The trip to Ground Zero was 133 miles from the gas station across the street from my motel in Alamogordo. It was a 2 hour drive over two-lane roads in very remote regions.
(Note: You may also want to check out what I wrote at breakfast before my drive to Ground Zero: Light Unspeakable )
Once I got into the missile range itself (no photography except at Ground Zero), I noticed a little hilly area with buildings on top of it; one of which had a large white sphere-shaped object that reminded me of Canopy Tower (a radar tower?). There were other buildings nearby. It wasn't until later that I realized that I was looking at Compañia Hill, the 20-mile observation spot from where the Trinity Test was observed.
I drove 20 miles into the range to Ground Zero. I passed some interesting-looking things for test explosions. No pictures, tho (cameras and film will be confiscated if....) Approaching the site, which sits within a circular fenced-off area, I saw faded signs with the three-pronged symbol for nuclear radiation. I parked, put on warm things, and then walked a little ways to get to Ground Zero itself.
You can see a little cluster to the right just before entering the fenced-in area. There was a display of radioactive items, geiger counters, and trinitite (the name for the green-colored glassy substance that was made when the heat of the blast fused the desert sand.)
Within the wide-open perimeter of the Ground Zero area there stands a monument that marks the spot where, 100 feet above, the world's first nuclear device was exploded.
Here's a close-up of the plaque.
Although the explosion took place in 1945, it wasn't until 20 years later that this monument was built. Before that, there had been a wooden sign stencilled with the words "Ground Zero."
10 years after the monument was erected, another plaque was added:
This site possesses national significance in commemorating the history of this country: Well, duh! (to say nothing of the history of our species!)
Very near the monument there are the remains of the 100-foot high tower that held "the gadget." The tower was vaporized in the explosion, but the footings remained. Here is the single remaining tower footing, with a replica of the "Fat Man" bomb visible in the background.
The Fat Man bomb was a plutonium bomb activated by implosion--setting off many simultaneous explosions (using standard explosive material) directed inward to compress the plutonium into a supercritical mass that would begin an out-of-control chain reaction--an atomic explosion. It was a dicey enough method that it required a test beforehand--the Trinity Test, and the Fat Man bomb was the second atomic bomb used against Japan, dropped over Nagasaki.
Behind Fat man, along the fence's perimeter, there were pictures of the Trinity Site-- the base camp, the MacDonald Ranch house a couple of miles away, where the final assembly of the plutonium bomb took place, the wires that led away from Ground Zero to the control bunkers 10,000 yards away (~6 miles), a picture of "the gadget" atop the tower, and pictures of the explosion itself.
Notice the time mark on this, as well as the 100-meter marker. That marked area is a little longer than the length of a football field.
This is the bomb after 1/10 of a second:
Here is a top view of Ground Zero taken 28 hours after the explosion:
At the entrance to the Ground Zero area, there are the exploded remains of something called Jumbo--the largest item to be transported to the Trinity Site. It was designed to contain the bomb and, if the nuclear explosion was a failure, to contain the implosion-explosion so that the Trinity Test crew could salvage the plutonium. (If the explosion was a success, Jumbo would be vaporized in the atomic explosion). The idea to use Jumbo was abandoned closer to the time of the test, and it was placed elsewhere at the Trinity site. A couple of years later, the ends of jumbo were blown up. Jumbo lays at the entrance to the Trinity Site.
A bus took us to the Macdonald Ranch house a couple of miles away, where we could see where the final bomb assembly took place.
It began raining when I was at the Macdonald ranch house. Here's the view out one of the windows.
The group I went with to the Macdonald ranch house was the last group of the day to visit; we were taken back to the parking lot where we got in our cars and drove out of the Trinity Site in pouring rain, complete with thunder and lightning.
Strange to experience the storm--natural bright lights and loud sounds in an October afternoon. I recalled the story that the test was postponed by a thunder n lightning storm the night before it happened. I smelled the wet-desert smells and thought of those who were there at the time. I felt vulnerable driving through flat, wide open places with lighting striking all around me.
After my earlier musings on Light Unspeakable, I read the words of those who were there during the explosion:
The effects could well be called unprecedented, magnificent, beautiful, stupendous, and terrifying. No man-made phenomenon of such tremendous power had ever occurred before. The lighting effects beggared description. The whole country was lighted by a searing light with the intensity many times that of the midday sun.
—Brig. Gen Thomas Farrell
Hans Bethe, one of the contributing scientists, wrote, "it looked like a giant magnesium flare which kept on for what seemed a whole minute but was actually one or two seconds. The white ball grew and after a few seconds became clouded with dust whipped up by the explosion from the ground and rose and left behind a black trail of dust particles."
Joe McKibben, another scientist, said, "We had a lot of flood lights on for taking movies of the control panel. When the bomb went off, the lights were drowned out by the big light coming in through the open door in the back."
Others were impressed by the heat they immediately felt. Military policeman Davis said, "the heat was like opening up an oven door, even at 10 miles." Dr. Phillip Morrison said, "Suddenly, not only was there a bright light but where we were, 10 miles away, there was the heat of the sun on our faces ... Then, only minutes later, the reals sun rose and again you felt the same heat to the face from the sunrise So we saw two sunrises."
—Excerpts from the informational booklet handed to Trinity Site visitors from the White Sands Missile Range.
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