunted and killed him, ensuring he'll never testify against him.

Re:Funny

[ScentCone]

He was stalking someone

Really? Going to the grocery store is "stalking someone?" Please explain. He had never seen him before. Didn't know he existed. Just noticed something out of the ordinary while driving out of the neighborhood. Do you deliberately avert your eyes from everything and everyone around you as you drive near your home so that you won't get confused and think you might be a stalker? You have a really strange concept of "stalking."

In fact, if you want to explore stalking, consider who approached who right before the beating. Martin was walking back to his truck, having lost site of the person he was on the phone with the police about. Martin, who had more than enough time to get to where he was going, stopped, turned around, and walked all the way back to Zimmerman, whom he then attacked. THAT is a lot closer to "stalking," if you're looking for a case of it.

The aggressor was Zimmerman.

Really, what's the point of lying about it? What do you get out of it? What's your agenda? I'm really curious what makes people decide to twist things around like that. Who, in the audience here, do you think is so incredibly stupid that you think spinning that narrative is going to persuade them to ... what?

What IS it you're hoping people will think? That Martin was completely unable to control himself, and couldn't abide the thought of someone having called the cops in a neighborhood that was racking up lots of recent break-ins? He saw Zimmerman talking on the phone to the cops, and you think it's understandable that he would get almost all the way to where he was going (with NO Zimmerman in sight), and then double back to beat Zimmerman's head into the sidewalk?

What magical influence is it that you think Zimmerman had, at a distance with Martin long gone from his line of sight, that remotely controlled Martin, causing him to turn around and follow Zimmerman towards his truck, where he was headed? Was it pheromones? "Aggressive" telepathy? His after-shave? Really, be specific. The two were nowhere near each other when Martin to hurry back towards Zimmerman and dish out a beating.

armed man

What of it? The gun was nowhere in sight. Zimmerman never even reached for it until he was on his back getting beaten. You're saying that Martin somehow used his x-ray vision to see that the guy in the distance on the phone with the police had a small pistol hidden? Or are you trotting out that "armed man" bit as just another bit of trollishness in the service of whatever your agenda is. Again: what is your agenda, that you think it's well served by lying? Who do you think likes and respects that enough that it will somehow make them change their world view towards something you like better? Be specific.

Re:Funny

[ScentCone]

cornering them in a blind alley

There was no blind alley, you're making that up.

And he wasn't "cornered," because he just kept walking towards his relative's house, while Zimmerman was headed the opposite way, back to his truck. So you're making that up, too.

Zimmerman was hunting

Yes, hunting groceries. At the grocery store, where he was headed.

he contradicted the 911 tapes multiple times

You mean, the sort of 911 tapes that NBC edited to change their entire context? Because that seems to be the sort of thing that has established your narrative, here.

And why did he get out of his car to look for a street sign on a different street to tell the 911 operator where to find him after he hung up and help was already on the way?

Because just like you, and me, and everyone else, it occurred to him after he got off the phone, that there might be more information needed.

It's not like telling them the name of the wrong street would help anyway

True. Cops much prefer to be told where to look for possible burglars via as much vague, imprecise blather as possible. They HATE it when you tell them things like which street you saw someone walking on, heading which direction, that sort of thing. Their jobs are much easier if you make it take as long as possible to figure out where someone is.

Oh, and the head of the neighborhood watch getting "lost" one block from home on streets he patrols daily doesn't sound very likely

It's a good thing he wasn't lost, then.

Especially in a gated community with only a few streets in the first place.

Yes, a gated community that had been seeing a rash of break-ins. Which is exactly why the possibility that the unfamiliar person hiding their face and cutting through the neighborhood at night inspires a call to the police, and an urge to give them as much info as possible. Because that gated community was becoming a regular shopping mall for one or more burglars.

Re:Funny

[AK Marc]

There was no blind alley, you're making that up.

The blind alley was the walkway between Twin Trees and Retreat View Circle.

It's a good thing he wasn't lost, then.

So you are saying Zimmerman was lying? He stated he got out of the car after his 911 call to walk down an alley to get to another street to read the street sign because he didn't know where the was.

I'm thinking you don't have any idea what Zimmerman said.

Cops much prefer to be told where to look for possible burglars via as much vague, imprecise blather as possible. They HATE it when you tell them things like which street you saw someone walking on, heading which direction, that sort of thing. Their jobs are much easier if you make it take as long as possible to figure out where someone is.

So they like it when you hang up on them because they tell you to stay in your car, because you really want to go hunt some Nigger? Because that's what Zimmerman did. They told him to stay, and the police would call his cell when they got there. He didn't. He got out and hunted Nigger. Why?

You mean, the sort of 911 tapes that NBC edited to change their entire context? Because that seems to be the sort of thing that has established your narrative, here.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/326700-full-transcript-zimmerman.html

What's wrong with that one there? Changed to make it look different? How? Go on, use a fact. You may have heard of them, even if you've never used one yourself.

Re: Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet the burglaries stopped.
I don't care how a crook gets killed.

Re:Funny

[ScentCone]

The blind alley was the walkway between Twin Trees and Retreat View Circle.

You're making it sound like an actual alley. You know, that you can get stuck in. We're talking about rows of buildings with gaps between them. Like the gap that Martin wandered off through. There was no "cornering," you're truly just fabricating that.

As for reading street signs: I know my way around all sorts of areas, including some spots I've driven and walked through for years. I'd never get "lost" in those areas, but if I wanted to be sure I was getting a street name right (for the police) on a corner where I don't go every day as a resident, I'd double check the street sign too. Don't even pretend that you routinely pass areas where you know you'd never get lost, but where you'd look at a street sign when wanting to be sure you had the right name for a talk with police.

So they like it when you hang up on them because they tell you to stay in your car, because you really want to go hunt some Nigger?

Really, what do you think you're going to accomplish putting words in somebody's mouth? Zimmerman never said that, and you know it. Your ongoing BS is starting to get embarassing. On the other hand, we DO have the witness who reported Martin making a racial slur. That's probably what's got you confused, right? Sort of like you're confused about his being told to stay in his car. The dispatcher told him no such thing, which you know. You're once again just making things up because you wish it were true.

They told him to stay, and the police would call his cell when they got there.

No, they said they didn't "need" him to follow Martin. Shortly afterwards (with Martin having continued to walk away, and gone from Zimmerman's view), Zimmerman was walking back to his truck. The only "hunting" going on at that point was Martin, a few minutes later, deciding to turn around, walk all the way back, and attacking Zimmerman.

I am curious where your race hatred comes from, and your desperate need for Martin not to have been the sort of person that his recent history before his attack, and the assault itself showed him to be. It's unfortunate he was raised that way, and that he was comfortable making the gamble that he could double back from his destination and beat someone's head against the pavement without consequence. But, that was his call. He had no need, at all, not to simply walk the extra few feet to the door he was headed to. But, to quote the witness talking to him, he had "cracker" on his mind, unlike the fantasy you're pitching, which is exactly backwards.

Re:Funny

[will_die]

So being punched to the ground and attacked, then pulling a gun to defend your self and shooting then is hunting?
Have you tried that against a bear in Alaska and seen what happens when you hunt that way?

Re:Funny

[AK Marc]

Zimmerman never said that, and you know it.

So his racist rants caught on previous 911 calls didn't happen?

No, they said they didn't "need" him to follow Martin. Shortly afterwards (with Martin having continued to walk away, and gone from Zimmerman's view), Zimmerman was walking back to his truck.

Nope. He was in his car driving after him when told to not follow. He then got out and followed Martin. It was after he walked into the alley after Martin that the attack happened.

