Anniversary of world's 1st atomic test fuels nuclear debate

Transported in backseat of a blacked-out Plymouth sedan was culmination of years of feverish work a hefty plutonium core that would soon be used to trigger world's first atomic explosion.

Within days of being taken in 1945 from a top-secret installation in mountains of rrn New Mexico to a desert outpost more than 200 miles away, core and or components were assembled for what was code-named Trinity test.

Scientists weren't entirely sure wher Gget would work as intended or if explosion would ignite Earth's atmosphere or maybe le to evaporation of planet.

y found out in early morning hours of July 16, 1945.

detonation forever changed course of history, ensuring end of World War II and marking dawn of atomic . After 75 years, test is both revered for scientific vancements it helped to usher in and vilified for moral and diplomatic implications that still linger in its wake.

Lisa Gordon-Hrty, he of National Nuclear Security ministration, travelled to Los Alamos National Laboratory on Thursday to commemorate anniversary.

lab is kwn as birthplace of atomic bomb where Robert Oppenheimer and a disparate collection of physicists went about untangling oretical and practical challenges of what came to be kwn as Manhattan Project.

immediacy of ir work was fueled by word in late 1930s that German chemists h discovered fission through ir work with uranium and that possibility of Nazis setting up nuclear chain reactions h become more real and could le to construction of bombs.

A group of scientists that included Albert Einstein pressed n-U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt about importance of United States getting jump on Germany.

Gordon-Hrty, a self-described science and history geek, said she often has thought about what it would have been like to stand in Oppenheimer's shoes morning of Trinity test.

I look to good of what happened 75 years ago, she told Associated Press in an interview. It has saved us from world wars. It has saved untold millions perhaps billions of lives over past 75 years through its application in nuclear medicine and science. To me, that can't be glossed over. For ors, atomic test in sourn New Mexico and subsequent tests elsewhere have left a painful legacy.

From uranium miners, truck drivers and government workers to those living in communities near test sites, thousands were exposed over years to riation that resulted in cancer, birth defects and or illnesses.

Members of New Mexico's congressional delegation say riation exposure has disproportionately affected mirity communities, including those in show of that first test. lawmakers have been pushing to expand federal government's compensation program to include downwinders" in Tularosa Basin.

programme currently covers workers who became sick as a result of riation hazards of ir jobs and those who lived downwind of Neva Test Site.

Tina Cordova, a cancer survivor and co-founder of Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, says many people who lived near Trinity Site weren't told it involved an atomic weapon until U.S. dropped bombs on Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and World War II ended.

It's horribly disheartening and unforgivable to be relegated to thingness like we don't count for anything while or people are being taken care of," she said, accusing federal government of looking or way for deces.

She said sacrifices of those who lived near Trinity Site go beyond health implications from fallout. At that time, she said many women who lived in rural area were on ir own, taking care of ir children, while ir husbands were fighting in war. Her grandfar was among m; he was buried in Europe.

Cordova and ors also have concerns about New Mexico's continued ties to nuclear research, bomb-making and resulting waste, saying state alrey has me eugh sacrifices for good of country.

Los Alamos is preparing to resume production of plutonium cores that serve as triggers for nation's nuclear arsenal. re also are plans by a private company to build an interim stor site in sourn New Mexico for spent nuclear fuel from power plants across U.S., and re has long been a talk about federal government's underground nuclear waste repository near Carlsb possibly taking on more waste.