Chapter 1. Our story begins with a very smart, very talented, and
very young research physicist by the name of John Berman. You might think
that someone with John's background would be completely content with his
job at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. You would
be wrong!
In the mid-1960's Livermore was a very exciting place to be. People at
that time were experimenting with things that we take for granted today,
like transistors and microprocessors. But at the time, computers were
invented by huge industrial research labs, and Livermore was right up
there at the front of the pack. John's group at Livermore was playing
with a new device called a cyclotron. A cyclotron is a particle accelerator
that slams a stream of electrically charged particles into a target
material to generate nuclear explosions, and scientists use cyclotrons
to study things like neutron stars, the fusion reactions inside stars,
and the decay of uranium. This is a picture of a cyclotron at the National
Technical Institute (now a part of the University of Illinois).
In 1962 John proposed a crazy idea to his supervisor that the cyclotron
was a good way to generate neutrons for a nuclear reactor. If a scientist
can get neutrons in a reactor, he or she can use them to split uranium
into its component parts of elements like uranium-233, which can then
be converted to plutonium, which can be used to make bombs. The problem
was that the cyclotron produced neutrons with a very high energy that
were unsuitable for a reactor. John had a solution to this problem.
I think you should read the rest of the story to find out how. The solution
was a simple one, just a pair of nested mirrors and a little radioactive
source. The cyclotron emitted neutrons, the mirrors reflected them, and
then the radioactive source released neutrons of only a few hundred
keV. With this device it was finally possible to put neutrons from the
cyclotron into a nuclear reactor.
This was not the first time that radiation would be used in a reactor
to generate neutrons. In the 1930s nuclear physicists had developed
a small nuclear reactor called a pile and they had used it to generate
neutrons in the fission reaction for reactor experiments. Piles had been
dying out since the 1950s, and the scientists had to turn to cyclotrons
in order to get neutrons for their research. With the new nuclear reactor,
they would have many more neutrons than they could handle.
On May 31, 1962, John called his supervisor about the new nuclear reactor
and got a surprising reply: "We do not need it for defense." These
were the days of the cold war, and although America had never engaged
in a physical war with the Soviet Union, the Soviets had been testing
nuclear weapons with increasing regularity since the 1950s. The Soviet
Union had been the first country to develop the nuclear reactor, and they
were doing their best to keep it a secret. They had developed the nuclear
reactor for nuclear weapons. The United States didn't have one, and neither
did anyone else. So, John's supervisor told him that his department was
too small to justify the cost of the nuclear reactor, and suggested
that he find another way to generate neutrons in his research. John was
angry and felt insulted. What did his supervisor know? He went to his
manager to express his concern, and was assured that his supervisor
was an expert and that it was his decision, not the manager's.
It was at this time that John, and I use that term loosely, got into
trouble at the lab. He began to work late at night and get up early
in the morning. He went to work on the weekends and stayed overnight
at the lab. He kept his work secret from his parents and his wife. He
called the lab late at night and spoke in a raspy whisper. Then he found
out that his work was being monitored on a computer, and that the log
ons had come from a computer in the office of his supervisor. John was
furious, but he kept working.
John finally decided that the best way to convince his supervisor that
he was right was to put his idea in a proposal. The proposal called for
the construction of a nuclear reactor that could be used to power a medical
radiation therapy machine that could be used in nuclear war drills. The
proposal also talked about using the nuclear reactor for neutron bombardment
of metals like aluminum, tin, iron, and magnesium to enhance the tensile
strength of titanium. This was a bit far afield from the basic science
of the reactor, but the idea was that, if titanium was strong enough
to use as the frame for the spacecraft, why not for a bridge or a
highway?
The proposal called for construction of a small reactor, and for it to
be in a different lab at the lab that John worked in. John knew that
he had the support of his supervisor for the reactor, so he proposed
a separate lab so that it would not affect the other work done in the
lab. He gave the proposal to the director of the lab for his approval.
The director approved the proposal, and John and his supervisor got the
go ahead for construction of the reactor.
John had a friend who worked at the lab as a computer programmer, and
had an extra key to a computer, so that John could use the computer
as late as he wanted. He started working again late at night, typing
the proposal. After hours and weekends, the proposal got typed up to
more than 30 pages. The budget was more than $1,000, and the cost of
the computer time was almost $2,000.
John felt that the cost was worth it, and that the potential benefits
were so great that it was a risk well worth taking. A year later, in
1964, the reactor was completed, and John had to give a talk about
it. But he knew he wasn't ready to talk, and he knew that no one else
was either.
In January, 1965, someone brought the idea of nuclear power plants to
the attention of the Livermore lab. Now they had to decide whether to
do research on power plants or to keep working on the reactor that they
had built. John's boss called a meeting of his peers in the lab, and
started to lay out what each group would have to do if they chose to
work on the power plant. John's boss had already decided that John would
do the preliminary reactor calculations. If his boss approved, then
the plant was just a matter of money and time.
John's boss presented the data to his boss, and John's boss decided to
go ahead. At the same time, John's boss's boss found out about the reactor,
and decided that the lab should build another reactor, the bigger one,
but the one that John had wanted for his own lab. He thought John should
try it, and he asked John's boss to let him try to get John transferred.
The boss and the other men who had been involved in the decision-making
said "No."
A year later, John's boss died. It was then that his supervisor told him
the truth about his work. The supervisor was forced out because of the
project that John was doing, which had cost the lab a fortune, and so
his supervisor had been let go. The program manager had insisted that
the reactor should be done at a cost lower than was necessary. This
was a huge blow, and John couldn't believe it. He hadn't been directly
told that his project was a nuclear reactor, but he had worked there
for more than four years, and he had no doubt that he knew what was going
on. The supervisor said that John would have to decide for himself.
Now John understood what he had been doing. At first, he was afraid
and embarrassed. He had no idea that his research had been so secret,
but he had been so involved that he had not noticed. Then he started
to laugh. If the supervisor and the manager had any objections to it,
they should have been vocal with him. The director of the lab, John's
boss's boss, was working on a nuclear reactor in the space program.
A third degree nuclear physicist, working in a project for the space
program!
After working so long in secret, John was ready for a new challenge.
He took his family on a camping trip, and when he got back, he did a
"big announcement" talk with the supervisor. For a few months, John
had been working on a device to cool the reactor using liquid helium
instead of water. He also was working on plans for a control system for
the reactor. He told the supervisor about all of this, and the supervisor
wanted to know what went on during those long nights at the lab. John
told him about the computer program that they were developing to control
the reactor.
John was still in shock, and wasn't sure what to do. The supervisor said
that he felt that the nuclear reactor belonged to Livermore, and that
he would be glad to discuss it with any Livermore officer. It was the
supervisor who had come up with the idea of the reactor. If the reactor
and reactor control were to be given to anyone, it should be
