A gaggle of journalists had been allowed to tour a weapons laboratory deep underground in Frenchman Flat, Nevada. NPR’s science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel was amongst them.
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Final week, NPR’s Geoff Brumfiel reported from a top-secret underground laboratory the place scientists examine nuclear weapons. We needed to know, how on this planet did he get down there? So we requested him, and he filed this reporter’s pocket book with the backstory.
GEOFF BRUMFIEL, BYLINE: I’ve gotten into a couple of of those extremely categorised locations over time, and there is probably not any trick to it. You simply form of need to hold asking. The primary time I did for this one was really in Vienna, Austria, imagine it or not, at a technical convention about underground nuclear testing. Talking was the lady who was in control of America’s nuclear weapons. Her identify is Jill Hruby.
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JILL HRUBY: Hi there, everybody. It is a pleasure and honor…
BRUMFIEL: The world’s main nuclear powers have not really examined weapons in many years, and Hruby on this speech was making it very clear that the U.S. needed to maintain it that manner.
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HRUBY: Now we have not carried out a nuclear explosive take a look at since 1992 and haven’t any plans to take action.
BRUMFIEL: Then she began speaking about what the U.S. is doing, how they run laptop simulations they usually do every kind of experiments to ensure the nuclear weapons nonetheless work. Some are achieved at authorities laboratories…
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HRUBY: Different experiments are carried out underground on the former Nevada take a look at web site.
BRUMFIEL: …The place the nuclear assessments used to occur. Now, I’ve heard about these underground experiments. They’re extremely categorised. However Hruby begins speaking about internet hosting guests down there to point out them what they’re as much as. So after she is completed, I keep in mind going as much as her in entrance of the Hofburg Palace, and I feel I may need simply requested her proper there about whether or not she’d be open to reporters visiting. I did not get a solution straight away, however I stored asking. And a 12 months and a half later…
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: All proper. Good morning, everyone.
BRUMFIEL: …I used to be on a tour bus north of Las Vegas with a handful of different reporters driving throughout this lovely, empty desert panorama the place the U.S. authorities used to detonate nuclear weapons. About 800 folks work on the market at the moment.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: So we’re type of our personal little metropolis, which is required once you simply skilled the drive that our workforce does each morning.
BRUMFIEL: OK. So I am in. I am able to go underground, however then comes the protection video.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: Welcome to PULSE, the Principal Underground Laboratory for Subcritical Experimentation.
BRUMFIEL: And it begins out, like, fairly regular.
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UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: Security is the best precedence of PULSE.
BRUMFIEL: However that is an underground lab the place they blow up weapons-grade plutonium with excessive explosives, so fairly shortly, issues get bizarre.
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UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: Any kind of underground fireplace will generate toxic carbon monoxide gasoline.
BRUMFIEL: If that occurs, put in your emergency respirator.
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UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: The air you might be respiration might get heat or scorching. It might be scorching sufficient to blister the within of your mouth.
BRUMFIEL: So principally, if something occurs, we’re useless, however someone ought to be capable to get our corpses to the floor.
However, look, you already know, I am into it. I am one of many final Chilly Warfare children. I’ve obtained a background in physics. That is actually my jam. So arduous hat, test. Flashlight, test. Emergency respirator, test. Let’s go. We step into this previous mining elevator.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: All proper, watch your step getting onto the cage.
BRUMFIEL: And whoosh, we simply drop it to pitch blackness. And when that door opens…
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BRUMFIEL: …I am identical to, wow, I am really right here. I’ve seen footage of those tunnels for many years, and I by no means thought I would get down right here. David Funk leads us round.
DAVID FUNK: Yeah. We’ll go right down to the zero room. So that you guys know we known as floor zero the place we did our nuclear explosive testing? So we name it the zero room. It form of hearkens again to that date.
BRUMFIEL: In actual fact, they advised us they hadn’t had reporters down right here for the reason that ’90s once I was in highschool. And, you already know, I am making an attempt to play cool and let the opposite reporters ask their questions, but it surely’s clear I am manner too excited.
FUNK: Simply previous to what can be the nuclear section…
BRUMFIEL: And the way a lot plutonium – sorry. How a lot plutonium will you be utilizing in these assessments?
FUNK: Yeah, no.
BRUMFIEL: You’ll be able to’t inform us.
FUNK: Yeah. Proper.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINERY CLANKING)
BRUMFIEL: The science they’re doing in these tunnels – they do it so America would not have to check any extra nuclear weapons. However there is a new arms race beginning, and there is speak of nuclear testing once more. Most individuals do not learn about it, identical to they do not know about these secret tunnels beneath the desert. Geoff Brumfiel, NPR Information.
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