After visiting the nuclear reactors in Hanford in Washington and watching the movie Oppenheimer the historical loop closed for us this week with a visit to Los Alamos in New Mexico. The small town is only 45 min by car from Santa Fe where we were staying. The drive is interesting since at one point a very curvy and steep road leads up to a Mesa on top of which the town is located. As we learned later that was not a random choice but a deliberately selected location – remote and easy to defend if necessary. Los Alamos still has a large National Laboratory that remains focused on research and development for military tasks. Hence the historical sites can only be visited in a limited fashion. We skipped the Los Alamos Ranch School building – which looked nicely reconstructed. Until it was sequestered for the National laboratory it was a preparatory school modeled after the Boy Scouts of America – combining in-class-room education with outdoor school. Instead, we visited the Bradbury Museum which illustrates the history of project “Y”, which was part of the Manhattan project, with documentaries, images and a vast array of displays. Norris Bradbury took over as the laboratory director for the site after the initial mission was accomplished and many scientists and other personnel left for their original institutions – maintaining and transforming it into an ongoing research enterprise. Most of the nuclear arsenal of the US originates here. The various displays, documents and artifacts are almost overwhelming in their huge numbers and give a very detailed account of the path to the two atomic bombs. Perhaps the deepest impression on me left the two replicas of the first two atomic bombs that were dropped towards the end of World War II on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here they were – a few paces long and not huge in diameter. Their lethal content almost neglectable in size and weight to all the other devices and mechanisms to properly fly and trigger the bombs and yet holding unimaginable power of destruction as demonstrated during their first use. Awe can be inspired by many things – for example by large architectural structures like skyscrapers or bridges, or vast and overwhelming landscapes. Here I was staring at metallic devices of rather unimpressive size but the images that were to follow their use gave overwhelming proof of what was unleashed inside.
Note: The closest to the feeling that I had at Los Alamos was perhaps the response to seeing actual short range nuclear missiles displayed in a parking lot outside a Russian garrison in Bischofswerda in conjunction with the withdrawal of the Russian army from East Germany. They were also not that large – shaped differently than the bombs but likewise resting on simple carts. Seeing them for the first time made me realize how close to my hometown these were stationed and hence clearly also a target for the opposing side.