You are lecturing me on the events, and you don't seem to have even the basics right. Your account disagrees with Zimmerman. Why do you think Zimmerman is a liar?

Re:Funny

[AK Marc]

So being punched to the ground and attacked, then pulling a gun to defend your self and shooting then is hunting?

It is when you've expressed a desire to "take care of" (in the mob sense) something, then arm yourself, and track it, that's hunting, isn't it?

Re:Funny

[ScentCone]

So his racist rants caught on previous 911 calls didn't happen?

Oh, I get it now. You're figuring that time travel is playing a role in the event. I didn't realize you were allowing for that possibility in your fictional narrative. While we're at it, I suppose you'd like to include his volunteer time with black kids, including those in his own extended family? And of course since you consider a term he used in the past to be a sign of his obvious criminality, you are of course applying that same standard to Martin, who used a racial slur moments before he attacked Zimmerman, thus demonstrating Martin's much more up to date, on the spot racist ranting, combined with Martin's initiation of violence. Right? Right. Because you aren't a hypocrite. Right.

Re:Funny

[AK Marc]

Intent isn't time travel. He indicated an intent to "teach a lesson" and that Black people should be targeted. Then he did so. That shows intent. Martin didn't intend to be followed home from the store, then attack the armed aggressor following him. But Zimmerman intended to provoke a lethal situation. He said so previously, and carried a gun hoping to have to use it, and acting in a manner to guarantee it.

Re:Funny

[ScentCone]

He indicated an intent to "teach a lesson"

I know you have a real allergy to putting anything at all in any kind of actual context, but he was talking about serial trespassers and burglars, especially in the context of his neighbors being repeatedly robbed. You keep tap-dancing around context, around the very reason that the neighborhood had and kept a watch in the first place. Regardless, the only person who brought up race was the police dispatcher who asked him to describe the possible trespasser, and prompted for race. Unless, of course, you're only listening to the fabricated NBC version of the call, which they re-arranged to make it sound like he brought it up, not the dispatcher.

But Zimmerman intended to provoke a lethal situation.

Sure, in your fantasy world of cartoon villains that match the racist stereotypes you need to establish in order to feel good about yourself. In the real world, he didn't go anywhere near his gun, and was on the way back to his truck before Martin doubled back and attacked him. And he still didn't reach for his gun until he was on his back getting his head bashed into the sidewalk. All of the physical evidence backs that up, as well as witness accounts. Your need for the events to be different in order to maintain your narrative and agenda doesn't change what actually happened. Let me guess, you're also in the "hands up don't shoot" camp, in complete contradiction to what witnesses saw in that event, too.

Re:Funny

[AK Marc]

I know you have a real allergy to putting anything at all in any kind of actual context, but he was talking about serial trespassers and burglars,

He was talking about Black people because everyone knows they are the problem.

You keep tap-dancing around context,

No, I accept the context. You reject it. He was frustrated. He wanted someone to pay. Especially someone Black. That's the context you reject. When will you stop dancing around the context?

And he still didn't reach for his gun until he was on his back getting his head bashed into the sidewalk.

So? He wanted to make sure that the murder-one it was wouldn't stick. So he kept the gun hidden until he was hit by the prey he was stalking. Then he went for it.

Let me guess, you're also in the "hands up don't shoot" camp, in complete contradiction to what witnesses saw in that event, too.

No, I'm in the "why would a cop in fear for his life get out of his car and charge the dangerous person" camp. He was angry he was hit, so he got out of his car to kill himself some Nigger for the Capital Crime of Disrespect of Cop.

Re:Funny

[AK Marc]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04...

I'm sure the video showing a cop shooting a black guy in the back is all a fiction. He was actually charging the cop with a gun in his hand, but the video and witnesses were re-written in a horrible anti-white conspiracy.

Go on, spin that one. If there wasn't a camera, I bet the dead black guy would have ended up with his corpse in prison. The police report shows that the black guy was actively tasing the cop when he was shot, but the biased video shows him unarmed and running away, but shows the cop planting the taser on the dead body. The cop also claimed to have performed CPR, but the video clearly shows him standing over the dead guy, after cuffing the corpse, for good measure.

By your standards, the error was not shooting the guy taking video, and destroying the video, claiming it looked like a gun.

Atomic Blast

[dotslashdot]

Hey, if you're gonna have a blast, make it an atomic blast!

Re:Atomic Blast

[binarylarry]

"I'm so excited my lips and eyeballs are tingling like spiderman!" said one excited attendee.

Re:Atomic Blast

[davester666]

AND YOU GET A WARHEAD! AND YOU GET A WARHEAD! AND YOU GET A WARHEAD! EVERYBODY GETS A WARHEAD!

Yes, today, for my birthday, everybody gets a warhead!!!!!

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Yeah, Heh Heh

[Greyfox]

Hey you guys! Remember back when we spread all that radioactive fallout all over your state? No one gave a shit about a little radioactivity, or asbestos, or rivers catching on fire, or whether you could actually live in the environment. Good times!

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[zlives]

EPA... so overrated.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, yeah. Well, without the bomb we wouldn't have to worry about the environment because, literally, every American man, woman, and child would've been killed trying to invade Japan. It was the only other possible outcome to World War II.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey you guys! Remember back when we spread all that radioactive fallout all over your state? No one gave a shit about a little radioactivity, or asbestos, or rivers catching on fire, or whether you could actually live in the environment. Good times!

In '45, the effects of radiation over long periods of time at low dosages (the structure of DNA wasn't identified until '53, for example) or even how the fallout phenomenon itself worked were not well understood. So it's not exactly an example of wanton irresponsibility that you paint it to be.

But, hey, don't let a little thing like logic disrupt your rant.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[TWX]

We probably would have just spent considerable resources carpetbombing and firing battleship guns at them, long before setting foot on any of the main Japanese islands. Remember, by this point in the war the United States had figured out how to use radio for shell detonators; they were being used in antiaircraft weapons predominately but were used as antipersonnel shells too. They would detect an object and explode on detection. For antiaircraft use that was the aircraft itself, and for antipersonnel use it was the ground or the building it was fired at. I'm guessing that if the atomic bombs hadn't been developed or if their development had stalled further, new bombs and new shells designed to set fire to the predominately wooden structures that most Japanese people lived in would have replaced many of the high-explosive bombs used for military targets. Burn down the neighborhoods. Burn down the government buildings. Burn down the factories. Use the conventional bombs on the hardened military targets.

If such a scenario had played-out and the Japanese government had not surrendered and instead chosen to right for every inch of territory, then I do expect that all of those purple hearts would have been needed, and it would have been a lot bloodier for both sides, but arguably far worse for the Japanese than for the Americans and allies.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[vic-traill]

> literally, every American man, woman, and child would've been killed trying to invade
> Japan

I think you might want to look up 'literally'.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

No but I do remember the time people got overly worried and paranoid about radiation.. oh wait that's still happening.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[jd142]

That may be the point. The fact that they didn't know what the long term consequences would be, or didn't care, but still went ahead with it anyway was irresponsible. They knew that radioactivity was lethal. I think that may have been the point of using it in a bomb.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

OK. While I'm doing that, look up "sarcasm".

