In what state was the location of the nuclear detonation that was conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project?
McDonald Ranch House The McDonald Ranch House, also known as Trinity Site, in the Oscura Mountains of Socorro County, New Mexico, was the location of assembly of the world's first nuclear weapon. The active components of the Trinity test "gadget", a plutonium Fat Man-type bomb similar to that later dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, were assembled there on July 13, 1945. The completed bomb was winched up the test tower the following day and detonated on July 16, 1945 as the Trinity nuclear test.
SM-1 SM-1 was a 2-megawatt nuclear reactor developed by the United States Atomic Energy Commission for the US Army Nuclear Power Program (ANPP) in the mid-1950s. The compact "package" reactor was designed to produce electricity and generate heat for remote military facilities. The first, the SM-1, served as the Army's primary training facility to train reactor operations personnel from all three services (Army, Navy and Air Force). In 1954, the Department of Defense placed the US Army in charge of all military nuclear power plants except those used for propulsion by the US Navy. The Army's Chief of Engineers established the US Army Engineer Reactors Group in April 1954, and decided to construct the SM-1 facility at the Corps of Engineers headquarters at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, about 18 miles south of Washington, D.C.. About 800 personnel were trained on the SM-1 during its operational life, from 1957 to 1973. The power plant was shut down in March 1973, and is monitored within a "restricted access" section of the post. Inspectors enter the shut-down operations control room every decade or so, and the building may be demolished "about 50 years" after the reactor core was removed, possibly around 2030.