![]() ![]() When their calculations showed that nuclear weapons were theoretically feasible, the British and United States governments supported an all-out effort to build them. The concurrent rise of fascist governments in Europe led to a fear of a German nuclear weapon project, especially among scientists who were refugees from Nazi Germany and other fascist countries. The decade saw many new discoveries about the nature of atoms, including the existence of nuclear fission. The creation of nuclear weapons arose from scientific and political developments of the 1930s. No one living near the test was evacuated, either before or afterward. Thousands of people lived closer to the test than would have been allowed under guidelines adopted for subsequent tests. The test site was declared a National Historic Landmark district in 1965, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places the following year. Observers included Vannevar Bush, James Chadwick, James Conant, Thomas Farrell, Enrico Fermi, Hans Bethe, Richard Feynman, Leslie Groves, Robert Oppenheimer, Frank Oppenheimer, Geoffrey Taylor, Richard Tolman, Edward Teller, and John von Neumann. The Gadget's detonation released the explosive energy of 25 kilotons of TNT (100 TJ) ± 2 kilotons of TNT (8.4 TJ). On May 7, 1945, a rehearsal was conducted, during which 108 short tons (98 t) of high explosive spiked with radioactive isotopes was detonated. The test was planned and directed by Kenneth Bainbridge.įears of a fizzle prompted construction of "Jumbo", a steel containment vessel that could contain the plutonium, allowing it to be recovered but ultimately Jumbo was not used in the test. The complexity of the design required a major effort from the Los Alamos Laboratory, and concerns about whether it would work led to a decision to conduct the first nuclear test. The test was of an implosion-design plutonium device, nicknamed the "Gadget", of the same design as the Fat Man bomb later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. ![]() Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory, inspired by the poetry of John Donne. The code name "Trinity" was assigned by J. A base camp was constructed, and there were 425 people present on the weekend of the test. The only structures originally in the immediate vicinity were the McDonald Ranch House and its ancillary buildings, which scientists used as a laboratory for testing bomb components. It was renamed the White Sands Proving Ground on July 9, 1945, and is now a part of the White Sands Missile Range. ![]() The test was conducted in the Jornada del Muerto desert about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, on what was the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range. MWT (11:29:21 GMT) on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. It was conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon. ![]()
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