The Atomic Age began with the Trinity explosion in the New Mexico desert in July 1945, followed by the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki less than a month later. But it was during the Cold War that the U.S. government drastically increased the number of nuclear tests.
Between 1945 and 1962, more than 200 detonations were carried out under various operations, and almost all of them were documented on about 10,000 films. To preserve their content, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory began the process of declassification and digitization.
The Operations and the Films
U.S. nuclear testing after the end of World War II resumed with Operation Crossroads at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. Only two detonations, Able and Baker, were carried out, but a third explosion (Charlie) was scheduled and later canceled. Activity continued in 1948 with Sandstone, operations Ranger, Greenhouse and Buster-Jangle in 1951, Tumbler-Snapper in 1952, and Ivy that same year, which led to the detonation of Mike, the first thermonuclear bomb. Between 1945 and 1962, the United States conducted 210 nuclear tests. The explosions were recorded with the best technology available at the time, and their declassification was not entirely uniform. An estimated ten thousand films still carry the Top Secret seal on their cans, but time is winning (cellulose acetate decomposes), and they risk being lost forever.
The Digitization Effort
At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, led by physicist Greg Spriggs, they hope to rescue as many films as possible, digitize the content, and achieve their later declassification. So far, this project has processed about 4,200 films, of which 750 have been released, and it is already possible to watch 63 on YouTube.
The videos come mainly from the operations Dominic, Hardtack 1 (1958), Plumbbob (1957), Upshot-Knothole (1953), Castle (1954) and Teapot (1955). In addition to the historical value, Dr. Spriggs explains that there is no data on modern nuclear weapons because the CTBT prohibits high-altitude tests, and all scientists have to work with are those old films that are falling apart.
Even so, digitizing and restoring the films is only half the equation. The other half is consumed by the bureaucratic declassification process. Each request must go through the Department of Energy, even though all the tests are already widely known and well documented...
