Encountering The Atomic Age 80 Years After Hiroshima In Las Vegas

Forbes

3 days ago

A 110-degree day in Las Vegas, a city dedicated to entertainment and capitalism, seems a strange place to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
Yet Las Vegas has its own, long nuclear history, including 900 nuclear tests, tourists partying in the light of atomic explosions, and the sad story of nuclear workers and 'downwinders' exposed to radiation. This fascinating tale is told at the National Atomic Testing Museum, also known as The Atomic Museum, in Las Vegas. It is located just east of the Strip and north of Harry Reed Airport.
We visited the museum on August 6, 2025, exactly 80 years after the B-29 Enola Gay dropped the world's first atomic bomb, 'Little Boy,' on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. It is estimated to have killed 70,000-80,000 people instantly, the highest casualty rate in a day from a single weapon of any kind.
When Japan did not surrender, the United States dropped a second bomb, 'Fat Man,' on Nagasaki on August 9th, killing between 60,000 and 80,000.
The Atomic Museum had an exhibit to remember the victims, including a book, The Light of Morning, Memoirs of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors. The Museum also provided special paper to make paper cranes, a long-time symbol of peace. On August 28, the Museum is doing a free Zoom, 'Remembrance for Hiroshima and Nagasaki,' with a Hiroshima survivor giving testimony.
But the Atomic Museum does not appear to be apologizing for its subject, the history of nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons testing, and Nevada's role in the Cold War.
One of the most compelling exhibits at the Museum is 'Ground Zero Theater.' Guests are ushed into a dark windowless concrete room uncomfortably suggestive of a fallout shelter. The red warning lights go out. In a moment, an enormous explosion fills the screen. Seconds later, the room shakes with the simulation of a nuclear test.
In the video, we see soldiers in a trench sheltering from the blast. A retired scientist says he considers himself a soldier of the Cold War—and that they'd do it all over again.
I could not help but remember the comments of my late father and father-in-law, respectively a young Navy aerographer and Army Signal Corps soldier. Each felt that dropping the bombs made the invasion of Japan, in which a million casualties were expected, unnecessary, saving their lives. President Truman, who ultimately chose to drop the bomb,called it the "most terrible decision that any man in the history of the world had to make.' Yet he added that "I'd do it again" and "I would not hesitate."
Neither the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima nor the one that followed three days later at Nagasaki was developed in Nevada. The Manhattan Project, which developed the original atomic bomb, officially began on June 18, 1942 and was shut down on August 25, 1947. The Manhattan Project employed over 130,000 people throughout the United States, in Hanford, WA, Oak Ridge, TN, Chicago, IL and most famously, Los Alamos, New Mexico. The Atomic Age began there with the 21-kiloton Trinity explosion on July 16, 1945.
The Atomic Museum documents much of the history around the creation, building and testing of The Bomb. One exhibit hall is dedicated to the role of Einstein in persuading President Roosevelt to build an atomic weapon before World War II, before the Nazis could create one. There is also much on physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led the Manhattan Project in building and testing the weapon at Los Alamos.
When Oppenheimer watched the massive blast, he quoted the Bhagavad-Gita; 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' (The Christopher Nolan film about him and the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer, won seven Academy Awards in 2024.) As for future wars fought with nuclear weapons, former Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev reportedly said, 'The living will envy the dead.'
The museum has several (inert) atomic bombs, including a real 'Fat Boy.' The rotund bomb is similar to the one used in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
Another room of the Museum, Atomic Odyssey, brings the world of atoms, reactions, and radiation to adults and STEM students alike. The exhibits, many hands-on, include 'Elemental People' who created new elements of the Periodic Table. There are also some off-beat nuclear efforts like a cargo ship and the Ford Nucleon, meant to be powered by a small atomic reactor.
The museum is packed with 'atomic age' relics. These include bombs, rockets, drill bits used for underground tests, Geiger counters and Native American artifacts from the original desert inhabitants. There are also Pop Culture atomic-themed toys, films, comics, music and games.
Post-World War II atomic tests were held in the Pacific, most famously at Bikini Atoll. (Yes, the bikini was named after the atomic blasts there.) But in December 1950, President Harry Truman designated a 680-square mile area of the Nellis Air Force Gunnery and Bombing Range as the Nevada Proving Grounds, later the Nuclear Test Site.
The Nevada desert was chosen due to its large, government-controlled geographic area, ideal wind patterns, and low population density. Testing was considered safer there as fallout from atmospheric weapons tests would be carried away from populated areas by the wind. (Hence the term 'downwinders' for farmers, Native Americans, and other affected by 'downwind' radiation.) The Nevada Test Site was the site of 928 nuclear tests from 1951 to 1992.
One room at the Museum features a family of all-American mannequins dressed in J.C. Penney outfits. A house like this was installed on the bombing range to test the destructive power of atomic weapons on civilians. Harrison Ford has a creepy encounter with such mannequins in 'Doom Town,' in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.'
Nonetheless, Las Vegans proudly called their town "Atomic City,' a title used U2 in their video to promote their residency at the Las Vegas Sphere.
The test site was 65 miles from Las Vegas, but the mushroom clouds could be seen up to 100 miles away. Naturally, Las Vegas capitalized on this phenomenon.
After the first atmospheric test on January 27, 1951, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce cranked out press releases calling the Nevada testing site a new Sin City attraction. The Chamber even put out a calendar listing the times of upcoming detonations and where to see them. Ultimately 100 atmospheric tests took place.
The Sky Room at the Desert Inn, with a panoramic view of the desert and sky, was a favorite watch spot, as was the roof of Atomic Liquors downtown. Politicians and celebrities on VIP seating watched the blasts , while ordinary tourists packed 'atomic box lunches' and had picnics as close to ground zero as they could get. Las Vegas businesses held "Dawn Bomb Parties' starting at midnight, where guests were said to drink and sing until the flash of the bomb lit up the dark sky.
Typical of the era was a model known as Miss Atomic Bomb 1957. Photographers were doing a shoot. The unknown model had cotton cut into the shape of a mushroom cloud pinned to her bathing suit. The Museum currently has a room dedicated to Miss Atomic Bomb and one man's 25-year quest to discover her true identity. Guests can pose with Miss Atomic Bomb or 'become' her, with two cutouts.
The outdoor explosion show ended in 1963, with increasing awareness of the impact of nuclear fallout. The Limited Test Ban treaty which forbade testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, in space, and underwater was signed by the U.S., the Soviet Union and the UK.
The Museum has U.S. and Soviet flags from a joint nuclear monitoring mission in 1989. When Russian scientists were taken shopping at a Las Vegas grocery story, they refused to shop as they thought all the abundance was U.S. propaganda. So they were taken to a second store where they finally accepted American capitalist reality.