Trinity Test Site, Norris Bradbury at Test Tower
Bradbury stands next to the partially assembled Gadget atop the test tower. Assembly of the nuclear capsule began on July 13 at the McDonald Ranch House, where the master bedroom had been turned into a clean room. The polonium-beryllium ""Urchin"" initiator was assembled, and Louis Slotin placed it inside the two hemispheres of the plutonium core. Cyril Smith then placed the core in the uranium tamper plug. Air gaps were filled with ( mm) gold foil, and the two halves of the plug were held together with uranium washers and screws which fit smoothly into the domed ends of the plug. The completed capsule was then driven to the base of the tower. Norris Edwin Bradbury (May 30, 1909 - August 20, 1997) was an American physicist. He served as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory for 25 years (1945-70), succeeding J. Robert Oppenheimer, who personally chose Bradbury for the position of director after working closely with him on the Manhattan Project. During the war he was in charge of the final assembly of ""the gadget"", detonated in July 1945 for the Trinity test. He oversaw the transition of the laboratory from WWII through the Cold War. The Bradbury Science Museum is named in his honor.
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