The RaLa/Bayo Canyon National Laboratory) for one year of on- Implosion Program the-job training in health physics and nuclear weapon design. Three days after arrival I found myself at the Nevada Test 1. Introduction Site for the Operation Hardtack II above ground nuclear weapon tests that The RaLa/Bayo Canyon concluded October 31, 1958. When I Implosion Experiments returned to Los Alamos I moved from one facility to another learning accelerator safety, critical assembly John C. Taschner Los Alamos Technical Associates safety, personnel dosimetry, bioassay, 1840 Corleone Dr. and all other aspects of health physics. I Sparks, NV 89434 775/356-0474 also spent about six weeks in nuclear
[email protected] weapons engineering. One of my assignments was to provide Figure 1. The RaLa/Bayo Canyon field monitoring support to the project Implosion Experiments call RaLa, the use of radioactive lanthanium-140 to diagnose nuclear A. Biographical Sketch weapon implosion. From 1944 to 1962 the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory Biographical Sketch (now Los Alamos National Laboratory - LANL) conducted 254 experiments that • 1953 – 1974 Air Force Health Physicist 140 1958 – 1959 Los Alamos Training used radioactive La as a diagnostic • 1974 – 1983 U. S. Public Health Service tool to determine implosion • 1983 – 1992 Naval Sea Systems Command • 1992 – 2002 Los Alamos National In 1994, DOE opened up a Pandora’s Laboratory Box with the release of records that 1994 – 1995 Human Studies Project Team pertained to human radiation exposure experiments that had been conducted Figure 2. Biographical Sketch under the Manhattan Engineering District and the Atomic Energy I am a very retiring person.