El Bloggo De Pedro: Trinity Site 5 Apr 2008

Hey All!

On Saturday, Melissa, Panchito and I rose with the sun and headed off to the White Sands Missile Range. Why you ask? Well it happens to be that our government is so kind as to open the missile range to the public twice a year. Our main objective, besides buying kitchy crap from the MWR was to obtain Trinitite which is radioactive glass created by the explosion of the first nuclear weapon on 16 July 1945.

Yep, There is just nothing out here!

I can not overstate the importance of the above stated mission. As you all clearly know, No Happy Home Is Complete Without An Abundant Supply Of Radioactive Material. Thus we started off with all proper preparation we could muster at 06:30. Mistake #1 occurred when the three of us, once again, ventured out without adult supervision. Mistake #2 occurred by underestimating the time it would take to get there. A 90 min shot right up I-25 quickly became 180 min slogging through the dessert. No Matter, we were dedicated and sure of our mission.

So ya think El Paso is desolate…….. Look on the map for San Antonio, NM. It is just south of Soccero on I-25. It is along the Rio Grande and the Camino Real which is an old trail that connected Mexico City with the Salinas Missions to the North.

It was First Traveled by Don Juan De Onate in 1589 although I am sure the locals had traveled it very well previously. Traveling through this area was known by early explorers as the Valley of Death. Not much has changed. Perfect place to blow off a few nukes and my hat is tipped to whomever chose the site. It is like a vast valley or plain surrounded by mountains in a circular fashion. It would be impossible to sneak up on and there would be nowhere to sneak from to begin with.

Imagine what this place must have been like in 1945. Only a few ranchers, Apache Indians and others who were tough enough to scratch out a living here. Now imagine taking a soldier from say Brooklyn, NY and sending him to be a MP at White Sands. The crayfish on the ground are actually scorpions and no, they are not good eatin! So all you do all day is watch the sand blow and the cactus grow day after day. 110 degree heat is common and the water is very hard with deposits. All this goes on day after day and you really begin to ask WTF am I doing here safe guarding the sand and scorpions from our mortal enemies. Hey I guess it is better than slogging through the jungles of the Pacific or the forests of Bastonge. Then one day in July, all the sudden, KABOOOOOM. Windows as far as 120 miles away are blown out (Keep in mind that Albuquerque is only 80 miles away), a huge fireball rises in the sky, People as far as 17 miles away describe being outside life opening the oven door and now there is a mushroom cloud 20,000 ft in the air. He sheer terror experienced by the common citizens and soldiers who did not know what was being studied at White Sands must have been totally overwhelming. description. I can just imagine some on from the government explaining that a munitions depot exploded and there was nothing to worry about. I cant believe anyone would have bought that line of buffalo dung.

Anyway, The Missile Range is still active and there are lots of “interesting” and “Intriguing” buildings there. I can’t even begin to describe what purpose they might serve and of course we were not allowed to take photos. One all white building looked like it had a railroad bridge with a dirt ramp running across the roof. Very tall pillars surrounding the structure. It looked like you could drive a train over the top of it but there were no tracks. I just don’t know. There was another structure that looked like a huge dirt ramp at the end of a runway. Next to this was a steel frame building with no walls. It looked like you could have stacked 8 gigantic pizzas in there for cooling. There was another building that was covered in a giant tarp like it was being fumigated. Since there are no termite infestations in this area, I would suggest that if anyone was looking for WMD’s, this might be a good place to look. Needless to say, we drove right past this place quickly.

Strange buildings in the Desert

17 miles later, we arrived at the trinity site. There were about 500 people there from all walks, History buffs, Military buffs, Anti Nuke Peace nicks, Asian tour groups, and your average Joes. Where we fit in, I am not sure. Hit the parking lot and then about a 200 yard walk to ground zero. The actual bomb was suspended atop a 100 ft steel tower that was vaporized in the blast. All that remains is one of the four steel footings. There is not a real crater but what I would call a rather large depression. Although the Nuclear Regulatory Commission removed most of the Trinitite 40 yrs ago, it is still all over the ground. What they think happened was that during the explosion, sand was sucked but into the fire ball, heated to 5000 ‘F and then rained down as molten glass. The remaining fireball then reheated and smoothed the glass covered crated. What was left was a concave depression covered with a smooth green glass cap. It must have been quite beautiful. Anyway, it is green, so they say, from oxidized iron and not from glowing uranium but who really knows. I can tell you that there are no cactus growing in this area…..strange. Apparently the radiation level has almost “normalized” so standing at ground zero for 1 hr equates to much less than half the radiation from one chest x-ray. So I filled my pockets with Trinitite in hopes that this would become a cheap form of birth control. I will keep you all posted on how this works. Who knows, I may make millions$$$$$.

This is "Jumbo". The original plan was to detonate the bomb inside it but that plan was scrapped once they discovered that the test would be a success. It was later blown up during a conventional bomb test.

The walk into ground zero.

Replica of "Fat Boy" dropped on Hiroshima.

It was very interesting trying to quantify how one felt being there. I was standing on ground where a nuclear weapon had detonated only 63 years previously. It is amazing to consider the scientific achievement that occurred here in 1945. These scientists accomplished so much, so incredibly quickly that it is truly difficult to appreciate. Germany had surrendered in May but we were still suffering heavy losses in the Pacific and the War had personally touched the lives of all Americans. We were slowly avenging and overcoming the terrible losses of Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Bataan etc… The people involved in the construction of this weapon can only be thought of as heroes and patriots. Equally imposing are the thoughts of human loss and suffering upon Japanese civilians. I wondered about the backgrounds of the Asians I saw at Trinity. Did they have relative that died at Hiroshima or Nagasaki? How different was their perspective from mine? Furthermore, one thought of the less tangible losses caused by nuclear weapons during the ensuing Cold War and weapons race. It all continues today with the war on terror. I wonder how much the people at Trinity in 1945 understood about the ramifications of what they were doing.