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[AmiMoJo]

Or they could just have detonated the bombs in uninhabited or sparely populated areas, such as one of the many islands off the Japanese coast, and then threatened to use them against the mainland. Or just waited a bit longer for the Japanese to give up because the people were literally starving and it was clear to many at the top of the government that the war was already lost.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

De-classified Estimates were 500K casualties for the initial lands with another 1 - 1.5 million for the entire campaign... on the U.S. side alone.. estimate were many time higher for civilians caught in the crossfire. As terrible as those bombs seems, They saved a great many lives on both sides.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[AmiMoJo]

They thought that the development of atomic weapons was inevitable (they knew that Germany and Japan were trying, but failing) and wanted the US to be the first to have them, rather than the first victim of them. They were also desperate to determine the effects on humans and cities so that they could plan a defence or at least understand what an atomic war would be like, hence the tests on the Japanese.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Penguinisto]

We probably would have just spent considerable resources carpetbombing and firing battleship guns at them, long before setting foot on any of the main Japanese islands.

Well, that or put a lot less aircraft and ships at risk by carpet-bombing Japan with atomic weapons. Mind you, we only had 3-4 total, and spent one on testing and two on targets... but the Tojo government didn't know that. All that hot air about how everyone would fight to the last man, woman, and child withered very quickly once the full horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki came to light... and they realized that each happened from just one bomb, dropped by just one airplane. Morale pretty much evaporated at that point, to where (IIRC) the Emperor stepped in (via intermediates) and told them to surrender once and for all.

It's one thing to die fighting your enemy head-on for honor, glory, etc. - such a thought has driven many doomed men to fight like tigers, in spite of all the certainty of death. It's another thing entirely to be exterminated without a second thought, by an enemy using weapons that you could not hope to hide from, let alone fight back against.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[ScentCone]

Sure, that would have made sense if the actual facts were substantially different than they actually were. Which they weren't.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[johnjaydk]

For some insane reason, I've been binge reading books related to the Manhattan project. The takeaway is that much of the time they were flying blind or wearing blinders due to the extreme time pressure.

Sometimes they were plain reckless. The criticality experiments is a good case; adjusting the distance between two semi-critical cores with a screwdriver jammed in between. Great fun until the screwdriver slipped and the core went critical. Didn't go boom but killed a guy. For good measure they repeated the experiment and killed another guy.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

They knew that radioactivity was lethal. I think that may have been the point of using it in a bomb.

You think wrong, buddy boy. The point was the whole E=mc^2 business that meant one single measly bomb gave off a really gigantic boom. The residual radiation was completely incidental, at least at the time.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[slew]

We probably would have just spent considerable resources carpetbombing and firing battleship guns at them, long before setting foot on any of the main Japanese islands.

Probably should review your history. The short story, the US dropped the bomb to win the peace, not the war...

By the time the US dropped the bombs, they had *already* spent considerably resources firebombing Tokyo (including "Operation Meetinghouse" in March which was bigger than Dresden) to the point that most military commanders thought that there were no more high-value targets left in the city target (and other cities were then targeted). This was long before the nuclear bombs which were detonated in August...

I think many professional historians have become to realize that it was actually unnecessary to actually drop the bomb to conclude the war (it could have ended in a war of attrition as Japanese industrial war output had estimated to have dropped 90% from January to June of 1945), but the capitulation of the military was unlikely before the Russians would have become engaged in the Pacific War. The bomb was essentially dropped to hasten the end of the war to end the Pacific Theater War on the US terms (rather than risk a negotiated eastern block situation that occurred in Europe in the aftermath of the war).

Historical documents indicate that Prince Konoye was already favoring ending the war in February due the on-going strategic bombing campaigns which were devastating the country and the Emperor was favoring ending the war after the "Meetinghouse" firebombings in March, but the military rejected US requests for unconditional surrender until after the A-bombs were dropped in August. FWIW, Russia declared war on August 8th and invaded Manchuria on August 9th (3 months after the war in europe concluded as agreed to by Stalin in Yalta and coincidentally the same day the 2nd bomb was dropped).

Re: Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

The children and toddlers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would like to express their gratitude for the opportunity to save the lifes of American soldiers by being turned into dust.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Hognoxious]

Or they could just have detonated the bombs in uninhabited or sparely populated areas

They dropped one on an actual city, and that wasn't a strong enough hint so they had to drop another one on another city.

This makes me suspect that if they'd put one across the bows the response would have been along the lines of "Ha! Missed, aah-sole!"

and then threatened to use them against the mainland.

I'm not sure they had many spares, if they had any at all.

Or just waited a bit longer for the Japanese to give up because the people were literally starving

So instead of killing them, they should have killed them slowly.

it was clear to many at the top of the government that the war was already lost.

So clear that they had to be nuked twice before the penny dropped.

Re: Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

1) That was not sarcasm
2) Poe's law

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Hognoxious]

I think you might want to look up.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[ganjadude]

sure, and unicorns should be real

Re: Yeah, Heh Heh

[ganjadude]

your welcome

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[ClickOnThis]

Mod parent informative.

From the linked Wikipedia article:

The Operation Meetinghouse air raid of 9–10 March 1945 was later estimated to be the single most destructive bombing raid in history.

Even more destructive than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings.

Re: Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

A nation needs to put a high priority on the lives of its own people. Too bad the Empire of Japan didn't feel that way.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy that did that was being insanely risky even by the standards of the time.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[ClickOnThis]

I think you might want to look up 'literally'.

Or examine this helpful comic.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Tablizer]

Yeah, everyone knows you use duct-tape for that instead of screwdrivers.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[0123456]

Uh, dude. This was, like, a war. Thousands of people were dying every day. So, no, they didn't worry that a few people might die as a result of developing a bomb that could end the war months earlier than it otherwise might have done, saving hundreds of thousands of lives as a result.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[TWX]

My point was that a Dresden-style bombing campaign would have expanded to the entire archipelago, urban and rural, and that the islands would have been reduced to a moonscape. Tokyo as it had been was destroyed, but there was a lot more of Japan left that hadn't been razed that could have been. Japan obviously hadn't surrendered to terms that the United States was willing to accept, and if the Japanese military was not ready to lay down arms then any internal debate amongst the Japanese couldn't really be considered by the US military. Fact of the matter is, we simply don't know how much continued firebombing and carpetbombing would have been necessary to force the Japanese military to accept their government's desire to surrender. If they hadn't been willing to surrender after the destruction of Tokyo then perhaps the bigger stick in the form of nuclear weapons was necessary.

I'm a little curious as to how quickly the Soviet Union could have entered the fray in useful strength. They had such a fight on their hands taking out Germany that I expect the bulk of their men and materiel were literally at the opposite end of the continent, and the Russian East has never been especially well developed. I expect it would have taken considerable time to shift all of the personnel, equipment, and supply lines to prepare for a meaningful assault on Japan. They also had the little matter of attempting to put large portions of their country, right up to their capital, back together after the pounding they took from the Germans.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[TWX]

If I remember my history correctly, there was only one more uranium core left by the time the Device, Little Boy, and Fat Man were used.

If what others in this thread have said is accurate, it sounds like the government of Japan wanted to unconditionally surrender after the firebombing of Toyko, but that the military was against it and probably would not have gone along with it had the government tried. The atomic bombs and the significant destruction they created made it clear that more total destruction would be coming in a cold, mechanized way. Didn't matter that the United States was effectively bluffing, we'd demonstrated that we could do it twice, so they couldn't count on us not being able to do it more times.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[TWX]

I doubt that would have been enough. Attacking a sparsely populated area wouldn't have demonstrated the resolve that the United States was willing to completely annihilate Japan, and there wasn't enough material left to drop more than two more bombs in earnest.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[AK Marc]

Given that one wiped out a city, and a government official flew over, saw the damage and verified the radiation levels indicating it was a single nuclear bomb, and the government refused to surrender (well, technically they offered surrender then, but with conditions that were close to what winners demand). It wasn't until the ability and will to nuke one a week until there was nobody left on the island was demonstrated when the Japanese offered reasonable terms (but still not an unconditional surrender).

