Oakridge Tennessee

 

Our one stop today was the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oakridge, Tennessee. It told the story of how Oakridge was built during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project, the project to build an atomic bomb. Here they built the largest building in the world, to isolate the U-235 needed to build a bomb. After the war, Oakridge became the source not only for bombs, but also the uranium used in commercial nuclear reactors and the radioactive isotopes used in medicine. After the cold war, here is where much of the USSR’s nuclear bomb material was reprocessed to become reactor fuel. We struggled with this museum – it seemed like a public affairs museum for Oakridge, not a science museum. They did show how neutrons are shot at various materials to study their atomic structure as well as a lot about the study of radiation for multiple purposes, but we got bored at reading all the material.

We continued to Cades Cove Campground in Great Smokey Mountain Park. We arrived and set up our camp in a down pour.