'Oppenheimer' nuclear test site set to open for public
Christopher Nolan's biopic movie Oppenheimer, which is based on atomic bomb creation, has opened gates to many related places. One such place is the Trinity Nuclear Site in the New Mexico desert, the birthplace of the atomic bomb. It is where the first-ever deadliest and most destructive weapon was detonated. And the good news is that it's now set to open for public visits.
It's going to open in October this year
Named after the project's codename, the Trinity Nuclear Site is usually closed to the public. It will be now open for visits in October for the first time since the movie's release. The place has garnered a heightened interest due to the grand success of Oppenheimer. The site opens free of cost for the general public twice a year in April and October.
Details of the public tour
Due to ongoing missile testing near the historic site, public visits are limited to Trinity Nuclear Site twice a year. The site includes a fenced-in site "ground zero" where the bomb exploded, leaving a 100-foot-wide and 10-foot-deep crater in its wake. The public will also be able to see the Schmidt-McDonald Ranch House, where the plutonium core for the Gadget bomb was put together.
The infamous tower
Oppenheimer makes extensive use of the tower that housed the bomb in the film. Although being close to the remaining pieces of the vaporized tower was quite unsettling, only one of the footings of the tower remains today because the rest was vaporized. Back in the day, government officials chose the Trinity Nuclear Site because it was remote, flat, and had predictable winds.
Access to trinitite
The public will also get exposure to 'trinitites'. These were created by the sheer force of the bomb when it was detonated on July 16, 1945. A Time magazine piece referred to it as "a lake of green jade shaped like a splashy star." The trinitite was desert sand that had melted during the blast and then solidified again, as discovered by physicists.
'Not an amusement park'
"There isn't a whole lot here; there's not a lot to do, this isn't an amusement park...but this is the place where the door to the atomic age was kicked open," Drew Hamilton, US Army Public Affairs Specialist for White Sands Missile Range was quoted saying by the New York Times. The location is geared up for its next visitor date of October 21.