Even then, there was a short civil war from the hardliners objecting to the surrender. And you think that waiting without any violence would have triggered a surrender? That seems like wishful thinking. Might as well wait for the emperor for life to get voted out.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Gas, electrical or chemical explosion?

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[murdocj]

Yes. It's very easy, decades after the fact, to guess that perhaps the atomic bombings were unnecessary. What is clear is that given the choice between surrender and rapid annihilation, the Japanese chose surrender. The atomic bombings ended the war.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[AK Marc]

it was clear to many at the top of the government that the war was already lost.

So clear that they had to be nuked twice before the penny dropped.

And even then, the equivelent of the cabinet was divided on the issue, and the military planned a coup so that they could continue to fight. There was a minor civil war while the generals refused to acknowledge the surrender, but it didn't amount to much.

Both the Japanese and Americans were operating under the assumption that Tokyo would be the next target in about 2 weeks, when the Emperor ordered the surrender, and the government followed, even if begrudgingly.

And don't forget Truman warned the Japanese of the Nagasaki bombing. But the Japanese refused to act. The blood on the hands of people was more on the Japanese military generals than the top leaders or the Americans. There was ample time to surrender, evacuate, or otherwise respond. Japan was happy to sacrifice everyone to lose the war with honor. There are quotes by Japanese generals to that effect.

Some at the end belived there should be only one Japanese person left alive when the Americans marched into Tokyo would be the Emperor, everyone else should have died fighting, or at least wasted a bullet from the Allies.

Re: Yeah, Heh Heh

[AK Marc]

Japan was warned of Nagasaki. You should be thanking the Japanese leaders for those deaths. They were given plenty of time to surrender or evacuate. They did neither, hoping to call the American bluff, but it wasn't a bluff. A weeks warning was much better than Japan gave the people killed at Pearl Harbor.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

That may be the point. The fact that they didn't know what the long term consequences would be, or didn't care, but still went ahead with it anyway was irresponsible. They knew that radioactivity was lethal. I think that may have been the point of using it in a bomb.

I respectfully disagree. They bombed knowing it would kill. They had no idea how long after the initial blast it woulc kill. They had no way of knowing because (for obvious reasons) no experiments had been done on such a scale.

Consider this: before the end of WW2, the atomic bomb was regarded by military planners and politicians (even if not by physicists) as simply a bigger KABOOM. After WW2, and having seen photographic and film evidence, and medical records to back it up, no politician has ever authorized their use. Not Stalin, not Thatcher, not Mao, not Kennedy, not Reagan. Not even the n00bs in charge of Israel, Pakistan, India (forces from the latter two have shot at each other). Not even the series of maniacs running North Korea. Nobody, elected nor totalitarian, has chosen to use the damn things for 70 years, because all they've have had to do is open a history textbook and look at what happened the last time they were used.

I like the Bomb. I'm damn glad it was used when the number of them in existence could be counted on one hand. A sufficiently curious child will touch the element at least once to understand why it glows. A sufficiently smart child will learn from the mistake and not repeat it. As descendants of Og the caveman, who once gestured that while the fire provides light and warmth, it must always be respected, it is our duty to pass the fire, and the lessons it taught us, on to the next generation.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Applehu Akbar]

It is thought that Truman's use of the bomb was decided by the massive losses on Okinawa, which totaled almost a quarter of a million on both sides.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Applehu Akbar]

Not to mention the creepy way that Werner Heisenberg would intone "Let's cook!" as he gave the order to assemble each new bomb. Heisenberg's increasingly erratic behavior caused the OSS to ease him out of the project and erase any record that he had ever been involved in it. After the war, he retired to open the first carwash in Albuquerque.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Dutch Gun]

The Soviets had already built up enough forces in the far east to attack Japanese territory of Manchukuo, and they actually declared war on Japan and launched a major attack just after the first atomic bomb dropped. There's little doubt that the military might of the Soviet Union, which was now a juggernaut of massive proportions, would have been able to overwhelm not only their mainland holdings, but eventually the home islands as well.

There was a real danger that Japan would have become a communist stronghold, or possibly split between a democratic south and communist north. That's what the US was really worried about, and why they were so desperate to end the war as quickly as possible.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[AK Marc]

Japan was unable to generate new war resources. They were almost out of fuel, and cut off from mainland resources. But they were working on surrendering to the USSR for more favorable terms than they'd expect from the USA. Part of the reason for the timing of the bombs was to force a more immediate surrender before the Soviets could intervene. Though, there was no indication that the Soviets were actually interested in talking. They invaded Japanese held area on the mainland between Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That everyone had surrendered but Japan made it clear Japan couldn't hold out. But they weren't surrendering either. Rather than an invasion, conventional munitions would have been used to reduce the entire island to rubble before an invasion. The death toll was much lower for the Japanese with the A-bomb. Even after the first, generals were quoted as having said they were still willing to fight to the last person.

Japan wouldn't surrender unless they were leveled, and it was hoped that The Bomb would shake them of that resolve.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Applehu Akbar]

Russia's declaration of war was the other trigger for our use of the bomb.Imagine Russia swooping down into the less-defended half of the country and creating the dismal dump of "North Japan." Even after the collapse of Russian communism, it could have been a threat to peace unto this day.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[AmiMoJo]

They dropped one on an actual city, and that wasn't a strong enough hint so they had to drop another one on another city.

No, they dropped one and then didn't leave enough time for the Japanese to understand what had happened and make the political moves necessary to surrender, because they had two designs and wanted to test them both. They also wanted to compare the difference between detonating in the open and in a valley.

This makes me suspect that if they'd put one across the bows the response would have been along the lines of "Ha! Missed, aah-sole!"

Your suspicions are not really justification for and maiming hundreds of thousands of people. I thought the goal was to minimize casualties.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Mal-2]

The first bomb was dropped to intimidate Japan into a surrender. It was working. The plan was already being drawn up, and this fact was not kept secret.

The second bomb was dropped to give the Soviets second thoughts about trying to invade eastern Europe, and it is this second bomb that many living Japanese consider excessive and unforgivable, not the first -- because they had to live with the consequences even though they weren't the real target.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

...And don't forget Truman warned the Japanese of the Nagasaki bombing...

Yup, you can't say we (of the US) didn't warn them Japs... er.. Japanese. There's that rule about giving your victim a last chance to avoid the blow, and we followed it all right. So we're off the hook morally. It's like in an armed robbery when you tell the cashier "Don't move or I'll shoot!" And if they move, they should have known better. It wouldn't be right to just shoot first.

There were warning pamphlets https://www.flickr.com/photos/rocbolt/8061641195/in/album-72157631709639666/ but there's no clear evidence of when or if they were dropped http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/04/26/a-day-too-late/. But even if they were dropped in time, I don't see how they give Truman a higher moral standing. The onus doesn't switch from do-er to do-ee just because of a warning.

To be clear, I'm just pointing out a myth and a flawed argument. For other reasons, I support bomb two.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Heisenberg worked on Germany's nuclear program, not ours. Big difference there.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Also without the bomb it's not unreasonable to ask whether or not Stalin would have continued to the English Channel rather than stopping on the Elbe.

