The tower was destroyed, but Jumbo remained intact. Instead, it was suspended from a steel tower 800 meters from ground zero during the test. In the event that the Gadget “fizzled,” or did not properly detonate, Jumbo would preserve the bomb’s rare plutonium for future experimentation.īy the time final preparations for the test were underway, however, scientists were confident that the test would work and so Jumbo was not used. The plan was for the plutonium core to be imploded inside Jumbo. Its production was ordered, at a cost of $12 million, by General Leslie Groves as a containment vessel, because of concerns that the test would not be a success. Jumbo was a massive cylindrical steel container. One unique device that appeared at the Trinity site in the days leading up to the test was Jumbo. An increased density allows the plutonium to reach its critical mass, firing neutrons and allowing the fission chain reaction to proceed. To detonate the device, the explosives were ignited, releasing a shock wave that compressed the inner plutonium and led to its explosion. Plutonium implosion devices use conventional explosives around a central plutonium mass to quickly squeeze and consolidate the plutonium, increasing the pressure and density of the substance. Plutonium implosion devices are more efficient and powerful than gun-type uranium bombs like the Little Boy bomb detonated over Hiroshima. Like the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki, it was a plutonium implosion device. The nuclear device detonated at Trinity, nicknamed “Gadget,” was shaped like a large steel globe. It was a reference to a poem by John Donne, a writer cherished by Oppenheimer as well as his former lover Jean Tatlock. Robert Oppenheimer, Director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during the Manhattan Project, called the site “Trinity.” The Trinity name stuck and became the site’s official code name. Manhattan Project leaders also considered sites elsewhere in New Mexico, as well as in Texas and California. The site, located in the Jornada Del Muerto Desert, was chosen for its isolation, flat ground, and lack of windy conditions. The test was conducted at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, 230 miles south of Los Alamos. Read below for more information about the test, its aftermath, and impacts. This inaugural test ushered in the nuclear era. After three years of research and experimentation, the world’s first nuclear device, the “Gadget,” was successfully detonated in the New Mexico desert.

The efforts of the Manhattan Project finally came to fruition in 1945.

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