The Very First Nuclear Detonation On The Face Of The Planet That Took Place At The White Sands Missile Range In New Mexico
On a flat stretch of the earth, grubby desert sand for miles in all directions, regular folks from around America take their turn paying homage to an obelisk that stands for complete destruction.
Out here on White Sands Missile Range, the nearest highway is 17 miles to the north, and while such an open, non-descript space might seem too boring to visit, thousands come here every spring and fall for a singular purpose.
This was the site of the Trinity explosion -- that is, the very first nuclear detonation on the face of the planet. Named for the three-figured God of religion, it was an explosion so massive that it was difficult to believe, even for the scientists and mathematicians who made it happen.
When the Trinity atomic blast was unleashed, windows were rattled and broken as many as 120 miles away. Since the atomic program was still a secret in those days, officials said it had been an unintended munitions blast. (No further comment, please).
One-hundred feet below the bomb, the ground was depressed as much as 4 feet in a circular dimple on the planet, and a heat of millions of degrees literally melted the arkosic sand and clay to make a rock that had never existed before. Green and radioactive like the Kryptonite that thwarts Superman, the glassy rock was found all over the bomb site. They called it Trinitite.
In the evening, two hours across this weedy New Mexico desert from her office on the Army Base, Camilla Montoya reflects on the significance of the place.
"It is very quiet and as it gets into the evening it gets very dark," said Montoya, who is the public affairs specialist for the White Sands Missile Range. "I think understanding what occurred here is very impressive and phenomenal. Oftentimes it is hard for me to really grasp what happened at that area."
The Trinity site had all the right characteristics – open space, a large distance to the nearest town -- for military and civilian scientists to choose it for the first atomic blast. It was in consideration among several other parts of New Mexico, but ultimately chosen for its remoteness and the probability that most of the radioactive fallout wouldn't go very far.
There is a deep historical significance to the wind-swept spot. The first atomic bomb was set off in almost laboratory conditions here. The second and third bombs were exploded over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a brutal ending to a brutal war.
The explosions killed between 130,000 and 246,000 people in Japan, an enormous number that was only eclipsed by the death and destruction wrought by the Allied fire-bombing campaigns that happened earlier.
Still, the blast of a single bomb causing that kind of destruction created a new awareness of civilization’s frailty, set against a monumental war machine, a feeling of existential dread that the post-war world ever carried ever since.
It didn’t help the general unease that four years after Trinity, the former USSR set off its first atomic weapon. Since then, the proliferation of atomic weapons – especially high yield, intercontinental and tactical weapons – has set the world on the edge of nuclear self-annihilation.
In a way, that is what many Trinity Site visitors are after: The experience of standing in the place where the first weapon of such strength was exploded, with the knowledge that the nuclear danger persists.
By the way, White Sands Missile Range is huge, with a massive 3,200 square miles of total area. When traveling its expanse, it becomes obvious why the military decided to set off the first bomb here. It stretches one hundred miles north to south. On the far southern end it intersects with the rugged Organ Mountains that shadow the city of Las Cruces.
White Sands Missile Range is about 40 miles wide, and it comprises the vast valley that separates the Organs from the Sacramento Mountains in the east. Going north, the Sacremento range includes popular towns like Cloudcroft and ski resorts like Ruidosa. In the southern middle area lies White Sands National Monument, a vast sea of rolling white gypsum sand dunes. On the northern end is Valley of Fires, an ancient lake of lava.
After World War II, there was a mad scramble for Nazi scientists who had discovered some important new rocket technology. One of the more famous Nazi rocket scientists was Wernher von Braun. In 1945, he was cleared by US security to bring his rocket program to the states, and the first test launches appear to have occurred on the southern tip of White Sands Missile Range.
It is also no coincidence that NASA also settled in this area. German rocket science was an important contributor to the early space program.
"We get about from 3000 to 5000 people (a year)” to visit the Trinity Site, Montoya said. She said it is very easily accessible on paved road from Highway 380, which cuts through the northern part of the missile range. Access to the site is restricted to two days of the year. In 2017 those dates are April 1 and October 7. Montoya said guests come from all over the world and there has been significant media interest from Japanese outlets. Access to the site closes down at 3:30 p.m. on public access days.
A hundred feet below where the bomb exploded there stands a unique obelisk made of stone, and a large plaque that states, “TRINITY SITE WHERE THE WORLD’S FIRST NUCLEAR DEVICE WAS EXPLODED ON JULY 16, 1945.” A smaller plaque down on the obelisk notes that the stone structure is a “National Historic Landmark.”
Radioactivity at the site is not a concern to visitors, as it has dropped to barely measurable levels.
“If you put it under something that would read radioactivity - it will read it – but it is very very low - and it is not the kind of radiation that can be transferred into your body just by touching it,” Montoya said. “It is not dangerous. You'd have to eat 20 pound of it for it to affect you because of the radiation.”
Radioactive fallout being one of the great consequences of atomic or nuclear war, it is not surprising that visitors would be concerned about what remains at the Trinity Site. In the spirit of interpretation, a radioactivity expert joins the crowds on public access days, to talk about how much radiation the typical human absorbs in just everyday life.
In the end, the Trinity Site stands as a testament to the creative and destructive forces of human nature. It is this duality that remains a mystery. How, on the one hand, can we be capable of such creativity, and on the other, of such destruction? It is an answer thousands of visitors from the world are attempting to answer in this stark patch of the New Mexican desert.
David Irvin
A graduate with a Masters Of Science from the University Of North Texas, David has written on many beats including crime and business for such outlets as the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the Montgomery Advertiser & USA. He enjoys RVing and surfing the Internet.
Make Sure To Stay At:
Hacienda RV Resort & Rally Resort, conveniently located immediately off of I -10, at exit 140 in Las Cruces, New Mexico. With an elevation of app. 3900 feet and average winter temperatures of 58 -65 degrees during the day and the lower 30’s to high 20’s at night.