Eighty years ago today: A false sun over Trinity

I’m listening to a WWII audio book novel written by a naval captain.

It describes the awesom power of this test as the characters were eyewitnesses.

Weird coincidence that the book explosion was two days before the anniversary.

A never-ending horror.

Fallout from that test starting the vast number of premature deaths that have plagued this country since. All the other open air testing that followed continued the tragedy.

I will dare say that those nuke tests have been the cause of more American premature deaths than the casualties of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Choking out from cancer over the decades isn’t as striking as shadows on stone walls and burn ward photos.

I had a USAF colonel friend who owned a small piece of Trinitite. He got it from one of the scientists who took him to the site and gave it to him. He let me see and hold it. Thank you Ciaphas for jogging my memory of him and this little report.

USA Today story: 80 years later, victims of ‘first atom bomb’ will soon be eligible for reparations

Fallout from that test starting the vast number of premature deaths that have plagued this country since. All the other open air testing that followed continued the tragedy.

If that’s the case, why is life expediency 15 years greater today than in 1945?

I was at the Trinity site in 1995.

Atomic Cocktail--The Slim Gaillard Quartette (1946)

I will dare say that those nuke tests have been the cause of more American premature deaths than the casualties of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Choking out from cancer over the decades isn’t as striking as shadows on stone walls and burn ward photos.

You are surrounded with radiation from many sources. But I might suggest we get that kind of information from the movies and tv?

https://www.epa.gov/radiation/radiation-sources-and-doses

Average U.S. Doses and Sources
All of us are exposed to radiation every day, from natural sources such as minerals in the ground, and man-made sources such as medical x-rays. According to the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP), the average annual radiation dose per person in the U.S. is 6.2 millisieverts (620 millirem)

Perhaps there’s a reason it was 80 years between the Pearl Harbor bombing and the Sep 11 attacks.

bkmk

“For we who grew up tall and proud
In the shadow of the mushroom cloud...”

Perhaps there’s a reason it was 80 years between the Pearl Harbor bombing and the Sep 11 attacks.

Actually 60 years between the two, but who’s counting. ;~))

PLUS, plenty of atmospheric radioactive fallout from 1940s through 1961.

You know, IN ADDITION to all that natural stuff.

This is from an e-mail I received a couple of years ago from an old high school classmate. It’s long, but very interesting.

