CHALLENGE #15 – ANSWERED

The picture above is not the real focus of the CHALLENGE. The stone object must just be some random unimportant pylon. Anyway, below, there are 2 pictures of some strange man. And, there are two important items in the background of both pictures. The cylindrical black item is Little Boy (“LB”). Next, the plump yellow item is Fat Man (“FM”). And, for those of you that do not know what Little Boy and Fat Man are…shame on you. I will leave up to you to do that bit of research on your own (or you can see the explanation in next week’s ANSWER). Anyway, while the replicas are the same, the strange man is obviously in 2 totally different locations that explore this critical bit of history. So, I ask you…

Here are the short answers to the CHALLENGE…

First, where is the strange man in the left picture? National Museum of US Air Force in Dayton, OH

Second, where is the strange man in the right picture? Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos, NM

Third, to salvage pride, can you at least identify the location of the random unimportant pylon in the feature picture? Trinity Site in New Mexico

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Now, for those interested in the long answer to the CHALLENGE, I give you some Atomic Bomb Development 101…

When the United States was developing the atomic bomb (i.e. Manhattan Project) during World War II, they basically ended up making 3 atomic bombs. “The Gadget” was the code name of the prototype bomb. This prototype consisted of 13 pounds of processed plutonium. On July 16, 1945, the Atomic Age began when the US detonated The Gadget in a remote desert site in New Mexico. And, the code name for this detonation was “Trinity.” The feature photo (third part of CHALLENGE) shows the Trinity Site Obelisk which marks the site of the first atomic detonation. For full disclosure, I have NOT visited the Trinity Site. Its possible to visit, but not easy. Its on a military base that only allows visitors to Trinity once or twice per year. There is a fair amount of red tape to get there and plenty of people want to do it.

The Trinity Site is way out in the middle of a New Mexico desert. And, this site is a few hours from Los Alamos, New Mexico. While work relating to the Manhattan Project occurred in several areas of the country (e.g. Oak Ridge, TN and Hanford, WA), the primary development and creation of the atomic bombs was at the Los Alamos National Laboratories. The story of Los Alamos would be a worthy post in itself. One day in 1943, Los Alamos was just a quiet, sleepy, mountain town in New Mexico. The next day, the government descended on the region…hustled out the non-essentials…and created the new heavily guarded, highly classified, center of the atomic world.

In addition to Gadget, there was Little Boy and Fat Man. The codename for the uranium enriched atomic bomb was Little Boy. The US dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Additionally, the code name for the plutonium enriched atomic bomb was Fat Man. The US dropped Fat Man on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Little Boy and Fat Man were designed and appear quite different because of the physics of detonating uranium (Little Boy) versus plutonium (Fat Man). And, that’s as deep as my physics goes.

As you walkabout Los Alamos, there are many reminders of the atomic history of the city. The best, non-classified way to learn about the Manhattan Project and its connection to the city is the Bradbury Science Museum. The location of right hand picture above (second part of CHALLENGE) is the Bradbury Science Museum in downtown Los Alamos. Beyond the nuclear bomb replicas, the Science Museum does a great job detailing the Manhattan Project and the history of the Los Alamos National Labs. If you are going to visit Los Alamos, spend a couple hours learning history at the Bradbury Science Museum.

Lastly, there is the left hand picture above (first part of CHALLENGE). The other replicas of Little Boy and Fat Man can be found at the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, OH. But, there is far more at the Dayton museum than these replicas. Yes, the place is huge. Its several large hangers. Each of which contains some aspect of the history of the Air Force. Anything and everything related to the Air Force, air planes, rockets, space shuttles can be found here. It even has the old Air Force One(s) used by past Presidents. Depending on how much you read, you could spend the whole day here. For me, about 3 hours was good enough. And the best part…its FREE. I can not think of a better FREE tourist attraction in Ohio than the Dayton Air Force Museum. PT

p.s. Just for laughs and giggles, here are a couple left over pictures on today’s ANSWER…

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