Atomic tourism#Nuclear tests

File:Atomic test seen from Las Vegas.jpg]]

During the early Atomic Age, fission was viewed as a sign of progress and modernity.

In this light Las Vegas became in the mid-1940s and early 1950s an original place of atomic tourism when nuclear tests were performed at Nevada Test Site. Seeing nuclear tests was advertised and viewings were hosted in Las Vegas at the time.{{cite web | last=Magazine | first=Smithsonian | title=How 1950s Las Vegas Sold Atomic Bomb Tests as Tourism | website=Smithsonian Magazine | date=2018-09-12 | url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/how-1950s-las-vegas-sold-atomic-bomb-tests-as/ | access-date=2024-05-04}} The city of Las Vegas and its Chamber of Commerce nicknamed Vegas as the "Atomic City" in an attempt to attract tourists.{{cite news |title=Atomic tests were a tourist draw in 1950s Las Vegas |url=https://www.citylab.com/equity/2014/08/atomic-tests-were-a-tourist-draw-in-1950s-las-vegas/375802/ |newspaper=Bloomberg.com |date=8 August 2014 |access-date=7 February 2019}}{{cite web |title=Atomic Cocktail |url=https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/115/atomic-cocktail |website=diffordsguide.com |access-date=7 February 2019}} So called "bomb viewing parties" took place on desert hilltops, or more famously at the panoramic Sky Room at the Desert Inn, and casinos held Miss Atomic pageants while serving Atomic Cocktails.{{cite web |title=Who are you miss atomic bomb |url=https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a20536/who-are-you-miss-atomic-bomb/ |website=popularmechanics.com |date=26 April 2016 |access-date=25 February 2019}}{{cite web |title=Nuclear Tourism Travels in the Shadow of the Bomb |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/north-america/united-states/articles/Nuclear-tourism-travels-in-the-shadow-of-the-atomic-bomb1/ |website=telegraph.co.uk |access-date=25 February 2019}}{{cite web |title=National Atomic Testing Museum |url=https://nationalatomictestingmuseum.org/about/ |website=National Atomic Testing Museum in Association with the Smithsonian Institution |access-date=16 June 2019}}

File:Tri-Cities Visitor and Convention Bureau tour of the Hanford Site (7597549756).jpg

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• Los Alamos Historical Museum, Los Alamos, New Mexico – items from the Manhattan Project
• Bradbury Science Museum, Los Alamos, New Mexico – history of the Manhattan Project
• X-10 Graphite Reactor, Oak Ridge, Tennessee – first nuclear reactor to produce Plutonium 239
• Savannah River Site, South Carolina – production site of plutonium and tritium
• Experimental Breeder Reactor I, Arco, Idaho – first nuclear reactor to produce electrical power, first breeder reactor, and first reactor to use plutonium as fuel
• Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, Obninsk – the first nuclear reactor in the world that produced commercial electricity
• Hanford Site, Washington – location of the B Reactor which produced some of the plutonium for the Trinity test and the Fat Man bomb
• George Herbert Jones Laboratory, Chicago, Illinois – where plutonium was first isolated and characterized
• American Museum of Science and Energy, Oak Ridge, Tennessee – bomb casings
• National Atomic Testing Museum, Las Vegas, Nevada – offers tours to the Nevada Test Site
• Strategic missile forces museum in Ukraine, Ukraine
• National Museum of Nuclear Science & History, Albuquerque, New Mexico

• Tinian Airfield, Northern Mariana Islands – launch site for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan during World War II
• Titan Missile Museum, Sahuarita, Arizona – public underground missile museum
• Nike Missile Site SF-88, Marin County, California – fully restored Nike missile complex
• Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile State Historic Site, Cooperstown, North Dakota – last surviving complete facilities from USAF 321st Missile Wing (01Nov63-30Sep98), namely Oscar-Zero Missile Alert Facility (4 mi N of Cooperstown) and November-33 Launch Facility (missile silo, 2 mi E of Cooperstown)
• National Museum of Nuclear Science & History, Albuquerque, New Mexico – missiles and rockets
• National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton, Ohio – the Nagasaki B-29 bomber (Bockscar) and missiles
• National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C. – the Hiroshima B-29 bomber (Enola Gay)
• White Sands Missile Range Museum, New Mexico
• Air Force Space and Missile Museum, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida
• Air Force Armament Museum, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida
• Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, Wall, South Dakota – Launch Control Facility Delta-01 with its corresponding underground Launch Control Center and Launch Facility (Missile Silo) Delta-09
• South Dakota Air and Space Museum, Ellsworth Air Force Base, Box Elder, South Dakota – Minuteman Missile Transporter truck, 44th Missile Wing Training Launch Facility (Training Missile Silo)
• Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum, Ashland, Nebraska – a museum focusing on aircraft and nuclear missiles of the United States Air Force
• Quebec-One Missile Alert Facility, Laramie County, Wyoming – preserved Peacekeeper missile launch control facility