In Jan, 1939,, a “Refugee of Note” arrived at the New York Harbour, and non-other than Enrico Fermi, recent recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics. Although being a Physicist, Dr. Fermi and Dad worked closely together Dr. Fermi and his wife Laura could speak very good English as did their children Guido and Nella. Dad worked with him on the Manhattan Project at Columbia and then - in l944— we traveled to Chicago where Dr. Fermi and Dad along with many other chemists and physicists set up the first chair-reaction or controlled burn as Dad would say. Dad’s job was to provide the highest grade of carbon to put the rods through to control the extent of and to control the experimental the burn rate or “chain reaction” The procedure was conducted in an old handball court at the University of Chicago. More experiments needed to be done to keeo the development of the Bomb in totally secrecy, And, the titular head being J. Robert Oppenheimer as well was General Leslie Groves. Dad said to me over the years that Oppenheimer was more poet than physicist naming the site of the first bomb site at Los Alamos named by him as “Trinity”. As a small boy I really loved living out West . Lost os scientists children, and especially Guido and Nella, the kids of Laura and Dr. Fermi. I remember the test bomb being called the “Gadget” and not a bomb which was placed on a 100 foot tower with all the scientists 7 miles distant in a trench they had built. We, my Mother, my sister Joanne, Laura, Nella and Guido, we kids were pretty -much-stuffed in the back seat but we were all just small kids. All of us had heavy dark glasses on to look through and we were 22 miles away in a little Western village named after the tall cactus. [cacti/. I believe it was July 15, 1945. The morning sun rose and it was early around 5:45 AM. Then the explosion. Our 1941 Oldsmobile, I clearly remember that it rocked back and forth many times that early morning. It was frightening to say the least. Mom was the driver that day - she was so athletic back in her early years. She and Laura knew the explosion was a success and their good reactions spread to us in the back seat. We stayed at our little shot gun shack in Los Alamos for another month and then drove back to our home in Garden City, LI, Ny. Dad worked on the Plutonium and U238 bombs, used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These were “fission bombs” used in Japan less than a month later. Killing over 260 thousand Civilians... Dad and the other scientists were told that these bombs were going to be dropped on Tokyo Bay to cause a large wave - now known or referred to as a Tsunami to frighten the Japanese to settle the War. But of course this was not done. Dr. Edward Teller asked my Dad to work with him on the “fusion” or thermonuclear bomb but Dad declined to be part of that as well as a lot of other scientists declined. Dr Fermi died in 1954 with stomach cancer from radiation poisoning. We thought that my Dad died a normal death being in his 80’s, but no. When they took his blood out for a proper burial the radiation “collected” or “amplified” and heated Dad’ casket so that it “melted” and he fell out the bottom of it, and there was smoke from that but I do not know if you saw all of that. His Roentgen rating was high with his blood removed which is a measure of radiation poisoning. The Atomic Energy Commission was closed, and I was directed to call the DOD which I did. They came during the middle of the night and put a two inch lead shield from top to bottom and sides of his casket.....At death he only weighed 130 lbs. Our house for many years was an “on-going” seminar in the evenings for former scientists who were with Dad and Dr. Fermi at Columbia, Chicago and Los Alamos. Never will forget the Day, my Dad was mad at me and Mr Johns for getting a 93 in Physics. He came after school the next day and had a long talk with our physics teacher, Mr John Jasper. Dad even told him about the night the Neals Bohr, and Al Einstein came by our shot-gun shack in Alamos to play music and Einstein played his Stradivarius and my Mother played on an old op-right Piano we had bought 16 miles away in Santa Fe a few weeks before. My Mother practiced German classicals for weeks before this event for she was a concert pianist and wanted to play the German Masters that A.E. would play with her on his Stradivarius. Joanne, my wonderful sister and I were allowed to stay up late that night and listen to their splendid music, hear their laughter and to see our parents enjoying sand engaging their lives to the fullest extent.......You know my Dad and Mom [married more than 50 years] would never let me forget that night or the early mid-July morning of 1945. In Jan, 1939,, a “Refugee of Note” arrived at the New York Harbour, and non-other than Enrico Fermi, recent recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics. Although being a Physicist, Dr. Fermi and Dad worked closely together Dr. Fermi and his wife Laura could speak very good English as did their children Guido and Nella. Dad worked with him on the Manhattan Project at Columbia and then - in l944— we traveled to Chicago where Dr. Fermi and Dad along with many other chemists and physicists set up the first chair-reaction or controlled burn as Dad would say. Dad’s job was to provide the highest grade of carbon to put the rods through to control the extent of and to control the experimental the burn rate or “chain reaction” The procedure was conducted in an old handball court at the University of Chicago. More experiments needed to be done to keeo the development of the Bomb in totally secrecy, And, the titular head being J. Robert Oppenheimer as well was General Leslie Groves. Dad said to me over the years that Oppenheimer was more poet than physicist naming the site of the first bomb site at Los Alamos named by him as “Trinity”. As a small boy I really loved living out West . Lost os scientists children, and especially Guido and Nella, the kids of Laura and Dr. Fermi. I remember the test bomb being called the “Gadget” and not a bomb which was placed on a 100 foot tower with all the scientists 7 miles distant in a trench they had built. We, my Mother, my sister Joanne, Laura, Nella and Guido, we kids were pretty -much-stuffed in the back seat but we were all just small kids. All of us had heavy dark glasses on to look through and we were 22 miles away in a little Western village named after the tall cactus. [cacti/. I believe it was July 15, 1945. The morning sun rose and it was early around 5:45 AM. Then the explosion. Our 1941 Oldsmobile, I clearly remember that it rocked back and forth many times that early morning. It was frightening to say the least. Mom was the driver that day - she was so athletic back in her early years. She and Laura knew the explosion was a success and their good reactions spread to us in the back seat. We stayed at our little shot gun shack in Los Alamos for another month and then drove back to our home in Garden City, LI, Ny. Dad worked on the Plutonium and U238 bombs, used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These were “fission bombs” used in Japan less than a month later. Killing over 260 thousand Civilians... Dad and the other scientists were told that these bombs were going to be dropped on Tokyo Bay to cause a large wave - now known or referred to as a Tsunami to frighten the Japanese to settle the War. But of course this was not done. Dr. Edward Teller asked my Dad to work with him on the “fusion” or thermonuclear bomb but Dad declined to be part of that as well as a lot of other scientists declined. Dr Fermi died in 1954 with stomach cancer from radiation poisoning. We thought that my Dad died a normal death being in his 80’s, but no. When they took his blood out for a proper burial the radiation “collected” or “amplified” and heated Dad’ casket so that it “melted” and he fell out the bottom of it, and there was smoke from that but I do not know if you saw all of that. His Roentgen rating was high with his blood removed which is a measure of radiation poisoning. The Atomic Energy Commission was closed, and I was directed to call the DOD which I did. They came during the middle of the night and put a two inch lead shield from top to bottom and sides of his casket.....At death he only weighed 130 lbs. Our house for many years was an “on-going” seminar in the evenings for former scientists who were with Dad and Dr. Fermi at Columbia, Chicago and Los Alamos. Never will forget the Day, my Dad was mad at me and Mr Johns for getting a 93 in Physics. He came after school the next day and had a long talk with our physics teacher, Mr John Jasper. Dad even told him about the night the Neals Bohr, and Al Einstein came by our shot-gun shack in Alamos to play music and Einstein played his Stradivarius and my Mother played on an old op-right Piano we had bought 16 miles away in Santa Fe a few weeks before. My Mother practiced German classicals for weeks before this event for she was a concert pianist and wanted to play the German Masters that A.E. would play with her on his Stradivarius. Joanne, my wonderful sister and I were allowed to stay up late that night and listen to their splendid music, hear their laughter and to see our parents enjoying sand engaging their lives to the fullest extent.......You know my Dad and Mom [married more than 50 years] would never let me forget that night or the early mid-July morning of 1945.

Apologies for the above format. It didn’t look like that when I copied it, and I don’t know how to re-do it. Sorry.

People stopped smoking.......

As one observer said, was a thing engineered by the minds of men.

That can end it all imagine two crazy people in a silo witha a insane cause to use it.