Anniversary of world’s 1st atomic test fuels nuclear debate

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Transported in the backseat of a blacked-out Plymouth sedan was the culmination of years of feverish work — a hefty plutonium core that would soon be used to trigger the world’s first atomic explosion.

Within days of being taken in 1945 from a top secret installation in the mountains of northern New Mexico to a desert outpost more than 200 miles away, the core and other components were assembled for what was code- named the Trinity test.

Scientists weren’t entirely sure whether the “Gadget” would work as intended or if the explosion would ignite the Earth’s atmosphere or maybe lead to the evaporation of the planet.

They found out in the early morning hours of July 16, 1945.

The detonation forever changed the course of history, ensuring the end of World War II and marking the dawn of the atomic age. After 75 years, the test is both revered for the scientific advancements it helped to usher in and vilified for the moral and diplomatic implications that still linger in its wake.

Lisa Gordon- Hagerty, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, traveled to Los Alamos National Laboratory on Thursday to commemorate the anniversary. The lab is known as the birthplace of the atomic bomb — where Robert Oppenheimer and a disparate collection of physicists went about untangling the theoretical and practical challenges of what came to be known as the Manhattan Project.

The immediacy of their work was fueled by word in the late 1930s that German chemists had discovered fission through their work with uranium and that the possibility of the Nazis setting up nuclear chain reactions had become more real and could lead to the construction of bombs. A group of scientists that included Albert Einstein pressed then-U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt about the importance of the United States getting the jump on Germany.

Gordon- Hagerty, a self-described science and history geek, said she often has thought about what it would have been like to stand in Oppenheimer’s shoes the morning of the Trinity test.

“I look to the good of what happened 75 years ago,” she told The Associated Press in an interview. “It has saved us from world wars. It has saved untold millions — perhaps billions — of lives over the past 75 years through its application in nuclear medicine and science. To me, that can’t be glossed over.”

For others, the atomic test in southern New Mexico and subsequent tests elsewhere have left a painful legacy.

From uranium miners, truck drivers and government workers to those living in communities near test sites, thousands were exposed over the years to radiation that resulted in cancer, birth defects and other illnesses.

Members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation say radiation exposure has disproportionately affected minority communities, including those in the shadow of that first test. They lawmakers have been pushing to expand the federal government’s compensation program to include “downwinders” in Tularosa Basin. The program currently covers workers who became sick as a result of the radiation hazards of their jobs and those who lived downwind of the Nevada Test Site.