Just got my latest copy of Military Officer magazine (from the Military Officers Association of America) and it has a short blurb on a free cellphone app (iPhone only, I'm guessing?) that will be of interest to posters on this board who want to learn more about early Los Alamos history.

The app is available through Apple's app store and "takes history buffs on a journey back in time to explore top-secret military facilities where the first atomic bomb was created".

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Los Alamos: Secret City of the Manhattan Project takes users through various facilities where the Trinity device was developed, resulting in the creation of atomic bombs . . .

... the app, which was produced by Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Bradbury Science Museum, is notable in that it allows users to go on virtual tours of Manhattan Project sites that no longer exist.

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I have been fascinated by Los Alamos since my first visit there with my parents in 1955. We lived in Albuquerque and I was just 8 years old. My parents had, by chance, become friends with a family that had lived and worked in Los Alamos during the war years and still did. They were visiting Albuquerque and my parents met them by chance when the family got lost and asked my dad for directions. We were invited up to visit them in Los Alamos several times over the next three years.

The city was still "closed" so my parents had to pass a background check and get approved to visit the city. That was no problem because my dad was an AF nuclear weapons technician at Manzano Base and had all the right security clearances. Even then, we had to check in at a large security gate on the edge of town (now a Mexican Restaurant) and wait for our friends to come vouch for us and then escort us to their home - and everywhere else we went in Los Alamos.

During the course of our visits our friends took us to visit all the sites that we were allowed to see, etc. It was quite an adventure for an 8 year old. After moving around with my AF dad and our family I ended up back in NM when I was in High School and for several years afterwards. I visited Los Alamos many times - it was an open city by then.

If anyone reading this happens to visit Santa Fe, Los Alamos is just a short trip up into the mountains. It's a great day trip with lots of history to see and spectacular scenery.

Timely, will be headed that way soon

To expand, folks here probably know I'm a pretty big buff of this history. I've been to Los Alamos, Trinity Site, Pantex, and Oak Ridge. Visited the historical museum in Oak Ridge, the small display in the Oak Ridge visitors' center, the small museum in DOE headquarters in DC, the site of the K-25 building, the National Nuclear Museum in Albuquerque, and the Los Alamos Historical Museum, and the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos. Also have seen the Enola Gay at Udvar-Hazy.

The only place I've had special access were the Trinity Site and Pantex. Trinity, during the twice-yearly public tour. Pantex, during the Clinton administration, that idiot Hazel O'Leary thought it'd be great to throw open all our secrets. That included a family tour day at Pantex.

Apparently, the Powers That Be have decided they need to preserve the history of the nuclear complex. So they've created the Manhattan Project National Historical Park Last time I was in Los Alamos, they had just opened a small center next to Ashley Pond.

At Los Alamos, as well as Oak Ridge, and I assume, the other nuclear sites, they are trying to develop ways for the public to see some of the WWII sites that remain. At Oak Ridge, there are bus tours from the downtown museum onto the Oak Ridge Site. At Los Alamos, they have identified the sites that they want to open to the public, but they haven't opened them yet. This will either be done with bus tours, or by fencing that allows public access but still keeps people out of the active parts of LANL (Los Alamos National Lab).

If anyone is going to Los Alamos, I highly recommend both museums and the walking tour of "Bathtub Row" and nearby sites. Check out the Manhattan Project office, maybe they will have the sites open soon. And while you're there, you must drive toward Jemez Springs and see the Valles Caldera.

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If anyone reading this happens to visit Santa Fe, Los Alamos is just a short trip up into the mountains. It's a great day trip with lots of history to see and spectacular scenery.

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Yes. There are two routes into LA, I recommend both, so maybe drive in on highway 502 and back out on 4 and East Jemez Road, or vice versa. One caveat, if you drive through LANL to Valles Caldera, you will pass through a checkpoint. It's no big deal, you just show a driver's license. I've never seen anyone hassled, challenged, or searched, The checkpoint only lets you drive through LANL on highway 501, you would have to pass additional, highly secure checkpoints to actually get in a building or any other secure area.

If you are traveling with a firearm, there are signs prohibiting possession of same at the checkpoint. I'm a little fuzzy as to how they can enforce that on a public highway. Make your own decisions. But if you want to avoid the checkpoints, look for "West Road" in front of the Los Alamos hospital. It drops down in a pretty little canyon by their ice skating rink, and loops past the LANL checkpoints. Or you can make the big loop to White Rock, and bypass LANL to the south on highway 4.

I'll try to get this app uploaded and try it out, next time I'm at LA.