 In April 1948, researchers at the Atomic Energy Commission's Oak Ridge National Laboratory had a new idea for an atomic pile, as nuclear reactors were once called. They proposed a poor man's pile, a small research reactor, so simple and inexpensive that universities could buy one for scholars and students. I'm Tom Wellock, restoring at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It's been more than 60 years since the United States touted research reactors as a peaceful counterpoint to nuclear weapons. The AEC avidly promoted research reactors to jump-start a civilian industry at home and to cultivate allies abroad through Dwight Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace program. This is the first of a series of videos highlighting the promise and unique safety challenges of research reactors. In this video, we look at some of their achievements. As the nation's first civilian-owned reactors, they broke down military secrecy and demonstrated the Atoms' peaceful potential for education, medicine, research, and industry. In 1950, North Carolina State College proposed the world's first civilian-owned reactor as part of its new program in nuclear engineering and for use by faculty and local industry. On September 10, 1953, NC State's reactor started up for the first time. Open for public viewing, the NC State reactor was remarkable for having no secrets. As one newspaper put it, it was guarded by nothing more than a physics student with a guessbook. In 1955, Oak Ridge's poor man's pile became a reality when its inexpensive swimming pool reactor made a dazzling debut in Geneva, Switzerland, at the first international conference on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Over 60,000 people, including prime ministers, royalty, and presidents, lined up to peer down at the blue glow of the future. The peaceful atom had arrived. Dozens of universities and corporations built research reactors. They were small, safe, and used only a small amount of uranium fuel compared to nuclear power plants. For only a small investment, researchers could open up the secrets of the atom and produce isotopes critical to medicine and industrial uses. The unique value of research reactors were in their ability to produce an ample supply of neutrons. When neutrons pass through an object, they behave and affect its material differently than gamma or x-rays. Researchers have taken advantage of the neutron's unique qualities in fascinating ways. For example, early research revealed that neutrons could be used for radiography. Like x-rays, scientists could take a picture of what happened as neutrons pass through an object. Unlike x-rays, neutrons could make useful images of lighter elements that x-rays can't. By the 1960s, corporations began offering commercial neutron radiography services for imaging plastics, lead, gunpowder, and even the flow of automobile transmission fluid. Recently, the National Institute of Standards and Technology used its test reactor to advance hydrogen fuel cell research. While neutron radiography recorded what happened to neutrons as they passed through an object, a completely different field neutron activation analysis studied what happened when neutrons struck other atoms and made them radioactive. By making material radioactive, scientists could determine the elements that made up a mixture. Neutron activation analysis is used in pharmaceuticals, geology, and to determine impurities in semiconductors. Physicist Robert Oppenheimer suggested a particularly unusual application. He thought it could determine the origins of ancient pottery. His suggestion has allowed archaeologists to determine the origin of artifacts from ancient civilizations and understand their wealth, trade, conquests, and social practices. Research reactors are probably best known for producing radioactive isotopes for research and medical applications. The process usually consists of inserting material to be irradiated near reactor fuel to be bombarded by neutrons. This process has produced essential isotopes, such as molybdenum 99, which decays into the most widely used radioisotope in nuclear medicine. About 50,000 times a day, U.S. medical facilities use it in imaging and diagnostic tests for heart, brain, kidneys, and tumors. Other isotopes are used in industry for irradiation purposes, such as eliminating foreign matter and food. And it also plays a role in DNA sequencing, pain treatment, fossil fuel extraction, and weld radiography. The poor man's pile, so avidly embraced in the Atoms for Peace program, succeeded in many ways. Worldwide, over 670 research reactors were built in 55 countries, with 227 in the United States alone. With the promise of research reactors, however, came key challenges in ensuring their safety, preventing diversion of their fuel for weapons, and preserving their benefits as their numbers have declined in recent decades. I'll turn to those issues in our next video.