Atomic Testing Museum

Atomic Testing Museum

Founded in 1998 to preserve the legacy of the Nevada Test Site, the Atomic Testing Museum’s mission is to document and interpret the unique history associated with nuclear weapons research conducted at the Nevada Test Site within the context of state, national and global importance.  The Atomic Testing Museum opened in 2005 and is dedicated to Nevada and American history, the innovative technological achievements that were discovered in mining, film, and engineering.

 

Visitors learn about nuclear fission and fusion reactions in an easy-to-understand, Walt Disney cartoon from the 1950’s.  Wide screen video display images of Nazi scientists developing a nuclear weapon and the warning of Albert Einstein to Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 about German nuclear intentions.  Letters from President Truman establishing the Nevada Test Site are displayed along with satellite photos of the Test Site and a recreation of the office of the first Test Site Director.  In the Museum’s immersive Ground Zero Theater visitors experience a simulated nuclear detonation at the Test Site, sitting on wooden benches in a blockhouse two miles from the point of detonation.  

 

The Museum’s collections include a wide variety of photographs of Test Site nuclear detonations and related scientific equipment.  The following organizations and museums have traded, transferred or loaned period-appropriate military aircraft and artifacts: the Department of Energy, the National Nuclear Science and History Museum in Albuquerque, U.S. Air Force Museum in Dayton, and the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. 

 

The Museum is dedicated to the story of American history and technological achievement and is a fertile ground for learning.  Museum topics covering science and technology encourage creative thinking and problem solving in mathematics and science.  The Atomic Testing Museum works with Nevada's public and private schools and the University of Nevada Las Vegas developing programs where practical applications make learning meaningful and fun.

 

Contact: Kathleen Frantz
(702) 794 - 5151
kathleen.frantz@ntshf.org

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