Albuquerque, New Mexico: National Museum of Nuclear Science and History
RoadsideAmerica.com Team Field Report
- Address:
- 601 Eubank Blvd SE, Albuquerque, NM
- Directions:
- Southeast edge of the city. I-40 exit 165, then south about a mile on Southern Blvd SE. On the southwest corner of Eubank Blvd SE and Southern Blvd SE.
- Hours:
- Opens daily at 9. Gated after 5 pm. (Call to verify) Local health policies may affect hours and access.
- Phone:
- 505-245-2137
- Admission:
- Adults $15.
- RA Rates:
- Major Fun
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Formerly the National Atomic Museum. Full-scale replicas of famous A-bombs and the Trinity Tower. Geiger counters and flash goggles for sale in a well-stocked gift shop. Gated yard has an actual sail from a nuke sub. Missile photo-op out front.
Roadsideamerica.com Report... [02/06/2011]National Museum of Nuclear Science and History: It's official: the National Atomic Museum has moved and changed its name to the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. [04/08/2009] Complete Story...
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The conning tower and sailplanes from the nuclear submarine USS James K. Polk are on display behind the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History.
[Gan Nunnally, 11/15/2022]
Awesome, well-done exhibits -- inside and out.
[R Mogel, 10/04/2021]
Suddenly it's 1945! You are there in Los Alamos, New Mexico, with Bob Oppenheimer and Leslie Groves, racing the Nazis and Commies to assemble the world's first atom bombs. Don't bring those two hemispheres of plutonium too close together, or we'll all be turned into atomic toast!
A room full of vacuum-tube technology, Geiger counters, and mysterious metal spheres is the latest permanent exhibit at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History. Titled "Critical Assembly," it's an exact replica of the primitive Los Alamos lab where America's first nukes were assembled. The spheres, in fact, are the same kind of uranium and plutonium bomb cores that killed Los Alamos physicists with radiation in two separate 1940s accidents, when sloppy handling made them "go critical."
The exhibit was built over a period of six years by sculptor Jim Sanborn, who used old photographs and eyewitness accounts of the Manhattan Project laboratories as references. Sanborn assembled the vintage oscilloscopes and other lab equipment, as well as the furniture and tools. Then he fabricated and machined the bomb cores himself, and manufactured their primitive shield-the-physicist blocks of lead and wax, which were the scientists' only protection from potential spontaneous nuclear explosions.
[RoadsideAmerica.com Team, 01/09/2018]
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The 645 "sail" on the museum tarmac is from a nuclear submarine.