Trinity and Beyond

In DLC, we have been watching the movie Trinity and Beyond in an effort to learn more about the United State’s past in nuclear energy. On July 16, 1945 at 5:29 a.m. the first atomic bomb exploded in an area in New Mexico as a test. Before that in May of 1945 in New Mexico, 100 tons of TNT were exploded to simulate an atomic bomb. All of these tests took place because of Albert Einstein’s persuasion. He wrote a famous letter to FDR saying that uranium was the future, and we needed to research more about uranium. On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi started the first chain reaction with uranium. Los Alamos is a secret laboratory where the bombs were built. Dr. Edward Teller is the father of the hydrogen bomb. The code name for the uranium bomb is “Little Boy.” There was also a plutonium bomb with the code name “Fat Man.” The core of this bomb was plutonium. The Little Boy turned the desert sand of Japan into radioactive green glass. In Hiroshima, 70,000 people were killed by the explosion. In Nagasaki, 40,000 people were killed, and 40,000 people were injured by the bomb. Eleven months after bombing Japan, the United States conducted nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean at Bikini Atoll. They wanted to see the effects nuclear weapons had on living things and boats. Bikini Baker was an underwater bomb that had to be detonated. In the late 1940’s Russia claimed that they had nuclear weapons. This happened faster than America predicted because an American scientist who worked on the bomb gave some top secret information to Russia. In 1951 more nuclear testing continued Nevada, New Mexico, and the Pacific Ocean. The Hydrogen Bomb was created when liquid hydrogen isotopes create a nuclear thermic reaction. Ivy Mike was the first full scale hydrogen bomb. In 1953, the United States test launching a nuclear bomb from a cannon in Nevada. Castle Bravo was a huge explosion on an island in the Pacific. It created Bravo Crater. Soon, the United States realized the health effects that nuclear weapons had. Strontium- 90 is like calcium except it causes leukemia. Operation Plumbomb consisted of 24 tests in Nevada to study the effects from nuclear explosions. The 21st test is known as the rainier event because a bomb was detonated underground. In Operation Hardtack, the Cactus event was when a bomb produced a large crater. In 1980 (after the nuclear testing was over), all the fish and radioactive debris was placed in the crater. Redstone was a bomb that was detonated in space. It caused a severe disturbance to the Earth’s magnetic field. President John F. Kennedy put an end to all the for safety reasons. I find it shocking that from 1945-1962, the United States of America conducted 331 atmospheric nuclear tests. In conclusion, Trinity and Beyond helped me learn more about the history behind nuclear weapons.