In my opinion the Atomic Bomb should have received the Nobel Peace Prize instead of Al fucking Gore.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

What a stupid comment. The number of casualties from both bombs was fewer than the casualties that would have been incurred had the war continued only a few more weeks. Worse, there was the possibility that the Red Army would contrive to find itself at the English Channel rather than on the Elbe.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

The goal in war is to inflict casualties.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, now - get it right: Slotin was using a screwdriver in an unapproved technique/protocol in his 8/1945 experiment (the safety shims to prevent criticality had been removed) and Daghlian,9 months later (5/1946), was doing DIFFERENT work (no screwdrivers involved) concerning neutron reflection. Yes, with the same core (ultimately used as Crossroads Able, at Bikini, 23Kt, 7/1946).

No: not entirely "plain reckless". No: not "for good measure". Tip: read slower - you're missing important things.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you certain it was Heisenberg?

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

We used the end of the war to test all kinds of evil shit, we dropped the early versions of Napalm on German soldiers, mostly children by that time, who were just waiting for the official word that the war was over. The war didn't end in a second, it was clear for some time.

And we did it just to test the shit out. After the war we got to decide what was and what was not a war crime, otherwise we'd have had hell to pay.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

I did not know that, Thank you for the quick history lesson.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[david_thornley]

There was no uranium core left. It was used on Hiroshima.

AIUI, Japanese physicists knew what happened at Hiroshima. They also, correctly, figured that we couldn't make enough weapons-grade U-235 for a long time. What they didn't realize was that we had been working on plutonium bombs. They're a lot harder to get right (there was no test U-235 bomb explosion because people were confident it would work), but it's a lot easier to get Pu-239 than U-235. At the time of Japanese surrender, a plutonium bomb (without the plutonium) was at the launch airbase and there was a plutonium core that could have been shipped by air. Truman held up the bombing to wait on developments.

It's not really correct to say "the Japanese government" wanted anything at this time, since it was so divided. There were people who wanted to surrender on the best terms possible, and people who wanted to fight to the last Japanese person, who presumably would have some stupid weapon or other (like the AT mine on a bamboo pole). Nine-year-old girls were being drilled for combat.

The deadlock was so bad that, after approaching Stalin to be a go-between to negotiate with the Western Allies, they couldn't agree on what to tell him to say.

The first nuke accomplished little, since the Japanese figured the US couldn't have another one for a while. The second nuke showed that the US had an indefinite number of nukes ready to go or in the pipeline. At that point, the Emperor intervened, extraconstitutionally, and the rest of the government fell in line. The War Minister, Anami, could have stopped the surrender, and nobody had any idea what he'd do. In fact, he went along with it, told junior officers to bear it, and killed himself that night. The night before the surrender, there was an attempted coup to stop it, and some protestors burned down the houses of at least one official.

The Emperor gave an announcement the next day, in which he referred to a new and most cruel bomb, and described everything else that had happened as developments not necessarily to Japan's advantage.

We don't know exactly why everything happened. We don't know what would have happened in any different situation. There is speculation that the Soviet attack going on at the time had a lot to do with the surrender, which is quite plausible speculation, but I haven't seen good evidence for it. People have speculated that the nukes were dropped for ulterior purposes, such as intimidating Stalin, but I consider this to be very implausible, and contrary to the records we have.

FWIW, the US was planning on invading Kyushu, the southernmost of the Home Islands, late in the year, and the Japanese had correctly predicted the attack plan and were doing their best to make it bloody, in the hope of discouraging the Allies from attacking further. Again, exactly what would have happened is speculation. So is the rule of nukes in the invasion, as they were never part of the official planning (they were kept secret during most of the planning).

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[david_thornley]

Got any evidence for that?

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[david_thornley]

They dropped one bomb, and the Japanese realized exactly what had happened very fast. There was no movement towards surrender.

The idea that they wanted to test both types is ludicrous, because they did a plutonium test at Trinity and a uranium one at Hiroshima. The idea that they wanted to test in the open and in a valley also fails, since Nagasaki was a secondary target that day, and the bomb was not dropped according to instructions.

As far as I can tell, the nukes did minimize casualties. Do you know how many people were dying in China and other places, under Japanese occupation? Do you have any idea how many Japanese civilians would have starved?

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[david_thornley]

Unfortunately, the history lesson is wrong. After the first nuke, several Japanese high officials wanted to surrender, but they couldn't without unanimity on the Liaison Council, which included the ultra-hawkish Anami, the War Minister. It was not until the second nuke that Anami withdrew objections. Nobody really knew what he was going to do until late that evening, when he ordered the Army to acquiesce and committed seppuku.

I haven't seen any good evidence that dropping the Nagasaki bomb was done for any other reason than to push the Japanese towards surrender. I have seen good evidence that it was done to induce the Japanese to surrender. IIRC, somebody called Hosagawa (or something) wrote a book called something like Racing Defeat that purported to show that the Nagasaki bomb at least was dropped to intimidate the Soviets. I got to the page where he argued that the US Secretary of State deliberately sent an unacceptable surrender demand to Japan because he wanted Japan to surrender, and stopped reading.

I recommend "Downfall" by Richard Frank. Frank looked at the communications to determine who was saying what when, and clearly shows that there was no actual surrender move until the second nuke.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[david_thornley]

Prince Konoye was in favor of surrender early, but he didn't have the authority to do it. War Minister Anami was the biggest obstacle to surrender, and he went along (he never agreed) only after the second nuke.

There have been various estimates of how long Japan would have held out without the nukes (it's impossible to know which are accurate), and I think the shortest time I've seen was three months. With that delay, I'd estimate that the death toll among Chinese civilians due to delaying the end of the war would have exceeded the death toll among Japanese civilians due to the nukes significantly. There were other occupied territories, primarily Indochina and parts of Indonesia, that would also have suffered greatly. (The British had liberated Burma and were moving into Malaya at the time.) Curiously, I've never seen anybody else make this point in this argument, but if we're counting civilian deaths we should count all of them.

The USN was also taking significant losses from kamikazes at this time, a few warships a week IIRC, and lengthening the war by another three months would have caused a lot of US casualties. A US invasion of the home islands (scheduled for November, IIRC, but would have been delayed by bad weather) would have killed a large number of Allied soldiers and far more Japanese civilians. Japan was on starvation rations at that time, and the situation would not improve before surrender, when the US could supply food.

There were lots of good reasons to want the war to end early.

Re:Yeah, Heh Heh

[david_thornley]

The Red Army was fighting on the continent of Asia in very useful strength. It didn't take them long at all to eliminate the Kwantung Army defending Manchuria. It was the largest land defeat the Japanese had during the war. The Soviets also overran a previously shared island (Sakhalin). The attempts at amphibious assaults in the Kuriles were much less successful, and the Soviet forces were in a bad situation before the Japanese were ordered to surrender to them.

One issue is that the Soviets had no qualms about wearing out large numbers of vehicles, so they drove them across Siberia rather than overload the Trans-Siberian Railroad. They would be unlikely to need as many tanks after the war, and the Lend-Lease Shermans and halftracks would have had to be returned or destroyed in any case.

The most likely end of the human race: Nuclear War

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay for atom bombs?

Downwinders' misguided protest

[mbeckman]

The Tularosa Basin Downwinders came to protest the 70th anniversary tour? Yet The Downwinders' aim is to bring public awareness about the negative impacts of the detonation of the bomb? Seems like an anniversary tour is a perfect opportunity for that. Why protest people who had nothing to do with the testing, and only have historic interest? Should we protest Civil War reenactors? I sympathize with their plight and don't approve of government misdeeds, but the Downwinders shame themselves.

Re:Downwinders' misguided protest

[Anonymous Coward]

Should we protest Civil War reenactors?

Yes, cannons and muskets are so fucking loud.

