“If you’re also planning a trip to this historic city, know there’s so much more to it than the Sphere, the Fremont Street, and the Bellagio Fountains. They’re worth seeing, but if you want to feast your eyes on some of the coolest sights in Vegas that are also educational, Atomic Museum has you covered. Just under two miles from the Strip, Atomic Museum is one of the best Vegas museums to learn about science and history, particularly nuclear testing and its extent and effects.”
- SPY
“Expect several Cold War artifacts at the SPY exhibit, including the tools American intelligence used to track Soviet activities during the war. Some of the systems both nations used to gather and analyze top-secret data and are on display at the museum include:
- TELINT
- RISSMAN
- SLBM
- Davy Crockett
Named after the American soldier and Congressman, the Davy Crockett was designed to launch the XM-388 projectile and is considered one of the smallest and lightest nuclear weapon systems ever built by the United States. It used the W54 warhead, which, despite being the smallest and lightest fission bomb deployed by the U.S., had a variable explosive yield equivalent to 10 tons of TNT, as Brookings.edu explains.
If you’re a history buff or simply want to learn more about and see nuclear weapons, head to the Atomic Museum during your Vegas visit. Here, you can set sight on the Davy Crockett XM-388 projectile. You’ll also discover other devices, such as the AIR-2 Genie air-to-air rocket and the B54 backpack bomb.
- Diagnostic Rack
The Nevada Test Site (NTS) was a nuclear research and testing facility that, as Britannica.com explains, conducted 928 nuclear explosive tests from January 1951 to September 1992. Despite being 65 miles north of Vegas, people in the city (and those up to 100 miles from the site) could see the mushroom clouds from the tests.
- Pop Culture
Would you like to learn how the discovery of nuclear energy influenced cultures, including the movies and TV programs you watch and the songs and music you listen to? Then, head over to the Atomic Museum’s Pop Culture exhibit. In addition to music and media, you’ll find other atomic-themed items in the collection, ranging from children’s toys to comic books and candy for a lighter take on things.
Through the exhibit, the Atomic Museum aims to help visitors better understand how nuclear research and testing, including bombs, shaped imaginations and cultures. It also showcases the importance of pop culture as a medium for educating people about nuclear energy and the era’s values and cultural dynamics.
- Rotating Exhibits
In museum speak, “rotating exhibits” mean they get displayed on rotation (when one gets taken off, another replaces it).
The Atomic Museum has several rotating exhibits, including “The Bomb Without the Boom.” It showcases how U.S. scientists maintain the safety and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile. Today, they use computers, lasers, and tiny amounts of explosives, so they don’t have to do traditional underground testing.
Another rotating exhibit at the Atomic Museum is “The Manhattan Project: Challenges and Consequences.” When it’s on, visitors can get a close-up look at the only replica of Gadget, the world’s first-ever atomic bomb used by the U.S. in the Trinity weapons test as part of the Manhattan Project.
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