Atoms for Peace????

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Richard Hull
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Atoms for Peace????

Post by Richard Hull »

History time!

I was contacted privately and asked what was Atoms for Peace?

This was the program initiated mainly by the Atomic Energy Commission at the request of the White House around 1956. Eisenhower gave a special speech before the UN in which he stressed the peaceful use of the Atom for the benefit of man.

The AEC started a special program which actually helped distribute nuclear materials and knowledge to developing nations!! A lot of exchange students were brought over under the Atoms for Peace program and educated in fission and other nuclear technologies. If was the AFP program which ultimately declassified the somewhat secretive US fusion effort operated up to that time under the moniker of "Project Sherwood".

The idea of the project didn't just extend to assisting foriegn countries in joining into the peaceful use of the atom, but also into public education here in the US. It fostered and steered youths into carrers in the nuclear industry which was growing by leaps and bounds then.

The whole thing got a shot in the arm with the IGY (International Geophysical Year) 1957-1958.

This was an amazing time on the earth as all nations joined to study the planet and its environment. This included space. America's big coup was to be the launching of the vangaurd satellite. We just wound up incinerating a lot of snakes around the launch pads, instead. It was Russia who ultimately launched sputnik successfully and put the crown on the the IGY.

This and other Russian space achievements in the late fifties seemed to show America that we were not on top at all and the government went into a foaming mouthed frenzy boosting the Atoms for Peace program and the military efforts in rocketry to top priority missions.

One of the main sub-missions was to recruit, foster and actively assist in young people's effort to get into rocketry and nuclear sciences.

I was there. It was a heady time. The army made available firing ranges and even chemicals as young high schoolers launched, under military supervision, metal missles of their own design and construction. Our local group in Richmond launched an 800 pound two stage missle we built in 1961. It held the East Coast amateur record until the program ended in 1965.

Another benefit of the AFP program, which I took advantage of, was the free distribution of radio nuclides to young people in high school. Un-licensed quantities of about 40 different radio isotopes were sent right to residential mailboxes through out the US! All you had to do was write the radioisotope division at Oak Ridge National labs and order as many as you needed. I personally ordered 8 different times in 1961 alone! I got I-131, Sr-90, Co-60, P-32, Am-241, Na-24 and many others whose numbers I no longer remember. In such large numbers, the stuff normally arrived in an 18lb lead pig via normal US Mail. (had to be returned empty in 10 days or suffer a $20.00 pig deposit fee). I ordered freely throughout 62 and 63 as well.

A nice article in an early 60's Scientific American, Amateur Scientist section steered youths to the locations where they could obtain the isotopes for the experiments shown.

In 1964, the isotope distribution was turned over to Oak Ridge based private companies such as Abott Labs, Nuclear Chicago, Berkley Atomics, and others who charged a small fee for the services and packaging (isotopes were free). I still have all the literature including their isotope coupon book!! That's right boys and girls..... you paid a flat $20.00 and got a thick booklet with coupons which were torn out and, based on the coupon numbers required, could be used to order future atomic isotopes. I ordered lots of Co-60 and ultimately had 10 times the un-licensed amount. They never checked old records. Each order was however limited to the maximum un-licensed amount. Multiple and frequent orders allowed stockpiling of long lived isotopes. These folks offered numerous "ATOMIKITS" which included certain hardware and isotopes designed to perform special experiments.

And that's the way it was.

Ultimately the US government issued two of its most beautiful 3 cent commerative stamps in honor of the IGY and the Atoms for Peace program.

It all ended in the late 60's when all those kids of the early cold war who were now engineers and physicists got us to the moon.

Unlicensed micro quantities of about 6 radioisotopes can still be purchased by authorized companies for instrument calibration and such, but at large sums compared to the old days. The Oak Ridge isotope pile is long since quenched and dismantled.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
Tom Dressel
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Re: Atoms for Peace????

Post by Tom Dressel »

One of the ideas that came out of the AFP program was to redig the Panama canal with A-bombs!

The Russian launch of the Sputnik in, I think it was, October of 1958, sent shock waves through America. It ment that the Russians not only had the BOMB but also the means to deliver it.

I was in the seventh grade and I can remember the department of education started a massive testing program to identify anyone with math and science skills. "Use only a number two pencil to mark your answer. Do not open the test booklet until told to do so. Open the booklet. Do this now." I can still remember those words like it was yesterday. The goverment wanted every kid who had gone beyond long division to be an engineer.

Tom
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Re: Atoms for Peace????

Post by guest »

My Dad was involved with the IGY here in Australia, as an engineer in a helicopter crew back in the days when each helicopter had to have an engineer to keep it going. The local Cairns airport still has a brass datum survey point in one of the hangars. The yanks brought such wonders as a nixie altimeter, a mechanical brass computer of some kind and used a super accurate clock, while they did a magnetic field survey
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