Manhattan Project at Hanford Site

Manhattan Project at Hanford Site PDF Author: Elizabeth Toomey
Publisher: Arcadia Library Editions
ISBN: 9781531678388
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 130

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Book Description
The Manhattan Project at Hanford Site describes the top-secret effort undertaken during World War II to develop a weapon never imagined at "Site W" or "Hanford Engineer Works," one of three sites selected in the United States (plus Los Alamos and Oak Ridge) to research and produce weapons that were ultimately used to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki and end World War II. It was a research and engineering feat of unimaginable proportion, and the total project cost for all three sites was $2.1 billion--an unthinkable amount for a country that was coming out of the Great Depression. It is a story of gumption, resolve, tenacity, patriotism, pride, and selflessness for the thousands of people who worked multiple shifts, seven days a week, in a hot, dry, and desolate desert, never knowing what they were working on. It is a tribute to American resolve in the face of overwhelming adversity.

Manhattan Project at Hanford Site

Manhattan Project at Hanford Site PDF Author: Elizabeth Toomey
Publisher: Arcadia Library Editions
ISBN: 9781531678388
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 130

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Manhattan Project at Hanford Site describes the top-secret effort undertaken during World War II to develop a weapon never imagined at "Site W" or "Hanford Engineer Works," one of three sites selected in the United States (plus Los Alamos and Oak Ridge) to research and produce weapons that were ultimately used to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki and end World War II. It was a research and engineering feat of unimaginable proportion, and the total project cost for all three sites was $2.1 billion--an unthinkable amount for a country that was coming out of the Great Depression. It is a story of gumption, resolve, tenacity, patriotism, pride, and selflessness for the thousands of people who worked multiple shifts, seven days a week, in a hot, dry, and desolate desert, never knowing what they were working on. It is a tribute to American resolve in the face of overwhelming adversity.

The Manhattan Project at Hanford Site

The Manhattan Project at Hanford Site PDF Author: Elizabeth Toomey
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1439654255
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
The Manhattan Project at Hanford Site describes the top-secret effort undertaken during World War II to develop a weapon never imagined at "Site W" or "Hanford Engineer Works," one of three sites selected in the United States (plus Los Alamos and Oak Ridge) to research and produce weapons that were ultimately used to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki and end World War II. It was a research and engineering feat of unimaginable proportion, and the total project cost for all three sites was $2.1 billion--an unthinkable amount for a country that was coming out of the Great Depression. It is a story of gumption, resolve, tenacity, patriotism, pride, and selflessness for the thousands of people who worked multiple shifts, seven days a week, in a hot, dry, and desolate desert, never knowing what they were working on. It is a tribute to American resolve in the face of overwhelming adversity.

Legacies of the Manhattan Project

Legacies of the Manhattan Project PDF Author: Mick Broderick
Publisher: Washington State University Press
ISBN: 163682076X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 375

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Book Description
The Hanford History Project held the “Legacies of the Manhattan Project at 75 Years” conference in March 2017. Its Richland, Washington, meeting venue was a stone’s throw from the southern-most edge of the Hanford Nuclear Site--the place where workers produced the plutonium that fueled the “Fat Man” nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The symposium’s appeal extended well beyond local interest. Professionals from a broad array of backgrounds--working scientists, government employees, retired health physicists, downwinders, representatives from community groups, impassioned lay people, as well as scholars working in a host of different academic fields--attended and gave presentations. The diverse gathering, with its wide range of expertise, stimulated a genuinely remarkable exchange of ideas. In Legacies of the Manhattan Project, Hanford Histories series editor Michael Mays combines extensively revised essays first presented at the conference with newly commissioned research. Together, they provide a timely reevaluation of the Manhattan Project and its many complex repercussions, as well as some beneficial innovations. Covering topics from print journalism, activism, nuclear testing, and science and education to health physics, environmental cleanup, and kitsch, the compositions delve deep into familiar matters, but also illuminate historical crevices left unexplored by earlier generations of scholars. In the process, they demonstrate how the Manhattan Project lives on.

