Oppenheimer became the laboratory's first director.ĭuring the Manhattan Project, Los Alamos hosted thousands of employees, including many Nobel Prize-winning scientists. Dudley had rejected the school as not meeting Groves’ criteria, but as soon as Groves saw it he said in effect 'This is the place'. Robert Oppenheimer had spent much time in his youth in the New Mexico area, and suggested the Los Alamos Ranch School on the mesa. Jemez Springs was only a short distance from the current site. Major John Dudley suggested Oak City, Utah or Jemez Springs, New Mexico but both were rejected. It should be at least 200 miles from international boundaries and west of the Mississippi. General Leslie Groves wanted a central laboratory at an isolated location for safety, and to keep the scientists away from the populace.

In September 1942, the difficulties encountered in conducting preliminary studies on nuclear weapons at universities scattered across the country indicated the need for a laboratory dedicated solely to that purpose. The laboratory was founded during World War II as a secret, centralized facility to coordinate the scientific research of the Manhattan Project, the Allied project to develop the first nuclear weapons. The town of Los Alamos, New Mexico, directly north of the lab, grew extensively through this period.Īfter several reorganizations, LANL is currently privately managed and operated by Triad National Security, LLC. It conducts multidisciplinary research in fields such as national security, space exploration, nuclear fusion, renewable energy, medicine, nanotechnology, and supercomputing. Today, Los Alamos is one of the largest science and technology institutions in the world. With the ending of the Cold War, both labs turned their focus increasingly to civilian missions. Since that date the two labs have competed on a wide variety of bomb designs. In 1952, the Atomic Energy Commission formed a second design lab under the direction of the University of California, Berkeley, becoming the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The lab's existence was announced to the world in the post-WWII era, when it became known universally as Los Alamos.

The site was known variously as Project Y, Los Alamos Laboratory, and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory through this period. Los Alamos was the heart of the project, collecting together some of the world's most famous scientists, among them numerous Nobel Prize winners. Other labs, today known as Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Hanford Site, concentrated on the production of uranium and plutonium bomb fuels. At the time it was known as Project Y and was the center for weapon design and overall coordination. Los Alamos was selected as the top-secret location for bomb design in late 1942 and officially commissioned the next year, under the management of the University of California. It is a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the southwestern United States. Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory initially organized during World War II for the design of nuclear weapons as part of the Manhattan Project. Within the facility, our main goal is to keep safety a number one priority, you'll find that Black Mesa has the safest laboratories and work environments than anywhere else in the world.

If you have any questions regarding occupations currently available in the Black Mesa Research Facility, contact our Civilian Recruitment Division today. The Black Mesa Corporation has not only rivaled, but has surpassed both Aperture Innovators, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in both private, military, and government grants.īlack Mesa is a partially independent and partially government funded research facility, we are always looking and searching for new facility personnel to add to our great lists of staff. The Black Mesa Research Facility was founded in 1964 with the aim of creating the best way possible to expand humanity's knowledge of scientific processes, since then, Black Mesa has not only quadrupled in size, but has continued to attract hundreds of private financiers all across the United States.

Black mesa research facility 1970s