Proving the Principle
A History of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory
Author Susan M. Stacy’s “Proving the Principle” offered an impeccably sourced and masterfully written history of Idaho National Laboratory’s first 50 years when it was published in 1999. Twenty-five years later, it remains invaluable to those seeking to learn about the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, its National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS) in Idaho, and the men and women who accomplished so much working there.
Proving the Principle
pages 1 – 26
Chapter One
Aviator's Cave
Chapter Two
The Naval Proving Ground
Chapter Three
The Uranium Trail Leads to Idaho
Chapter Four
The Party Plan
Chapter Five
Inventing the Testing Station
Chapter Six
Neutrons: Fast Flux, High Flux and Rickover's Flux
Chapter Seven
Safety Inside and Outside
the Fences
Chapter Eight
The Reactor Zoo Goes Critical
Chapter Nine
Hot Stuff
Chapter Ten
Cores and Competencies
Chapter Eleven
The Chem Plant
Chapter Twelve
Reactors Beget Reactors
Chapter Thirteen
The Triumph of Political Gravity Over Nuclear Flight
Chapter Fourteen
Imagining the Worst
Chapter Fifteen
The SL-1 Reactor
Chapter Sixteen
The Aftermath
Chapter Seventeen
Science in the Desert
Chapter Eighteen
The Shaw Effect...
Chapter Nineteen
...And the Idaho Boost
Chapter Twenty
A Question of Mission
Chapter Twenty-One
By the End of this Decade
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jumping the Fence
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Endowment of Uranium
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Uranium Trail Fades
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mission: Future
Appendices
pages 257 – 335