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Atomic America: How a Deadly Explosion and a Feared Admiral Changed the Course of Nuclear History
Paperback
Technology & Engineering20th Century United States HistoryWeapons of Mass Destruction
Publisher Price: $21.95
ISBN13: 9780803234024
Publisher: Univ Of Nebraska Pr
Published: Nov 1 2010
Pages: 304
Weight: 1.03
Height: 0.70 Width: 6.00 Depth: 8.90
Language: English
Incorporating the career of Admiral Hyman Rickover, the creator of the nuclear navy, Tucker's work importantly recalls a forgotten warning from nuclear history.--Gilbert Taylor, Booklist
On January 3, 1961, nuclear reactor SL-1 exploded in rural Idaho, spreading radioactive contamination over thousands of acres and killing three men. The army blamed human error and a sordid love triangle. Though overshadowed by Three Mile Island, SL-1 remains the only fatal nuclear reactor incident in American history.
The National Reactor Testing Station, where the meltdown occurred, had been a proving ground where engineers, generals, and admirals attempted to realize the Atomic Age dream of unlimited power--amid the frantic race for nuclear power between the army, the navy, and the air force. The fruit of those ambitious plans included that of the nation's unofficial nuclear patriarch, Admiral Rickover, whose true submarine, the USS Nautilus, would forever change naval warfare. But with the meltdown in Idaho came the end of the army's program and the beginning of the navy's long-standing monopoly on military nuclear power.
Atomic America provides a fast-paced narrative history, advocating caution and accountability in harnessing nuclear energy.
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