Kodak film and the Trinity nuclear tests

[folville]

The New Yorker has an interesting piece on the Trinity tests (nothing timely or new, just interesting). A few paragraphs mention the difficulty of photographing the explosion, but this last paragraph is particularly worthy of reflection:

Because the gadget exploded so close to the ground, the fireball sucked up dirt and debris. Some of it melted and settled back down, cooling into a radioactive green glass that was dubbed Trinitite, and some of it floated away. A minute quantity of the dust ended up in a river about a thousand miles east of Alamogordo, where, in early August, 1945, it was taken up into a paper mill that manufactured strawboard for Eastman Kodak. The strawboard was used to pack some of the company’s industrial X-ray film, which, when it was developed, was mottled with dark blotches and pinpoint stars—the final exposure of the first light of the nuclear age.

 

[x-ray]

That is very interesting. I lived in Oak Ridge TN from 1951 to 1958 where the plutonium for the first bombs was refined along with the Uranium. I believe most of the bomb was built there as well.

The amount of radiation in the atmosphere became significant in the 60's. I lived in Knoxville TN just fifteen or so miles form Oak Ridge. No detonations took place there but we were aware of what was happening and very aware every time a detonation tok place in Nevada. My father was an engineer at the facilities and many of my neighbors worked on weapons associated projects. All of course were extremely secret and no one talked about what they did.

As the US and Russia continued to detonate weapons in the atmosphere the level of cobalt, cesium and strontium isotopes grew to an alarming level. In a mid 60's issue of a science magazine I read there was an article on how to image the fallout. The article said to take a high speed film like TX or Royal pan and cut a section out of a 120 roll about 6" long or use a sheet of film. All being in the dark, wrap the film in black paper and then in a single layer of aluminum foil. Coat the front of the foil with petroleum jelly and place it face up in your yard or on the porch at night where the petroleum jelly would be facing up and open the the open sky. The next morning you were to take the tim into the darkroom and develop it. I do so and as expected there were hundreds of black spots all over the film from radiation exposing it. Dust particles from nuclear detonations formed a cloud around the earth and were falling (fallout) back constantly. They were radio active enough to expose a piece of film over night. Unfortunately we were breathing this into our lungs all the time and all of our food and water were contaminated with it. Cesium and strontium are absorbed into out bones and we're still bombarded with it each and every day. The levels however have decreased by natural decay and fortunately there are no more above ground detonations.

 

[BLKRCAT]

Reminds me of this:

http://www.ago.net/groundbreaking-a...graphic-legacy-of-the-bomb-and-nuclear-energy

I went to the exhibit and it was fascinating.