The nuclear reactor was cool, but I hear the lines suck Last week, the National Park Service held a public hearing in Richland to discuss a long standing effort to designate a section of the now abandoned Hanford superfund site as a national landmark. Unfortunately for the project’s supporters, the National Park Service has concluded that bringing the B Reactor, where scientists produced the plutonium used for the world’s first nuclear explosion, under the umbrella of the park service is not financially feasible. Congress isn’t expected to make a final decision on the proposal until summer. But if they do decide in favor, here are some suggestions for featured attractions, the kind that might increase traffic and offset the cost. 1. It’s An Irradiated World After All: Thousands of visitors tour the Reactor B site each year, but are not allowed in some areas of Hanford site due to safety concerns. For the more adventurous and well off among them, this attraction will provide access to the more environmentally degraded areas of the Hanford site. Hazmat suits will naturally be provided gratis.2. Maws: Like the Jaws ride at Universal Studios, only with a fifty foot long animatronic human, Tiger shark hybrid who due to fallout from the Nagasaki bombing mutated and is now out for revenge. 3. Hall of Nuclear Physicists: Robert Oppenheimer and other animatronic versions of the men behind the Manhattan Project take turns explaining why they unleashed this fearsome technology on the world. Then, an exciting lecture on the isotopic purity of cyclotron produced plutonium.