BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk// X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:"\;Blue Danube: the first British Atomic Bomb. An insider's st ory of its development and testing"\; - Colin Hughes DTSTART:20100218T170000Z DTEND:20100218T180000Z UID:TALK23197@talks.cam.ac.uk CONTACT:John Durrell DESCRIPTION:In this talk Colin Hughes shares his experience as a nuclear w eapon designer at\nFort Halstead in Kent and Aldermaston\, Berkshire from 1949 to 1956\,\nconcentrating on the first British atomic weapon\, codenam ed Blue Danube. Colin\njoined William Penney’s team at Fort Halstead in early 1949\, at the age of\ntwenty. Two years later\, as a chartered engin eer\, he became part of the design\nteam working on the core of Blue Danub e\, and although he did not attend the\nfirst trial of the weapon at Monte Bello\, off the coast of Western Australia in\n1952\, he was closely asso ciated with the arrangements for transporting the\nplutonium to the Island s and for handling it on site. One year later\, at\nOperation Totem in the South Australian desert\, he was part of a three-man\nassembly team loadi ng plutonium into two weapons shortly before firing. During\nthis period h e was also studying physics part time at Birkbeck College under\nProfessor J D Bernal and\, in some of the quiet moments in the Australian desert\,\ nSir William Penney (as he had then become)\, advised him on the finer poi nts of\ntaking examinations in thermodynamics.\n\nColin will also describe a return to the bomb site 50 years later to see how it\nhad changed\, and will also touch briefly on his move away from nuclear weapons\nto civil n uclear power applications.\n LOCATION:T001 Materials Science END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR