Visit to the Trinity Site

Our third stop was to visit the Trinity Site. This is the place where the world's first atomic bomb was tested that was designed by Los Alamos. This site is only open to the public twice a year and always on the first saturdays of April and October, which means it's almost always General Conference. This was a rare time in which General Conference's Saturday was in March and the Sunday was in April meaning we could go on Apr. 7 to the Trinity Site. One of the first things we saw was the large steel cylinder that was built to contain the radiation from the bomb if it didn't work. In the bomb there was some TNT that was supposed to blow up first to get the nuclear chain reaction started. Scientists feared that if the chain reaction wasn't started that the TNT would send radioactive plutonium all over the place so they considered having this cylinder surround the drop point. If the bomb was a success it would vaporize this cylinder, but if it failed then it would contain the plutonium. However, they later decided not to use it after all and the test was still a success. Our boys enjoyed climbing in this thing.

We had to take the photo op in front of this Caution sign. This site is still radioactive. Throughout the year you are naturally exposed to radiation from outer space. We got about 3 weeks worth of normal radiation exposure during our one hour visit here (about the same as you'd get on a normal flight across the United States). We're not unfamiliar with these kinds of signs as we see them in our town quite often.

Here's the monument indicating what happened here. There's honestly not much to see at ground zero. Brian knows quite a bit about the history already and even he wasn't super impressed. It's the kind of thing that it's fun to say you've been but there's no need to go twice.

Here's a mock version of the bomb they tested.

One of the coolest things about ground zero is that there is still some trinitite on the ground there. When the bomb exploded the desert sand was instantly melted and turned into a green glassy rock, which they later called trinitite. Before they allowed the public to visit this site (which wasn't known about until after the 2 bombs were dropped in Japan and the war shortly thereafter ended), they cleaned up all the trinitite and buried most of it in a bunker that's at ground zero. This allowed the radiation exposure levels to be quite less and therefore safe for the public. There is still some very small pieces of trinitite on the ground there and there's a sign before you enter saying that it's against federal law to take trinitite away from the site (even though many people were looking for it and likely taking it home with them). Brian initially collected a few pieces and put them in his pocket before Angela told him about the sign. So Brian discarded when he collected. However, as we drove away Brian found one tiny piece still in his pocket, o'well maybe they'll lock him up. Brian has other pieces of trinitite that he got from a scientist that studies this rock. Brian plans to make some acoustics measurements on the material to learn more about it. Anyway, back to the photos. Lucas found a few pieces outside the fence and wanted us to take a photo of him holding them before discarding them. If you know Lucas you'd guess that he had the most fun looking for this rock and picking it up.