Legacies of the Manhattan Project

Legacies of the Manhattan Project PDF Author: Mick Broderick
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780874223750
Category : Atomic bomb
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
"The Hanford History Project held the "Legacies of the Manhattan Project at 75 Years" conference in March 2017. Professionals from a broad array of backgrounds-working scientists, government employees, retired health physicists, downwinders, representatives from community groups, impassioned lay people, and scholars working in a host of different academic fields-attended and gave presentations. The diverse gathering, with its wide range of expertise, stimulated the remarkable exchange of ideas in this book"--

Something Extraordinary

Something Extraordinary PDF Author: Robert L. Ferguson
Publisher: Cms-Author.com
ISBN: 9781948963275
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Finally, a concise but comprehensive narrative of the geopolitics and atomic research that led to the creation of the Manhattan Project--the American effort to develop and deploy the atomic bomb during World War II. Written by two award-winning authors who together have more than a century of direct experience with the subject, this book is unlike any other. A key component of the Manhattan Project was the development of the massive Hanford Site where the plutonium used in America's atomic bombs was produced. The book celebrates the 75th anniversary of the date in 1944 when the first production reactor, the B Reactor, went critical and the plutonium it produced helped win the war. The year 2019 is also the 35th anniversary of the startup of WNP-2, now the Columbia Generating Station, the only nuclear power reactor to be built by the Washington Public Power Supply System. Also, this year is the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Tri- Party Agreement, which governs the cleanup of the Hanford Site. Hanford and the B Reactor played an important role in the Cold War and in the growth and subsequent economic fortunes of the nearby Tri-Cities communities whose economies were directly affected by events at Hanford. When the plutonium production reactors and chemical separation facilities were deactivated, the community sought to find new missions and uses for the Hanford Site. By the 1980s, it was clear that Hanford's mission had finally changed from production to cleanup, ushering in a whole new set of challenges and opportunities that continue to this day. It's all here, from the history of atomic research to the continuing efforts to clean up the Hanford Site. Written for non-technical readers who may be first-time visitors to the Tri-Cities or the B Reactor--now part of the Manhattan Project National Historic Park-- or for those who have lived and worked around the Hanford Site and may want a brief and easy-to-read history of their community.

Working on the Bomb

Working on the Bomb PDF Author: S. L. Sanger
Publisher: Continuing Education Press
ISBN: 9780876781159
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
The history of the Hanford Engineering Works, a site in eastern Washington that produced and separated plutonium for the Manhattan Project.

Restricted Data

Restricted Data PDF Author: Alex Wellerstein
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022602038X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 558

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Book Description
"Nuclear weapons, since their conception, have been the subject of secrecy. In the months after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the American scientific establishment, the American government, and the American public all wrestled with what was called the "problem of secrecy," wondering not only whether secrecy was appropriate and effective as a means of controlling this new technology but also whether it was compatible with the country's core values. Out of a messy context of propaganda, confusion, spy scares, and the grave counsel of competing groups of scientists, what historian Alex Wellerstein calls a "new regime of secrecy" was put into place. It was unlike any other previous or since. Nuclear secrets were given their own unique legal designation in American law ("restricted data"), one that operates differently than all other forms of national security classification and exists to this day. Drawing on massive amounts of declassified files, including records released by the government for the first time at the author's request, Restricted Data is a narrative account of nuclear secrecy and the tensions and uncertainty that built as the Cold War continued. In the US, both science and democracy are pitted against nuclear secrecy, and this makes its history uniquely compelling and timely"--