Re:Downwinders' misguided protest

[xevioso]

They didn't use muskets. They used rifles.

The tourists are all envious

[Anonymous Coward]

Envious of that amount of destructive power, that they wish they could use against their ex on Facefuck.

"Gobs of people"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Gobs of people from around here died and nobody knew what they died of"

Was the trinity test a major source of fallout for neighboring communities? I can find some stuff about the military buying some cattle from a few ranchers due to beta radiation burns and short term hair loss but nothing about mass die-offs in wildlife or extensive human cases of cancer.

Trinity

[Anonymous Coward]

I really hated having to kill that skink.

Re:Trinity

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be mistaken. Revisionist fandumb says the sequels never happened.

Re:Trinity

[Anonymous Coward]

I said skink!

Re:Trinity

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't eat the skink.

Re:Trinity

[ganjadude]

the skink is a lie

Re:Trinity

[Anonymous Coward]

I really hated having to kill that skink.

That was one of Infocom's greatest games.

I made the pilgramage to Trinity Site a few years ago. It is well worth the visit. If you're driving your own vehicle, I strongly encourage you to come in from the north, through the Stallion Gate opening. Be there about an hour before the gates open at 8am. Put your camera in the trunk so you're not tempted to do anything stuipd. You'll see some fascinating things along the 20-minute cruise drive to the site. No paperwork is required; although you'll be traveling several miles into a military base, on these two days per year, foreigners and civilians are as welcome as servicemen.

Take your camera out after you've found the parking lot. Visit the monument before the bus traffic arrives from the south an hour later. Visit the Ranch House (especially if you remember the Infocom game) before the bus traffic makes its way there. Revisit the monument and take a few more pictures. Then drive on out of there and make your way to the Very Large Array, which offers upgraded tours owing to the massive influx of geeks on these particular days of the year.

PROTIP: If you enjoy beer, there's also a great little brewpub/pizzeria within walking distance of the motels in Socorro, NM. Fantastic place to stop the night before you see Trinity, or after you return from VLA.

If you have even a passing interest in history or physics, this is a bucket-list level road trip. Whatever your politics, do it while there are still greyhairs around who remember seeing it. (I'm pro-nuke here, and although the most interesting conversation was with someone who was the right age to have served at the time, the memory that sticks with me is hugging a spouse of one of the downwinders. My one regret is that I lacked the courage to talk to an old Japanese man whose family I heard speaking English.) Everyone who visits Trinity Sites does so with their own reasons. Seek out at least one person whose reasons differ from yours.

Thank you, WSMR and NPS, for putting up with the logistical hassles that give all of us the opportunity to meet.

Re:Trinity

[Applehu Akbar]

No nerd bucket list should be without the Nevada Test Site, which today is like a museum of the Cold War. It has control rooms with the largest CRT monitors ever made, whole test towns with houses, buildings, bridges, railroads and arrays of Fifties cars, all bent and blackened and melted by the earlist nuclear tests. You can see the ant-lion pits left by the era of underground testing. You can see the last blast hole drilled before the test ban treaty was signed, with the test array still dangling from the hoist cable that would have lowered it thousands of feet down to the blast point (A test array consisted of a warhead topped by up to 350' of test instrumentation, with an optical cable to send results to the surface. When the warhead detonated, the array sent back data in the microseconds before the instrumentation all vaporized.)

Your best chance to get a tour is to sign up with a group which has made a reservation.

Did you know

[Anonymous Coward]

Cancer went down by 70% after the end of atmospheric testing. Makes you wonder about Fukushima though.

Re: Did you know

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't had a chance to study the evidence, but based on previous experience I bet that confounds the smoking-cancer link and there is near or actually zero discussion of that or other confounds in the literature. Most likely one more medical claim on shaky ground. Next we will learn that the activity of an enzyme upstream of reward from nicotine or whatever maois are in tobacco is also a risk factor for lung cancer.

FTFY

[Alomex]

Many posed for x-ray pictures near an obelisk marking the exact location where the bomb went off

Re:The most likely end of the human race: Nuclear

[pigiron]

Well certainly as far as European infantry platoon leader Paul Fussel is concerned!

http://www.amazon.com/Thank-At...

*alleged* fallout?

[vic-traill]

From TFA:
> An Army police vehicle led the caravan from Tularosa, passing the Tularosa Basin
> Downwinders protesting the alleged fallout from the atomic test.

What's 'alleged' about the fallout? Did I miss something?

Re:*alleged* fallout?

[Coren22]

Trinity was a very small bomb comparatively to later tests, the alleged is that there is no proof of the claims of these people as it is highly unlikely to be true.

Re:*alleged* fallout?

[HuguesT]

Trinity was a 20kt bomb exactly like the one that obliterated Nagasaki. Hardly very small.

Re:*alleged* fallout?

[spauldo]

It's small compared to other tests. It's only large compared to Hiroshima.

You'll note that Nagasaki and Hiroshima are still there. If we dropped, say, a 50 megaton bomb on them, they wouldn't be.

I'm not entirely sure that the amount of radioactive fallout is directly proportional to the size of the bomb, though.

Re:*alleged* fallout?

[0123456]

If we dropped, say, a 50 megaton bomb on them, they wouldn't be.

To be fair, both cities were flattened for a large distance around ground zero, and mostly rebuilt since. They were airbursts, so the fallout mostly blew away when it wasn't brought down by rain storms, but probably small enough that many people were killed by the immediate radiation; with a 50MT bomb, anyone close enough to be killed by that radiation would already have been vapourized.

Re:*alleged* fallout?

[spauldo]

I was mostly talking about the fallout. You notice Pripyat hasn't been rebuilt.

Had the fallout been a lot worse, Nagasaki and Hiroshima would have been cordoned off.

I'm actually surprised they rebuilt, honestly. There are large parts of Okinawa where nothing gets built. I was under the understanding that it's a religious thing - they believe that the spirits of the dead from the battle there still occupy those sites, and building there would upset them. Okinawa tends to be cane fields, urban sprawl, and wilderness. A lot of people died at the two bomb sites, so you think they'd have abandoned them.

(Disclaimer: I lived in Japan, but do not claim to be an expert in their religion)

Re:*alleged* fallout?

[Anonymous Coward]

When do we get to the "fair" part?

Re:*alleged* fallout?

[0123456]

I was mostly talking about the fallout. You notice Pripyat hasn't been rebuilt.

Bomb fallout decays rapidly because it's mostly short-lived isotopes from the explosion. Reactor fallout takes much longer, because it's mostly due to isotopes with much longer half-lives. On the plus side, because of that, the initial radiation level would typically be much lower.

Re:*alleged* fallout?

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no fall-out from those bombs. The air bursts created clean burns. The people died from the blast and the radiation, not from fall-out.

Re:*alleged* fallout?

[Coren22]

When you compare it to other tests, it is indeed quite small.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

There were some smaller, but many MUCH larger.

Re:*alleged* fallout?

[david_thornley]

More to the point, airbursts don't create all that much fallout. What's left after the blast isn't enough to be really dangerous over a large area. A low or ground burst will create a lot more radioactive material.

Context

[Livius]

Bad things happen in war.

In a way, it's a good thing that people have luxury of forgetting that.

Re:Context

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank Bama for More War! Never Forget!

Re:Context

[Anonymous Coward]

Except frequently those who have been tormented still remember but those who tormented forget.

Radiation levels?

[p51d007]

I guess since they allow people to get up close & personal with that area, the background radiation must be at a somewhat reduced level than it was 70 years ago?

Re: Radiation levels?

