New Mexico nuclear weapons laboratory marks 75 years

“They weren’t going to be just physicists. They weren’t going to be just chemists. They weren’t going to be just engineers,” he said. “They had to be able to have the world’s best technicians. They had to be able to have the world’s best craft to be able to build the facilities around us.”

Wallace said the United States has been served ever since by that initial blueprint for bringing together a talented workforce to solve some of the world’s most difficult problems.

As lab employees roamed downtown admiring antique fire engines and cars on display as part of the anniversary celebration, their children played laser tag at the park and slurped ice cones. There were also demonstrations at the nearby Bradbury Science Museum.

In one booth lining Central Avenue, lab employee Michael Nesmith was gathering signatures as part of an effort to get a Virginia class nuclear attack submarine named the “USS Los Alamos.”

Nesmith and his committee have been working on the campaign since 2016. He said it was the least he could do for a national laboratory that has done so much.

“The impact has been dramatic, not just in ending the bloodiest conflict in the world, but ever since then,” he said. “Medical isotopes, all kinds of things . ... It’s hard to comprehend everything that’s been done here.”