A sneak peek at hidden history

Every year, teams from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the National Park Service, and the Department of Energy provide tours of historic Manhattan Project sites that aren’t typically open to the public. These tours visit three historic sites: Pond Cabin used by Nobel Laureate Emilio Segrè and his team, the Battleship Bunker built for implosion diagnostic testing, and the Slotin Building—site of Louis Slotin’s deadly criticality accident.

Unfortunately, COVID-19 put a halt to tours, but that isn’t stopping us from sharing our history with you. The Manhattan Project National Historical Park team at the Lab is working on a project that will allow you to tour—virtually—places you would normally never get to visit!

Along with the three sites available in the public tour, the new 360-degree virtual tours will include even more significant Manhattan Project sites scattered across Los Alamos National Laboratory. You can virtually visit V-Site, where Manhattan Project researchers assembled the world’s first nuclear device, nicknamed the “Gadget” before the Trinity Test. Step through the massive concrete walls at Gun Site, one of the earliest testing facilities constructed in Los Alamos. You’ll even see some little known and rarely seen sites that the Lab preserved because of their significance to Project Y.

We look forward to “opening” these sites to the public this summer—keep checking the Bradbury Science Museum website for updates!