[Anonymous Coward]

My Dad was a security guard in the Army at los Alamos and Trinity site. He said the radiation dropped off pretty quick after the blast. He helped build the fence around the site. He died of Parkinson's with no sign of cancer. Maybe he was just lucky but he came back okay.

Re: Radiation levels?

[BranMan]

Interesting. Mine was an Army MP - they formed a special MP company (all college grads) that was stationed in Albuquerque, NM. His company guarded all the atom bombs existing in the world at the time.

"He thought the end of the world had come."

[CODiNE]

"He thought the end of the world had come."

In a way, he was right.

Re:"He thought the end of the world had come."

[Tablizer]

I have a right-leaning relative who opened a coffee-table history book to a fold-out picture of a mushroom cloud. He stared a while, shook his head and proclaimed, "nukes are soooo beautiful!" He resembled a 12-year-old drooling over a centerfold*. Odd character. Some people are just strongly drawn to raw power.

* Or the Salieri score-review scene in Amadeus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:"He thought the end of the world had come."

[Admiral_Grinder]

I'll admit, I have stood in awe while looking at the bomb casings at the Air Force Museum, but I did move on after making the "this here is the end of the world" statement. I've also wanted to get my photo while sitting on it as well. The world is full of horrible people like me.

Re:"He thought the end of the world had come."

[Tablizer]

Being awestruck and seeing them as "beautiful" are different things. Then again, human emotions are sometimes tricky to decipher and separate. I would hope people fear the use of such weapons from either side of a conflict regardless of appreciation of their power.

lots of history

[fermion]

I have not been in New Mexico when the Trinity site has been open. I need to just fly out for the weekend and see it one day...

However, I have been to The National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque(where bugs bunny always goes). It is a nice museum, apparently on a tight budget, with many interesting planes. They usually have a good traveling exhibit.

109 East Place is a good book on the secret site in Los Alamos. It was so secret that all communication and travel when through 109 East Place in Santa Fe.

Re:lots of history

[Anonymous Coward]

However, I have been to The National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque(where bugs bunny always goes). It is a nice museum, apparently on a tight budget, with many interesting planes. They usually have a good traveling exhibit.

There's no aircraft there but the National Museum of Atomic Testing in Las Vegas is worth a visit in you're in town. It's over by the university and easily accessible from The Strip by bus, worth spending an hour or so at and admission is cheap.

Re:lots of history

[xevioso]

I wonder what the joke is regarding bugs bunny always taking a wrong turn at Albuquerque. Why not Tuscon or Flagstaff or Barstow. It it just because it's a funny word, like Timbuktu or Kalamazoo?

Re:lots of history

[idontgno]

Bugs Bunny always pronounced it "Albakoikey" in his faux-New Jersey accent. I don't think Tuscon or Flagstaff or Barstow has the same mispronunciation humor potential. And it's a funny word even when pronounced correctly, TBH.

Re:lots of history

[Anonymous Coward]

109 east palace. Palace is a road in Santa Fe, and that address served as the official "Office" of the laboratory, where new scientists reporting for duty showed up at, etc. They were something like a filter to the outside world if I understand correctly.

Mail and such could actually be sent directly to the laboratory, although it was obviously obfuscated. The address was:

P.O. Box 1663, Santa Fe, NM

I am pretty sure you can still send mail to the laboratory by using that address. Although now you can use "Los Alamos" instead of "Santa Fe"...

Re: lots of history

[jd2112]

And Wierd Al wrote a song about it. Long after Bugs Bunny kept taking wrong turns there of course.

Re:lots of history

[Anonymous Coward]

However, I have been to The National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque(where bugs bunny always goes). It is a nice museum, apparently on a tight budget, with many interesting planes. They usually have a good traveling exhibit.

If you're ever in the neighborhood, take a drive up to Los Alamos (the town, not the lab!) someday. Visit the Black Hole surplus store, which is heaven for any electronic nerd. Also visit the museums. See Fermi's ID badge right next to Feynman's. (Feynman's the one with the hilarious grin on his face!) Swing by the bookstore. Walk by Oppenheimer's house. All within a couple hours' drive from Albuquerque and an hour's walk around town. The views coming up/down the mountain are world-class, especially if you take the long route home heading east past the old volcanic crater.

(I'll also second the recommendation from the other AC about the Vegas museum. If you're ever in Vegas for a trade show or convention and you're not into gambling, the atomic testing museum should be #1 on your list, second only to the pinball place)

Re:lots of history

[danbert8]

Admission was cheap, however they also forced you to buy a pass to visit their bullshit aliens exhibit which was extremely pricey for having no scientific or factual content whatsoever...

Re:lots of history

[Admiral_Grinder]

Don't waste air fare on just it though. Make it a part of a larger trip. Visit the VLA near there as well. The main and only draw to the site is that it was the first atomic bomb test. After about a hour drive into it you spend about an hour tops looking at a pile of rubble, some left over glass, and some photos. There is a separate tour of the small farm house where it was assembled. It is a great place to go and reflect at, but it really is just a one time trip with a lot of day left to burn.

Re:lots of history

[Anonymous Coward]

It is actually 109 East Palace in Santa Fe. And it is a good book.

Demonstrators

[aardvarkjoe]

Tourists who joined a vehicle caravan out to the site at a school in Tularosa were greeted by demonstrators from the Tularosa Basin Downwinders who came to protest the 70th anniversary tour. The Downwinders is a grass-roots group that has set out to bring public awareness about the negative impacts of the detonation of the bomb.

So what do these demonstraters hope to accomplish? Are they going to protest hard enough to prevent the test from happening in 1945?

Re:Demonstrators

[ScentCone]

So what do these demonstraters hope to accomplish? Are they going to protest hard enough to prevent the test from happening in 1945?

No, they're going to protest so hard that North Korea's strange little evil laugh is even a bit stranger sounding when someone besides us tests another live nuke.

Full-time-activist-protester-types aren't known for their rational take on things. A sensible or useful take on the subject matter is never the point. It's all about being able to post protest scene selfies on FB.

Re:Demonstrators

[ganjadude]

send them to iran to protest. might accomplish more

Re:Demonstrators

[spauldo]

Just guessing here:

They want to remind the current politicians and the people that vote for them that nuclear testing isn't OK.

And probably that the US needs to take more concern about the environment, especially the military. Remember the story a few weeks back about how the background radiation in Denver is considerably higher than normal due to poor practices at an upwind nuclear weapon factory? That kind of crap is unacceptable.

(I'm not an anti-bomb guy or an anti-nuclear guy , but I do think the government needs to be a bit more careful with their impact on the environment, since that's where its citizens live. I'm not upset about trinity though - special circumstances and whatnot.)

Re:Demonstrators

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a link for that story? Denver has higher radiation levels than cities at sea level, that don't have large uranium deposits around them. Please stop spreading FUD.

Oh, and despite the higher radiation levels, Colorado generally has a lower incidence of cancer than many other states: http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc...

Re:Demonstrators

[spauldo]

First off: spreading FUD? Watch that knee, it's jerking a bit there.

I can't find the story on slashdot (admittedly, I didn't try all too hard), but a quick google search found the name of the facility and the wikipedia article. It's the Rocky Flats Plant about 15 miles from Denver. There are pretty little graphs showing where plutonium was found.

It's old news - I don't remember what the slashdot story was about off the top of my head.

My point is that this sort of thing isn't acceptable for commercial entities, and it shouldn't be acceptable for the government. I'm all behind a lot of special exceptions the government gets - like military vehicles not having to be compliant with safety laws - but things like nuclear safety should apply to everyone. Best practices are there for a reason.

