“Charging of the graphite reactor began at 4:30PM on November 3rd at a rate of 2.5 tons per hour. On November 4th at around 5AM a chain reaction was detected. 30.4 tons of natural uranium slugs were loaded into 369 channels surrounding the center of the pile face. The control rods were pulled out for a total of 110 seconds and then replaced.” Gawne said the photo of the control board (inset, right) was taken during an effort to document instrumentation and operation of the reactor. Gawne added this note, “I am sure you are aware of the story and have been told it many times and at various points. In October running up to the point of criticality there was an effort to document a procedure on how to bring the reactor to criticality. The engineers produced a very large document – about 200 pages. A very frustrated manager kicked the document back, citing that it was too wordy and all he needed was a check list as they staged the loading of slugs in batches.”
Read more here.
We need more managers like this guy. Of course, we would need less lawyers to.