File:The Black Hole, Los Alamos, New Mexico.jpg

File:WIPP visitor center, Department of Energy field office, Carlsbad.jpg

• Greenbrier Bunker, Greenbrier County, West Virginia – underground bunker for the United States Congress
• Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, Hiroshima – contains the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, and related memorials
• Nagasaki Peace Park and Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, Nagasaki
• The Daigo Fukuryū Maru ship, a Japanese fishing boat that was contaminated after the Castle Bravo detonation in 1954. It is now on display in Tokyo at the Tokyo Metropolitan Daigo Fukuryū Maru Exhibition Hall.[http://d5f.org/ 都立 第五福竜丸展示館 Official Site]
• CFS Carp – also known as The Diefenbunker, a cold war nuclear museum in a former underground Canadian military facility outside of Ottawa
• Chernobyl Museum, Kyiv
• Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker, Cheshire countryside near the town on Nantwich, UK{{cite web|last1=Hack Green |title=Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker |url=http://www.hackgreen.co.uk/index.htm |website=hackgreen.co.uk |publisher=Hack Green Nuclear Bunker |access-date=19 October 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140825072342/http://www.hackgreen.co.uk/index.htm |archive-date=25 August 2014 }}
• Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker
• Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Field Office exhibit hall

• Port Radium on Canada's Great Bear Lake site of a uranium mine important to the Manhattan Project

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The alphabetic list by nations is as follows:

• Australia
• Maralinga, South Australia – site of Operation Buffalo and Operation Antler

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• India
• Pokhran, Rajasthan – site of the Pokhran-II test
• Japan
• Hiroshima, first wartime use of an atomic bomb
• Nagasaki, last wartime use of an atomic bomb
• United States
• Carson National Forest, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico – site of Project Gasbuggy
• Carlsbad, New Mexico – site of Project Gnome
• Nevada Test Site, Nye County, Nevada – US nuclear test site
• Nye County, Nevada – site of Project Faultless
• Pacific Proving Grounds, US nuclear test site
• Parachute, Colorado – site of Project Rulison
• Rio Blanco County, Colorado – site of Project Rio Blanco
• Sand Springs Range, Nevada – site of Project Shoal
• Trinity Site, Socorro County, New Mexico – site of the first artificial nuclear explosion
• Soviet Union
• Semipalatinsk Test Site, testing venue for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons.

File:Chornobyl DSC 0226 13.JPG

• The Chernobyl disaster was the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. Tourists can access the exclusion zone surrounding the plant, and in particular the abandoned city of Prypiat.[https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/international/europe/15chernobyl.html "New Sight in Chernobyl's Dead Zone: Tourists"] - New York Times[http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travelblogs/419/40930/Bleak-o+Tourism%E2%80%A6+Welcome+to+Chernobyl?destId=360912 Bleak-o Tourism, Welcome to Chernobyl - Lonely Planet Travel] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110409025016/http://www.lonelyplanet.com/travelblogs/419/40930/Bleak-o%2BTourism%E2%80%A6%2BWelcome%2Bto%2BChernobyl?destId=360912 |date=April 9, 2011 }}{{cite web|last1=Morris|first1=Holly|title=Sex and drugs and radiation: Dare-devil 'stalkers' illegally enter Chernobyl's Dead Zone|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sex-and-drugs-and-radiation-daredevil-stalkers-illegally-enter-chernobyls-dead-zone-9800042.html|website=The Independent|date=17 October 2014 |publisher=The Independent UK|access-date=18 October 2014}}{{cite web|last1=Morris|first1=Holly|title=The Stalkers Inside the bizarre subculture that lives to explore Chernobyl's Dead Zone.|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/roads/2014/09/the_stalkers_inside_the_youth_subculture_that_explores_chernobyl_s_dead.html|website=Slate.com article from Roads & Kingdoms series|date=26 September 2014 |publisher=Slate|access-date=18 October 2014}}
• Three Mile Island was the site of a well publicized accident, the most significant in the history of American commercial nuclear power. The Three Mile Island Visitor Center, in Middletown, PA, educates the public through exhibitions and video displays.{{cite web|title=Three Mile Island Visitors Center Attraction Details|url=http://explorepahistory.com/attraction.php?id=1-B-260A|website=explorepahistory.com|publisher=Explore PA History|access-date=19 October 2014}}
• Windscale fire occurred on October 10, 1957, where the graphite core of a British nuclear reactor at Windscale, Cumbria, caught fire, releasing substantial amounts of radioactive contamination into the surrounding area. The event, known as the Windscale fire, was considered the world's worst reactor accident until the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Both incidents were dwarfed by the magnitude of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The Visitor Center was closed in 1992, and the public may no longer visit, it has been turned into a center for supplier conferences, and business events.{{cite web|title=Seascale - Sellafied Nuclear Reprocessing Facility|url=http://www.visitcumbria.com/wc/sellafield-nuclear-reprocessing-facility/|website=visitcumbria.com|publisher=Visit Cumbria|access-date=19 October 2014}}

The novel O-Zone, by Paul Theroux, involves a group of wealthy New York tourists who enter and party in a post-nuclear disaster zone in the Ozarks.

{{cite web|last1=PN Review|title=Missouri Breaks: Paul Therous, O-Zone|url=http://www.pnreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/scribe?item_id=5261|publisher=PN Review|access-date=19 December 2014}}

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{{Commons category|Atomic tourism}}

{{Wikivoyage|Nuclear tourism}}

• [https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/museums-and-atomic-age Atomic Heritage Foundation]
• [http://www.randomuseless.info/vacation/vacation.html My Radioactive Vacation] by Phil Stuart
• [http://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/ Hanford site tours]
• [http://www.mcsweeneys.net/columns/are-you-telling-me-that-this-suckers-nuclear-adventures-in-atomic-tourism "Adventures in Atomic Tourism"]
• Atomkeller Museum Haigerloch, Germany
• [http://www.atomictourism.net/ Atomic Tourism: Exploring the world's Nuclear at Atomic Sites]

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Category:Nuclear war and weapons in popular culture

Category:Types of tourism