Re:Demonstrators

[braindrainbahrain]

They are actually lobbying for the passage of bills which would provide them with some compensation. They are not protesting the test which took place 70 years ago. I know this because I read the leaflet they handed to me at the site.

Typical of North Korea and USA regimes.

[marco999]

So typical, North Korea or USA oppressive regimes experiment on their own people.
Sorry I forgot.
Only in USA they blast their own people.
Only in USA state police is unloading ammunition at protesting workers.
Only in USA cops are in kindergartens.
Only in USA 99% of population is enslaved by oligarchs.

God have mercy.

Re:Typical of North Korea and USA regimes.

[Anonymous Coward]

So typical, North Korea or USA oppressive regimes experiment on their own people.
Sorry I forgot.
Only in USA they blast their own people.
Only in USA state police is unloading ammunition at protesting workers.
Only in USA cops are in kindergartens.
Only in USA 99% of population is enslaved by oligarchs.

God have mercy.

Well you can be thankful, God protects babes and fools so you should be safe.

Re:Typical of North Korea and USA regimes.

[ganjadude]

yes... all that and more on next weeks "strange unusual faux history of the USA" catch the replay on saturdays 10 PM

Re:Typical of North Korea and USA regimes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Give him a break -- NK astroturfers who do not meet their daily quote might be shipped to a gulag.

Fumimaro Konoe

[westlake]

Historical documents indicate that Prince Konoye was already favoring ending the war in February due the on-going strategic bombing campaigns which were devastating the country and the Emperor was favoring ending the war after the "Meetinghouse" firebombings in March, but the military rejected US requests for unconditional surrender until after the A-bombs were dropped in August.

Fumimaro Konoe was a sheep among wolves, a diplomat who was effortlessly shoved aside whenever he presented the slightest obstacle to the warlords who controlled the Japanese army and navy.

Konoe resigned on 16 October 1941, one day after having recommended Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni to the Emperor as his successor. Two days later, Hirohito chose General Tojo as Prime Minister.

In February 1945, during the first private audience he had been allowed in three years he advised the Emperor to begin negotiations to end World War II. According to Grand Chamberlain Hisanori Fujita, Hirohito, still looking for a tennozan (a great victory), firmly rejected Konoe's recommendation.

Fumimaro Konoe

Glowing Reviews

[Anonymous Coward]

This 70th Anniversary Tour must have gotten some glowing reviews!

It brought a quick end to World War II...

[Trachman]

Right.... Myth repeated many times becomes truth.

This myth is plainly obsolete and no longer withstands criticism now that WW2 facts are freely available.

If we were really that concern about saving human lives, we should have exploded Little boy and Fat Man in the same desert, in the presence of enemy nation's, Japanese, military representative and allowed them to film.

Hell in 1945, several month ago, Tokyo has been fire bombed and there were more victims in Tokyo (a total more 200,000 people - 90,000 dead and 125,000 injured), than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. More casualties did not bring quick end, but less casualties brought quick end.... this is the perverted logic that is being repeated again and again.

This self-righteous JUSTIFICATION is plainly ridiculous. There is no and cannot be Justification or Rationalization.

The fact is that this WAS a new weapon, and US had a vague idea of the power and consequence of the weapon and the war was a GOOD justification to test the weapon on Japs.

The fact is that at that stage of the war both sides have been committing war crimes.

In a fictional scenario where, for example, Germany dropped a nuke during WW2 on London, they would have been tried for the crimes against humanity.

The fact is that the Victors are not tried. Not for Dresden (designated children refuge) bombing, not for passenger ship Wilhelm Gustloff (10,000 civilian sank), not for many other war crimes that were committed in the name of "victory"

Re:It brought a quick end to World War II...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right... trying to prove a negative. It may have or may not have prolonged WWII. But the USA was coming off of the battle in Okinawa where many of the populace were propagandized into killing themselves by diving off cliffs rather than surrender. Also don't forget about the Kamikaze pilots. Americans were simply freaked out about this kind of behavior. So no wonder there was no problem with fire bombings (with the added value that it destroyed a lot of war production sourced in homes) and the A-bombs.

Re:It brought a quick end to World War II...

[david_thornley]

In fact, nobody was tried for strategic bombing. The closest was the German guy who bombed Belgrade, which was an open city at the time and should have been spared all attack. Bombing civilians was not considered a war crime (and a careful study of Hague(IV) and Hague(IX) conventions will give you insight as to why).

It was great!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Alamogordo convoy began at 8 at Tularosa High School. More than a dozen reporters interviewed the less-than-a dozen protesters.

You're not allowed to take photos between the gate and Trinity Site. If you know your atomic testing history, the signs along the route are a journey through the past.

The Site is double-ring fenced. Parking is approx a quarter mile from the actual site. Jumbo sits outside the outer ring.

You can still see the crater in the earth. One Gadget footing remains. The government dug up the other three.

When the sun breaks through the clouds, the ground sparkles green when trinitite reflects the sun's rays.

The visitors were from all over the world, all ages, and friendly. They arrived in tour buses, motor homes, autos, and motorcycles. Media, GoPros, and vloggers were everywhere.

Since White Sands is a restricted area, it has almost no humans. Whote Sands developed into an animal sanctuary.

It's simultaneously desolate, historic, tragic, and triumphant.

The souvenirs are cash only because there's no cell coverage, no internet, no nothing.

The return convoy started at 1230.

But the US nuked Japan twice.

[aNonnyMouseCowered]

Hiroshima might have been necessary as a show of US military might, but why launch take 2 on Nagasaki? Saying the atomic bombing-s (with an s) were necessary is a bit deceptive. These first generation nuclear weapons were really more weapons of fear than mass destruction. Nukes only earned their world-ending potential with the invention of ICBMs. Before that, it would have beeen a simple matter of launching fighter planes to shoot down the slow moving heavy bombers. Nagasaki was a totally unnecessary military experiment, practically a war atrocity.

Re:But the US nuked Japan twice.

[Mal-2]

Nagasaki wasn't a strike against Japan, it was a strike by proxy against the Soviet Union.

Re:But the US nuked Japan twice.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Japanese didn't surrender after the first bomb. Even after the second a group of officers attempted a coup when the Emperor suggested he was minded to surrender.

Re:But the US nuked Japan twice.

[TWX]

The Japanese have been masters of production. One bomb, that could be a fluke. Two bombs, close together, both devastating, demonstrates that the manufacturer understands the process and could have more of them in the pipeline.

In other news..

[Anonymous Coward]

Thousands of tourists are held captive by an intelligent species of mutated radioactive cockroaches in Trinity New Mexico. Sources say they are to be sacrificed to the Radioactive One come midnight with a feast till dawn.

Drama

[khr]

Depending how dramatic the site is, the headline could read "Thousands Blown Away by Trinity Test Site For 70th Anniversary of First Atomic Blast."

Quick end?

[MoarSauce123]

Japan was willing to accept total surrender weeks before the nuclear bombs were dropped. It was the US that intentionally dragged out the process because the nukes weren't ready yet. And dropping not just one but two was not meant to cut the war with Japan short, it was meant to demonstrate to the Soviets that the US has weapons of mass destruction paired with a very low inhibition to kill ten thousands of civilians just to make a point. If anything, it is testament to the endless insanity of the Truman administration.

Re:Quick end?

[david_thornley]

I'd recommend Richard Frank's book "Downfall" to know who was willing to surrender, who wasn't, and what that meant. The Japanese government was willing to accept near-total surrender (the Japanese surrender was not unconditional) after the second city was nuked.