New tour of an old uranium separating factory

[OCBuckWife]

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (Reuters Life!) - Visiting a nuclear city may be an unusual tourist attraction but the U.S. Department of Energy is finding growing interest in a uranium plant once so secretive it had no address and was not on maps.
From June to September visitors can tour parts of the facility at Oak Ridge in eastern Tennessee which was set up in 1943 and ran 24 hours a day separating uranium 235 from natural uranium.
It was part of the Manhattan Project that eventually produced atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in August 1945.

I have been doing a bit of historical reading lately about factories and factory workers who had no idea what they were working with or making. This article was posted on Reuters on Friday. I guess I missed it. Pretty fascinating that stuff. Odd that it's so popular!



It's a bit....creepy maybe (not the word I was looking for!) that I didn't read it until today, however.



Radium was another substance that wasn't well understood or for profit, the danger was ignored for a long time. The women who painted the luminescent dials of watches would just stick their paintbrushes in their mouths to "point" them.

 

[sandgk]

Please if we could make the tour of Oak Ridge - yes?

 

[OCBuckWife]

Please if we could make the tour of Oak Ridge - yes?

The 2.5 hour tour for 24 visitors, which runs once a day, is restricted to American citizens. The Department of Energy runs a nuclear and high-tech research establishment at the site and performs national security work.

They would have to ask with sugar on top and a cherry!

 

[Taosman]

We could link that tour with this one! And downtown Hiroshima!
We could call it the Trinity Tour. sarcasm

TRINITY SITE

​

Overview

Trinity Site is where the first atomic bomb was tested at 5:29:45 a.m. Mountain War Time on July 16, 1945. The 19 kiloton explosion not only led to a quick end to the war in the Pacific but also ushered the world into the atomic age. All life on Earth has been touched by the event which took place here.
The 51,500-acre area was declared a national historic landmark in 1975.
What You'll See

Included on the Trinity Site tour is Ground Zero where the atomic bomb was placed on a 100-foot steel tower. A small monument now marks the spot. Visitors also see the McDonald ranch house where the world's first plutonium core for a bomb was assembled. The missile range provides historical photographs and a Fat Man bomb casing for display. There are no ceremonies or speakers.

 

[Taosman]

Part 3 of the Trinity Tour.
What was originally the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall has now been turned into the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. The atomic bomb exploded almost directly overhead.

 

[OCBuckWife]

I love this, a sudden sort of out of the blue reminder of pieces of history people forget that is like a mini-wake up call. without the internet, this story would only have been heard locally.

During the ?40s and ?50s, radioactive waste from different sources, including a small company in Beverly that processed uranium for the first atomic bombs, was dumped in Massachusetts Bay. No one seems to know exactly what or how much radioactive junk was tossed overboard, but some suggest it could be tens of thousands of barrels and concrete containers. And it?s down there on the ocean floor in the company of lots of other containers of industrial chemicals and waste that were dropped off at the Massachusetts Bay Industrial Waste Site, which has affectionately come to be known as the ?foul area.?

 

[Taosman]

And sea water eats concrete! Yikes!
"That ain't natural!"