The Apocalypse Factory: Plutonium and the Making of the Atomic Age

The Apocalypse Factory: Plutonium and the Making of the Atomic Age PDF Author: Steve Olson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393634981
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
A thrilling narrative of scientific triumph, decades of secrecy, and the unimaginable destruction wrought by the creation of the atomic bomb. It began with plutonium, the first element ever manufactured in quantity by humans. Fearing that the Germans would be the first to weaponize the atom, the United States marshaled brilliant minds and seemingly inexhaustible bodies to find a way to create a nuclear chain reaction of inconceivable explosive power. In a matter of months, the Hanford nuclear facility was built to produce and weaponize the enigmatic and deadly new material that would fuel atomic bombs. In the desert of eastern Washington State, far from prying eyes, scientists Glenn Seaborg, Enrico Fermi, and many thousands of others—the physicists, engineers, laborers, and support staff at the facility—manufactured plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, and for the bombs in the current American nuclear arsenal, enabling the construction of weapons with the potential to end human civilization. With his characteristic blend of scientific clarity and storytelling, Steve Olson asks why Hanford has been largely overlooked in histories of the Manhattan Project and the Cold War. Olson, who grew up just twenty miles from Hanford’s B Reactor, recounts how a small Washington town played host to some of the most influential scientists and engineers in American history as they sought to create the substance at the core of the most destructive weapons ever created. The Apocalypse Factory offers a new generation this dramatic story of human achievement and, ultimately, of lethal hubris.

Made in Hanford

Made in Hanford PDF Author: Hill Williams
Publisher: Washington State University Press
ISBN: 1636820557
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
On the eve of World War II, news of an astonishing breakthrough filtered out of Germany. Scientists there had split uranium atoms. Researchers in the United States scrambled to verify results and further investigate this new science. Ominously, they soon recognized its potential to fuel the ultimate weapon--one able to release the energy of an uncontrolled chain reaction. By 1941, experiments led to the identification of plutonium, but laboratory work generated the new element in amounts far too small to be useful. Fearing the Nazis were on the verge of harnessing nuclear power, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gambled on an ambitious project to research and manufacture uranium and plutonium for military use. As research continued, engineers began to construct massive buildings in an isolated eastern Washington farming community. Within two years, Hanford became the world’s first plutonium factory. The incredibly complex operation was accomplished with a speed and secrecy unheard of today; few involved knew what they were building. But on August 9, 1945, when the “Fat Man” fell on Nagasaki, the workers understood their part in changing the world. Hanford’s role did not end there. The facility produced plutonium throughout the Cold War. Some was used in tests conducted halfway around the world. Nuclear bombs were dropped on the Bikini and Enewetak Atolls, profoundly impacting the Marshall Islands people and forever altering their way of life. Through clear scientific explanations and personal reminiscences, Hill Williams traces Hanford’s role in the amazing and tragic story of the plutonium bomb.

The Hanford Plaintiffs

The Hanford Plaintiffs PDF Author: Trisha T. Pritikin
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700629041
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
For more than four decades beginning in 1944, the Hanford nuclear weapons facility in southeastern Washington State secretly blanketed much of the Pacific Northwest with low-dose ionizing radiation, the byproduct of plutonium production. For those who lived in the vicinity, many of them families of Hanford workers, the consequences soon became apparent as rates of illness and death steadily climbed—despite repeated assurances from the Atomic Energy Commission that the facility posed no threat. Trisha T. Pritikin, who has battled a lifetime of debilitating illness to become a lawyer and advocate for her fellow “downwinders,” tells the devastating story of those who were harmed in Hanford’s wake and, seeking answers and justice, were subjected to yet more suffering. At the center of The Hanford Plaintiffs are the oral histories of twenty-four people who joined In re Hanford Nuclear Reservation Litigation, the class-action suit that sought recognition of, and recompense for, the grievous injury knowingly caused by Hanford. Radioactive contamination of American communities was not uncommon during the wartime Manhattan Project, nor during the Cold War nuclear buildup that followed. Pritikin interweaves the stories of people poisoned by Hanford with a parallel account of civilians downwind of the Nevada atomic test site, who suffer from identical radiogenic diseases. Against the heartrending details of personal illness and loss and, ultimately, persistence in the face of a legal system that protects the government on all fronts and at all costs, The Hanford Plaintiffs draws a damning picture of the failure of the US Congress and the Judiciary to defend the American public and to adequately redress a catastrophic wrong. Documenting the legal, medical, and human cost of one community’s struggle for justice, this book conveys in clear and urgent terms the damage done to ordinary Americans in the name of business, progress, and patriotism.