(See Cover)
Amid the rolling hills of Vallecitos, Calif., the domed buildings stood bizarre and unexpected, like monstrous silver derbies tossed away by a giant. Even more bizarre was the scene inside. Over two pools of dark green water hovered a pair of white-clad men, intently fishing into the depths with a long grappling pole. Directed by a loudspeaker, they dipped again and again, snaring silver-colored bars of uranium 235 from the bottom of one pool and guiding them gently into the other. As they did, a gauge of amber-colored numbers shot up and up. Near by, another figure stood ready to halt the proceedings by pushing a button marked SCRAM. Directed the squawk box: "Insert H-6." As the last bar moved into place, an amber smear shot across the gauge, the radiation count soared to a million a second —and an atomic blaze sprang to life. Thus the nation's first large, privately owned test reactor, built by General Electric Co., went into operation last week.
General Electric's new $4 million, 30,000-kw. reactor is the latest step in U.S. industry's epic struggle to harness the atom for peacetime use. Already, the atom is a wonderful servant in many areas of U.S. life. Radioactive isotopes last year saved U.S. industry an estimated $500 million. More than 90% of all tire fabrics and 80% of all tin cans are tested with radioactive thickness gauges. Radioisotopes control quality in cigarettes, find leaks in pipelines, determine wear in metals. In more than 1,700 U.S. hospitals, radiation is used to diagnose disease, treat cancer and tumors, preserve tissue and blood vessels in banks. It has caused mutations in seeds that produce bigger and better crops, been used to destroy such longtime pests as the screwworm, preserved food indefinitely. Nuclear power is already propelling submarines.
But the challenge of the atom is as limitless as its accomplishments. Among the biggest challenges of the future is the channeling of the atom's awesome potential into commercial power.
Risk & Opportunity. The job is giant size—and a job for giants. Many an eager-beaver company found that out when it jumped into atomics in 1954 after the Government first permitted firms to own reactors, was forced to drop out in the face of expense and uncertainty. Today, the maturing U.S. atomics industry is made up of about 100 major Government and privately owned manufacturing and research organizations. They range from such small firms as Baird-Atomic, Inc. and Nuclear Science and Engineering, with only a few million dollars worth of business in supplying the major atomics firms, to such giants as Westinghouse and Du Pont, whose contracts run into hundreds of millions (see box). Several of them are ahead of G.E. in certain fields, but none have met the challenge of the atom on a broader front.